While she was communicating with Wei Na, Qian Jiyun had already paid 40 inner cores for both of them to spend two hours here.
“You paid so quickly?” An Jiuyue was shocked by his speed.
She had the urge to take back all the inner cores.
“Let’s go in.” Qian Jiyun held her hand and walked in.
It wasn’t until she entered the Building of Years that An Jiuyue realized it wasn’t as simple as she had imagined. After a few steps, a female attendant emerged and handed them each a sandglass.
An Jiuyue looked at the sandglass in her hand, confused, before looking at Qian Jiyun.
Qian Jiyun looked at her and explained patiently, “This is an hourglass. Every time you pick up a book, this hourglass will activate. When you return the book to the bookshelf and look for another, this hourglass will stop automatically.”
“In other words, the four hours are not used up based on the time spent inside the Building of Years, but on the time we spend reading books?”
An Jiuyue raised her eyebrows. That’s more like it. Her heart ached terribly initially, but she felt a little better now.
“Mhm.” Qian Jiyun nodded. “The time taken to look for books doesn’t count. An hourglass marks two hours. When this hourglass is used up, the attendant will replace it.”
“That’s a good rule.” An Jiuyue was pleased.
She had anticipated she would spend half the time they had purchased with inner cores looking for books, but this method of calculating her time spent was pretty good.
Soon, An Jiuyue found where the medicine refinement books were kept under Qian Jiyun’s guidance. She sat down and read quietly.
Meanwhile, Qian Jiyun was slowly selecting books for her to read in the Building of Years.
“The book on the left is about medicine refinement, and the book on the right is a record of events on Huayan Peak,” he said as he placed the books on her left and right.
“Got it.” An Jiuyue did not look up from her book.
Inside the space, Wei Na was also occupied. Empty books were laid out in front of it as it copied every word read by its master into them.
Wei Na was fast! There was probably no one else who could match its speed.
But who could be comparable anyway? After all, it was not human, right?
Two hours later, the female attendant retrieved the hourglass and replaced it with another. An Jiuyue stopped flipping the pages and gave her shoulder a squeeze.
She had maintained the same posture for only two hours, but her back was already aching.
She had only given her shoulder two squeezes when a pair of hands replaced hers.
“Is your shoulder uncomfortable? Do you want to rest?” Qian Jiyun suggested gently as he massaged her shoulders.
However, his suggestion was not heeded. He watched speechlessly as she flipped through the pages again after he took over the massage.
“Jiuyue, rest for a little?”
“Keep quiet,” she replied with only two words.
Qian Jiyun was silent.
He really wanted to say that it did not matter whether she read quickly or slowly.
However, she clearly did not slow down at all, reading almost as quickly as the sand falling in the hourglass.
He chuckled and let her be.