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墨書 Inktalez
"Is this the place?" I asked Yao Long beside me.
"It should be, there's no mistake," he replied confidently. "However, it's still early, and if we go in now, it might be dangerous..."
After hearing this, I checked my phone and confirmed that it was indeed early. So we began to descend the mountain slowly, heading towards the town while enjoying the snowy scenery along the way. To our surprise, the town that had seemed so close from Mountain now felt much farther away. Although it was just ahead, we found ourselves unable to reach it quickly; it was truly a case of seeing the mountain but not being able to reach it.
After walking for a while, everyone started to show signs of fatigue since we hadn’t eaten anything. Just as Hu Fang complained about the rocky path being difficult to walk on, we finally arrived at the entrance of the town. At this point, a few people had already emerged from their homes, most of whom appeared to be elderly.
"Some people are already out; it seems like it's safe now..." With that thought, I led everyone into the town. I noticed that many shops around us had their doors tightly shut, with only a few Antique Shops open for business. The buildings here were mostly made of concrete but had an old-fashioned architectural style. Many residential buildings resembled those tenement buildings from the 1980s, and none were particularly tall; the highest was only three stories.
As we walked along the main road of the town, Yao Long pointed to a nearby inn. "I used to stay at this inn, and right where we are standing is where I mentioned in my story—where that family gnawed at their own position."
Listening to Yao Long, I looked down at my feet and then around me again. Everything seemed normal; it looked like an ordinary town.
"After so much time has passed, how could we still see traces of what was once here..." Li Zhisheng remarked.
At that moment, I suddenly felt something unusual; it seemed like there were many eyes from within the houses staring intently at us outsiders.
Death Apostle beside me also sensed something amiss. He shivered and said, "Shen Xu, don't you think it's strange? It feels like everyone here is watching us..."
As I scanned our surroundings, I replied, "Yes, it feels like they have been staring at us as if we're some kind of monster; it's making me uneasy."
"Our priority now is to find a place to inquire about what's going on. Wandering around aimlessly like headless flies isn't going to help."
Upon hearing Li Zhisheng's suggestion, I nodded in agreement but thought to myself, "That's true, but where can we find someone? Most shops have their doors closed..."
Just then, I noticed a peculiar stone tablet ahead. From a distance, it appeared to be four or five meters wide and six or seven meters tall. The people who had just come out of their homes were heading towards that stone tablet to bow and pay their respects. At that moment, several villagers were kneeling before the stone tablet, humbly bending over in worship.
"Let's go take a look at that stone tablet first; there seems to be something unusual about it..." I pointed at the stone tablet and walked ahead, with the other four following closely behind.
After a moment, we arrived in front of the stone tablet. I grabbed a local resident who had just finished bowing and asked, "Excuse me, what is this stone tablet for..." as I reached out to point at it.
At that moment, the resident's expression changed dramatically. He suddenly slapped my hand down with considerable force, causing pain to shoot through my knuckles. "You..." I was about to protest when he shot me a disdainful glance and turned away without saying a word.
The four people behind me looked on in confusion. Li Zhisheng stepped forward to examine the stone tablet. "It might be some local customs. Many places have this habit of not allowing people to point at offerings to deities; such actions are considered disrespectful and can lead to condemnation..."
Hearing this, I retorted irritably, "If you knew that, why didn't you say so earlier? You got me slapped!"
He chuckled and replied, "I just remembered it."
While I was arguing with Li Zhisheng, Death Apostle silently walked past me and approached the stone tablet to study it on his own.
Seeing this, I followed him over. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the surface of the stone tablet was densely inscribed with tiny characters, evenly distributed across the large slab of bluestone. At a glance, there were at least tens of thousands of them.
"What do you think? Can you make out anything?" I asked Death Apostle, noticing that the characters resembled hieroglyphics but also had a resemblance to Taoist symbols.
Death Apostle was focused intently on the tablet. When he heard my question, he replied, "I can understand a little bit. These characters are used for exorcising evil spirits; however, the way they are written on this tablet is quite strange..."
He paused for a moment in thought. I didn’t interrupt him but patiently waited for him to continue. After a while, he frowned and said, "The characters I can read seem to be written backward..."
"Backwards?" Li Zhisheng, having grown curious about our prolonged stay at the stone tablet, approached us as well.
Death Apostle explained while examining the stone tablet: "Exactly. It's like writing on a transparent glass board; when you look at it from the back side, the letters appear reversed. The characters on this stone tablet are like that."
Upon hearing this, I suddenly realized, "Isn't this written in a mirrored way?! It's just like the concept of the Cursed Realm!"
The Death Apostle nodded, "Exactly. However, the vocabulary used is quite obscure. I dare say that even after being a Yin Master and Yang Master for over a decade, one might not recognize all of it..."
As we were lost in thought, staring at the inscriptions on the stone tablet, a strange man suddenly approached us with an imposing demeanor. He reached us and forcefully pulled the Death Apostle aside. At that moment, the Death Apostle was deep in contemplation and was startled by the sudden tug.
"Hey, who are you?! What do you want?!" The Death Apostle shot me a pleading look. I was taken aback for a moment but quickly reacted, grabbing the Death Apostle and pulling him back. "What do you want?! We're just looking at this stone tablet; we aren't doing anything else..."
The man had a grim expression and spoke in somewhat broken Mandarin, "If you are not sincere, then don't stand here. The True God will be displeased."
Hearing this only deepened my confusion. Li Zhisheng had mentioned that pointing at the place where deities are worshipped would incur punishment; now it seemed that even standing here was forbidden.
With a sense of helplessness, I joined my hands together and humbly bowed to the stone tablet. Seeing this, the man's expression immediately softened. He said, "That's more like it! This way, the True God will forgive you."
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