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墨書 Inktalez
I glanced at Li Zhisheng, who was deep in thought for a moment. "This is what I was worried about," he said. I quickly pressed him, "What is it?! Why has it turned out like this?" He pulled a chair and sat down, rolling up his sleeves as if searching for something. "What on earth happened? Just tell me!" I asked anxiously.
After searching for a while, Li Zhisheng slowly raised his right hand. "Look at this," he said. I focused my gaze and saw that on his exposed wrist, there was a mark strikingly similar to the one on my hand. However, unlike mine, his mark was already flourishing with branches and leaves.
I widened my eyes in surprise. "How... how come you have one too? Did you touch my Box?" He shook his head and sighed. "No, but this thing must be related to entering the Underworld or that Guiding Wood. Otherwise, it wouldn't have appeared out of nowhere."
At that moment, Hu Fang rushed over from the bathroom, crying out, "What are we going to do? I'm not even married yet! What if I can't get married?" Seeing her like this left me at a loss for words, so I comforted her, "It's okay, it's okay. If you can't get married, I'll have Li Zhisheng marry you."
Upon hearing this, Li Zhisheng grabbed a nearby cloth and threw it at me. "Even at a time like this, you still have the mood to joke around. Just because you're in trouble doesn't mean you can make fun of us," he said with frustration. I forced a smile. "What else can we do? We might as well find some joy in our misery." Hu Fang shot me an annoyed look. "You don't help us think of solutions and instead make fun of me—how unfair!"
"Alright, enough of the nonsense. Let's eat something and then split up to think of solutions," Li Zhisheng said as he picked up the chopsticks from the table and began to eat with a serious expression. While it was still early, we finished our meal and then set off in different directions to search for answers at the three largest libraries in the city.
Upon arriving at the library, I approached the librarian and asked, "Hello, do you have any books on ancient strange arts?" The librarian looked me up and down. "We do have some, but they're quite obscure and hard to find. You can sit over there for a bit while I look for them," she replied. After thanking her, I found a random spot to sit down.
Suddenly, I noticed a pitch-black book with dark red lettering tucked away in a corner of the bookshelf. Curiously, I walked over and picked it up; the cover read "Tao Star Nine Souls" in dark red letters.
My heart raced with surprise as I quickly flipped through a few pages. I had hoped to find useful clues within its contents but discovered it was just an unremarkable book. Disappointed, I returned it to its place. At that moment, the librarian approached me with several thick books in her hands. "Here are the books you requested; I hope they help you."
I took the books and thanked her again before sitting down to examine them carefully. Most of the text was written in ancient script that looked foreign to me; however, some sections included simplified illustrations that allowed me to barely piece together their stories.
Perhaps as Li Zhisheng had said, my focus wasn't strong enough; after only half an hour of reading, I began to feel impatient—likely because most of the text was incomprehensible to me. Even looking at pictures only provided vague understanding.
Finally, in an inconspicuous part of one page, I found an illustration identical to the mark on Li Zhisheng's hand. The accompanying annotation contained only three recognizable characters: "Soul Separation Spell?" I couldn't help but read it aloud. Then I called Hu Fang and Li Zhisheng to inform them that I'd found a clue. However, they hadn't discovered anything valuable either and hurried over.
When Li Zhisheng and Hu Fang arrived, I noticed they seemed even more aged than before; their rapid decline left me speechless. Yet they were racing against time and didn't dwell on their aging but instead focused intently on studying the book I'd found.
"I don't understand these ancient scripts either; perhaps only someone who truly studies antiques can decipher what’s written here," Li Zhisheng said with furrowed brows as he stared at the book. Hu Fang stood beside him looking even more confused; from her expression, I could sense she was like an ant on a hot pan—restless yet unable to act.
Upon hearing him mention the Antique, I suddenly remembered something and hurriedly said to him, "Do you remember the curator of the exhibition hall, Death Apostle? Perhaps we should take this book to him; it might yield some insights." Li Zhisheng slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Right! How did I not think of that?" His enthusiastic gesture drew curious glances from those around us.
Realizing he had been too loud, he lowered his voice a bit. "In that case, let's hurry and find him before it gets dark." I nodded in agreement.
We borrowed the ancient book and headed straight to Death Apostle's exhibition hall. When we arrived, we found the door still open and quickly walked inside, just in time to encounter Death Apostle walking out to meet us.
He leaned on his cane, still dressed in an elegant black tailcoat that exuded a sense of solemnity. However, amidst the passersby on the street, he seemed somewhat out of place, reminiscent of a Noble Gentleman from Medieval Europe.
I rushed forward to explain our purpose, and without hesitation, he led us into the back hall. The four of us sat around a Round Classical Wooden Table. Death Apostle looked at me and extended his hand. "Let me see that book you mentioned." I nodded slightly and flipped to the page I had previously found, handing it to him. "This is the one; it's all written in ancient script," I added, pointing out the accompanying illustrations.
Death Apostle took the book and waved his hand, signaling me to be quiet. He then began examining it intently while the three of us sat silently beside him, wide-eyed and afraid to speak for fear of disturbing him.
After a while, he stood up and retrieved several other books from the surrounding shelves to compare with mine. About half an hour later, Death Apostle closed the book and addressed us. "This is called the Soul Separation Spell. In ancient times, Sorcerers and Taoists used it specifically to deal with Vengeful Spirits and Evil Ghosts. However, it has been lost for a long time. Once this spell is inscribed on a living person, it begins to erode them gradually, leading to aging and eventual death. But..."
"But what?" I quickly pressed for more information.
"But according to what you provided in that book, it is nearly impossible for this spell to be inscribed on a living person. How did you end up with it?" As Death Apostle spoke, something clicked in my mind, but I hesitated to share directly. "Previously in the Underworld, when we first discovered the Guiding Wood, I noticed some patterns on it. However, Li Zhisheng didn’t see any patterns on his Guiding Wood."
"That means those patterns must be the Soul Separation Spell intended for me but somehow ended up inscribed on them instead while I remained unharmed." With this realization, everything started to make sense. Yet I was reluctant to share this with Death Apostle out of fear that he wouldn’t believe me. So instead, I concocted a story.
"It’s like this: they unknowingly offended a powerful figure somewhere. That figure used a peculiar method to cast this curse on them. I'm not sure if there’s a solution mentioned in this book." After finishing my tale, I felt as though even I didn’t believe my own words.
However, Death Apostle seemed convinced as he frowned and said, "I see. It seems this world truly harbors ill intentions. But this book does not mention any solutions; it only states that this curse is meant for dealing with Vengeful Spirits. Even if there’s no remedy, it doesn’t matter."
Initially thinking we might find a solution, we were now left with knowledge of its origin and function but no way to resolve it—essentially no different from being clueless. Hearing his words caused all three of us to display expressions of disappointment simultaneously.
Just as we were thanking Death Apostle and preparing to leave, he suddenly called out behind us, "Shen Xu, wait a moment! I just remembered someone asked me to give you something." He returned from the front hall with a brown envelope and handed it to me. "Here it is; someone seemed to know you would come looking for me and left me a note asking me to pass this letter on to you."
Curiously taking the envelope from him, I was surprised to find it sealed with Hao Yin's red Wax Seal. Grabbing Death Apostle's arm urgently, I asked, "Who gave this to you? Did they tell you anything else?"
Death Apostle was taken aback by my excitement. He pushed my hand away and said, "Calm down, calm down. I found this letter at the Nine Star Diagram display earlier today. I don’t know who left it, but along with the letter, there was also this note."
He handed me a white note, the handwriting on it so neat it looked almost printed, yet it was clearly handwritten. It read in black ink: "This is of great importance. Please be sure to deliver this letter to Shen Xu. He will come to collect it shortly. Thank you very much."
Seeing this, I suddenly remembered something and hurriedly asked Death Apostle, "There should be surveillance footage, right? If we check the footage, we can find out who it was!" To my surprise, Death Apostle readily agreed, saying, "Alright, follow me."
The three of us followed Death Apostle to the exhibition hall's surveillance room.
"I didn’t notice this envelope in the morning; it must have appeared after two o'clock," he said as he pulled up the afternoon surveillance footage and pressed fast forward. Two o'clock, two-thirty, three o'clock.
In the first two time slots, nothing unusual was detected. However, at four o'clock, all four cameras in the front hall simultaneously turned to static as if they were experiencing electromagnetic interference. A minute later, they all returned to normal. Then I saw an envelope appear on one of the display stands.
Death Apostle shook his head at this. "It seems that this level of interference cannot be restored." With that, even the only clue we had just discovered was lost, leaving us with no choice but to place our hopes on this letter.
After thanking Death Apostle, I returned some books to the library. Seeing that it was getting late, the three of us had no choice but to head home. Once back, I hurriedly opened the envelope; inside was still plain paper and a red card. But this time it contained a line resembling a poem: "To break the soul's separation, only Lock Heart. Prosperous Scene seals the door, Danwei seeks the person."
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