Chapter 1: Crimson

Lord of the Mysteries
Book One: Clown

Chapter One
Crimson

Pain.

Such pain.

His head—his head hurt so badly.

The gaudy, whisper-riddled dream shattered in an instant. Deep in sleep, Zhou Mingrui felt a vicious throb tear through his skull, as though someone had brought a club down on him with all their strength. No—worse than that. It was more like something sharp had been driven into his temple and then stirred.

Hiss…

Half-conscious, Zhou Mingrui tried to roll over, tried to clutch his head, tried to sit up, but his limbs would not obey. His body seemed to have slipped beyond his control.

I must not be truly awake yet. I am still dreaming… In a moment, perhaps I will think I have woken up, only to find that I am still asleep…

He was no stranger to such experiences. Gathering what willpower he could, he fought to break free from the black, feverish restraints of sleep.

Yet in that borderland between dreaming and waking, the will was as fickle as smoke: impossible to hold, impossible to draw together. No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts scattered of their own accord. Stray notions rose up, one after another.

Why would my head suddenly start hurting in the middle of the night?

And this badly?

It cannot be a brain hemorrhage or something, can it?

Damn it. Am I really going to die young like this?

Wake up. Wake up!

Huh… It does not seem as bad as before? But it still feels as if a blunt knife is sawing slowly through my brain…

Looks like I will not be sleeping anymore. How am I supposed to go to work tomorrow?

Why am I even thinking about work? With a headache this real, I can take sick leave. No need to be afraid of the manager nagging at me!

Put that way, maybe this is not entirely bad. Heh. Stealing half a day of leisure from a floating life…

The waves of pain came again and again, and with them Zhou Mingrui gathered, drop by drop, a strength that felt almost unreal. At last, with one desperate effort, he jerked his back upright and opened his eyes, finally tearing himself free of that half-waking state.

At first his sight was blurred. Then a faint wash of crimson settled over everything.

Before him stood a desk of unpainted wood. At its center lay an open notebook, the paper rough and yellowed. Across the top of the page, in strange alphabetic letters, a sentence had been written. The ink was so dark it seemed nearly wet.

To the left of the notebook, near the edge of the desk, rested a neat stack of books, perhaps seven or eight in all. On the wall to their right, gray-white pipes ran into a wall lamp.

The lamp had a distinctly classical Western flavor. It was about the size of half an adult head, its inner layer made of clear glass, its exterior caged by black metal bars.

Below and to the side of the extinguished lamp, an ink bottle stood wrapped in pale red light. The raised pattern on its surface formed the blurred outline of an angel.

In front of the ink bottle, to the right of the notebook, a dark fountain pen with a rounded belly lay in silence, its nib glinting faintly. The cap rested beside a brass-colored revolver.

A pistol? A revolver?

Zhou Mingrui froze.

Everything before his eyes was unfamiliar. Nothing here bore the slightest resemblance to his own room.

Still stunned, still confused, he noticed that the desk, the notebook, the ink bottle, and the revolver were all veiled beneath a thin crimson gauze. The light was coming from outside the window.

Almost instinctively, he raised his head. His gaze climbed upward, inch by inch.

In the black velvet curtain of the sky, a blood-red full moon hung high and still, casting its quiet radiance.

This…

A nameless terror seized Zhou Mingrui. He sprang to his feet, but before his legs could fully straighten, pain tore through his head again. His strength abandoned him for a moment. His center of gravity dropped, and he crashed back down onto the hard wooden chair.

Smack!

The pain scarcely registered. He braced one hand on the desk and rose again, turning in a panic to study the place in which he found himself.

It was a small room. On the left and the right stood brown doors. Against the wall opposite was a wooden bunk bed.

Between the bed and the left-hand door sat a cabinet, its upper half opening outward, its lower half made up of five drawers.

At about the height of a person, near the edge of the cabinet, another set of gray-white pipes was embedded in the wall. These led not to a lamp, but to a strange mechanical device, parts of which exposed gears and bearings.

In the right corner near the desk were objects resembling a coal stove, along with a soup pot, an iron pan, and other kitchen utensils.

Past the right-hand door stood a full-length mirror with two cracks in it. The pattern carved into its wooden base was simple and plain.

As Zhou Mingrui’s eyes swept over it, he dimly saw himself in the mirror.

His present self.

Black hair. Brown eyes. A linen shirt. A thin build. Ordinary features, though with rather deep contours.

This…

Zhou Mingrui sucked in a cold breath. Helpless, disordered guesses surged through his mind.

The revolver. The classical European-style furnishings. The crimson moon so unlike the moon of Earth. Every one of them pointed toward the same impossible conclusion.

I… I could not have transmigrated, could I?

His mouth opened little by little.

He had grown up reading web novels and had indulged in such fantasies often enough. But when the thing truly happened, he found it impossible to accept.

So this is what they call loving dragons from afar and fearing them up close?

After several dozen seconds, he managed a bitter little joke at his own expense.

If the pain in his head had not still been there, keeping his thoughts taut and clear, he would certainly have suspected that he was dreaming.

Calm. Calm. Calm…

He drew several deep breaths and forced himself not to panic.

Just then, as his body and mind gradually settled, fragments of memory abruptly leapt forth, slowly arranging themselves in his mind.

Klein Moretti. A native of Tingen City, Awwa County, in the Loen Kingdom of the Northern Continent. A recent graduate of the history department at Khoy University…

His father had been a sergeant in the Royal Army and had died in a colonial conflict on the Southern Continent. The pension paid after his death had given Klein the chance to enter a private grammar school, laying the foundation for his admission to university…

His mother had been a believer in the Evernight Goddess. She had passed away the year Klein passed Khoy University’s entrance examination…

He had an elder brother and a younger sister. The three of them shared a two-bedroom apartment…

The family was not well-off. In fact, it could even be called poor. At present, they were supported entirely by the elder brother’s salary as a clerk at an import-export company…

As a history graduate, Klein knew ancient Feysac, which was said to be the origin of the written languages of the Northern Continent, as well as Hermes, a language often found in ancient tombs and associated with sacrifices and prayers…

Hermes?

Zhou Mingrui’s heart stirred. Pressing a hand to his aching temple, he turned his eyes to the notebook lying open on the desk. The line of writing on the yellowed paper changed in his sight: from strange, to foreign, to familiar, and then to something he could read.

It was written in Hermes.

The ink, black as though it might drip from the page, declared:

Everyone will die, including me.

Hiss!

A fear he could not explain shot through Zhou Mingrui. His body instinctively leaned backward, trying to put distance between himself and the notebook, between himself and that line of words.

He was so weak that he nearly fell. In a hurry, he grabbed the edge of the desk. The air around him seemed to grow restless; beside his ears, faint and countless whispers seemed to echo. It gave him the feeling of listening, as a child, to an elder tell a ghost story.

He shook his head. Everything was only an illusion.

Zhou Mingrui steadied himself again, moved his gaze away from the notebook, and drew several deep breaths.

Then his eyes landed on the brass-glinting revolver, and a question sprang suddenly into his mind.

“With Klein’s family circumstances, how could he have the money or the connections to buy a pistol?”

Zhou Mingrui could not help frowning.

As he sank into thought, he abruptly noticed that half a red handprint had appeared on the edge of the desk. Its color was deeper than the moonlight, thicker than that gauze of crimson.

A bloody handprint.

“A bloody handprint?”

Zhou Mingrui instinctively turned over the right hand he had just used to steady himself and looked down. His palm and fingers were smeared with blood.

At the same time, the pain in his head continued to pulse, slightly weaker now but unbroken.

“Did I hit my head somewhere?”

Thinking this, Zhou Mingrui turned and walked toward the cracked full-length mirror.

After a few steps, the reflection of a man of medium height, with black hair, brown eyes, and a scholarly air, came clearly into view.

So this is me now. Klein Moretti?

Zhou Mingrui paused. The light was insufficient in the middle of the night, and he could not see clearly enough, so he continued forward until he was only one step away from colliding with the mirror.

By the gauze-like crimson moonlight, he turned his head to examine his temple.

The mirror reflected the truth without mercy.

A hideous wound occupied the side of his head. Its edges were scorched. Blood stained the skin around it. Within, gray-white brain matter was slowly writhing.