Chapter 2: The Situation

Chapter Two
The Situation

Thud, thud, thud!

Zhou Mingrui staggered backward several steps, terrified by what he had seen. For one horrible instant, it seemed as if the figure in the full-length mirror was not himself at all, but a corpse dried and propped upright.

How could anyone with a wound like that still be alive?

Unable to believe it, he turned his head the other way to check the opposite side. Even with the distance and the uncertain light, he could still make out the penetrating wound and the dark red stains.

“This…”

He drew a breath and fought to steady himself.

He pressed a hand to the left side of his chest and felt his heart beating there—hard, fast, and unmistakably alive. He touched the bare skin of his arm. Beneath the slight chill was a living warmth, a quiet current of heat.

He crouched, confirming that his knees still bent, then stood again. The panic inside him eased by a fraction.

“What is going on?” he murmured, frowning. He wanted to examine the wound on his head more carefully.

After two steps, however, he stopped. The bloody moonlight beyond the window was too dim to support anything that could be called a careful inspection.

A shard of memory surfaced in response. Zhou Mingrui turned toward the wall beside the desk, where gray-white pipes led to the caged metal wall lamp.

It was a gas lamp, one of the common fixtures of the age: stable flame, excellent illumination.

Given Klein Moretti’s family circumstances, even a kerosene lamp should have been out of reach, let alone a gas lamp. Candles would have been the proper symbol of their income and station. But four years earlier, when Klein had been staying up late to study for the entrance examination to Khoy University, his elder brother Benson had decided that this matter concerned the family’s future. Even if he had to borrow money, he would create decent conditions for Klein to study.

Of course, Benson, who could read and had worked for several years, was neither reckless nor foolish, nor the sort of man who failed to consider consequences. He had persuaded the landlord to pay for the basic piping by arguing that installing gas lines would raise the quality of the apartment and help with future rentals. Then, using the convenience of his job at an import-export company, he had purchased a new model of gas lamp at nearly cost price. In the end, he had used only his savings and had not borrowed from anyone at all.

The memory flashed past.

Zhou Mingrui returned to the desk, opened the pipe valve, and turned the gas lamp’s switch.

Click, click, click. The striker sparked in rapid succession, but light did not arrive as he expected.

Click, click, click!

He tried several more times. The gas lamp remained dark.

“Hmm…”

Withdrawing his hand, he pressed his left temple and squeezed at the fragments of memory, searching for the cause.

A few seconds later, he turned and walked to the wall beside the main door, where another mechanical device was mounted and linked to the same gray-white pipes.

A gas meter.

Glancing at the small exposed gears and bearings, Zhou Mingrui reached into his trouser pocket and took out a coin.

It was a dull yellow coin with a coppery shine. On the front was the head of a crowned man; on the back, ears of wheat encircled the number 1.

Zhou Mingrui knew this was the most basic currency of the Loen Kingdom, a copper penny. In purchasing power, one penny was roughly equivalent to three or four yuan from the world he had known before. There were also coins worth five pence, half a penny, and a quarter penny, though the denominations still were not fine enough. In daily life, purchases often had to be rounded one way or another.

He rolled the copper penny between his fingers a few times. It had only been issued after King George III ascended the throne.

Then he pinched it and slipped it into the long, narrow vertical “mouth” of the gas meter.

Clink, clatter!

As the penny fell to the bottom inside the meter, the gears began to turn with a series of crisp clicks, composing a brief and lovely mechanical tune.

Zhou Mingrui watched for a few seconds, then returned to the plain wooden desk and turned the switch of the gas lamp again.

Click, click, click—snap!

A small tongue of flame leapt up and quickly grew. Brightness filled the inside of the wall lamp first, then passed through the clear glass, casting a warm color over the room.

The darkness shrank away at once, and the crimson retreated to the window. For reasons he could not quite name, Zhou Mingrui felt a little more at peace. He hurried back to the full-length mirror.

This time he examined his temple with care, missing no detail.

After repeated comparison, he found that apart from the initial blood, the hideous wound was no longer leaking anything. It looked as if it had received the finest possible treatment to stop the bleeding and bind it closed. The slow writhing of the gray-white brain matter, together with the flesh visibly growing back at the edges of the wound, made it clear that healing had begun. Perhaps in thirty or forty minutes, perhaps in two or three hours, only a faint mark would remain.

“A healing benefit from transmigration?”

The corner of Zhou Mingrui’s mouth twitched upward on the right side as he muttered soundlessly.

Then he exhaled a long breath.

Whatever the reason, at least he was still alive.

After collecting himself, he pulled open a drawer, took out a small piece of soap, and removed one of the threadbare towels hanging beside the cabinet. Then he opened the door and headed for the washroom shared by the tenants on the second floor.

Yes, the blood on his head needed to be dealt with. Otherwise he would keep looking like the scene of a crime. It was one thing to frighten himself, but if he frightened Melissa—who would have to rise early the next morning—that would be much harder to explain.

The corridor outside was swallowed by darkness. Only the crimson moonlight spilling through the window at the far end barely outlined the objects jutting out along the walls, making them seem like monster eyes silently watching the living from the depths of the night.

Zhou Mingrui lightened his steps and walked toward the washroom with no small amount of apprehension.

Once inside, the moonlight was stronger and everything became clearer. He stood before the basin and turned on the tap.

The sound of running water filled his ears, and he abruptly thought of the landlord, Mr. Franky.

Because water charges were included in the rent, the short, thin gentleman—always in a top hat, waistcoat, and black formal coat—was very diligent about patrolling the washrooms and listening for the sound of flowing water inside.

If the rushing sound grew too loud, Mr. Franky would abandon all gentlemanly decorum and pound on the washroom door with his cane, shouting, “Damn thieves!” and “Waste is shameful!” and “I remember you!” and “Let me catch you once more and you can take your filthy luggage and get out!” and “Believe me, this is the best apartment for the price in all of Tingen. You will never find a more generous landlord!”

Zhou Mingrui drew his thoughts back, wet the towel, and began washing the blood from his face, again and again.

When he checked the washroom’s broken mirror and confirmed that only the frightening wound and his pale face remained, he relaxed considerably. He then took off his linen shirt and used the soap to scrub away the bloodstains on it.

At that moment, his brow furrowed. He realized there might be another problem.

The wound was too exaggerated, the blood too abundant. Apart from what was on his body, there should be traces in the room as well.

A few minutes later, after treating the linen shirt, Zhou Mingrui hurried home with the damp towel. First he wiped away the bloody handprint on the desk. Then, by the light of the gas lamp, he searched for other remains.

The search quickly revealed many small drops of spattered blood on the floor and beneath the desk. Against the wall to his left lay a yellow brass bullet.

“…A revolver pressed to the temple and fired?”

The clues suddenly linked together, front and back. Zhou Mingrui roughly understood how Klein had died.

He did not rush to verify it. Instead, he carefully wiped away the bloodstains and cleaned up the “scene.” Only then did he pick up the bullet, return to the desk, swing the revolver’s cylinder open to the left, and empty out the rounds.

Clack, clack, clack. Five bullets and one spent casing fell out, all gleaming with brass.

“Just as expected…”

Zhou Mingrui glanced at the empty casing, nodded slightly, and loaded the bullets back into the cylinder one by one.

His gaze shifted left, landing on the sentence written in the open notebook:

Everyone will die, including me.

More questions followed in his heart.

Where had the gun come from?

Was it suicide, or murder disguised as suicide?

What kind of trouble could a history graduate of common birth have gotten himself into?

And why had such a method of suicide left behind so little blood? Was it because I transmigrated in time, bringing my own healing perk with me?

After musing for a moment, Zhou Mingrui changed into another linen shirt and sat back down in the chair. Now he turned his mind to something far more important.

For the moment, what had happened to Klein was not his chief concern. The true question was why he had transmigrated, and whether he could return.

His parents. His relatives. His closest friends. The bright, bustling world of the internet. All manner of delicious food. Every one of these things sharpened his longing to go home.

Click. Click. Click…

His right hand unconsciously flicked the revolver’s cylinder out, then snapped it back in, again and again.

“Hmm. My life lately was not that different from before. I was just having a run of bad luck. How could I have transmigrated out of nowhere?”

“Bad luck… Right. Before dinner tonight, I performed that ritual to change my luck!”

A bolt of lightning tore across Zhou Mingrui’s mind, illuminating a memory hidden beneath the fog.

As a qualified keyboard politician, keyboard historian, keyboard economist, keyboard biologist, and keyboard folklorist, he had always claimed that he knew “a little about everything.” Of course, his close friends often mocked him by saying he knew “only a little about everything.”

Folk occult techniques were among those things.

The previous year, when he had gone back to his hometown, he had found a thread-bound, vertically printed book at a secondhand stall: An Outline of Secret Qin and Han Ritual Arts. It had looked interesting, and he had decided it might help him show off online, so he bought it. Unfortunately, his interest had come quickly and vanished just as quickly. The vertical text made for poor reading, and after glancing at the beginning, he had thrown the book into a corner.

Only after a whole month of misfortune—losing his phone, a client running away, mistakes at work, one bad thing after another—did he accidentally remember that the opening of the Outline included a ritual for changing one’s luck. The requirements were absurdly simple and required no foundation at all.

One only needed four portions of the local staple food, placing them in the four corners of one’s room—on the desk, on the cabinet, wherever appropriate. Then one stood in the center of the room and walked four steps counterclockwise in a square. On the first step, with sincerity, one silently recited, “Blessings from the Immortal Lord of Heaven and Earth.” On the second, “Blessings from the Heavenly Lord of Heaven and Earth.” On the third, “Blessings from the Supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth.” On the fourth, “Blessings from the Venerable Lord of Heaven and Earth.” After completing the walk, one closed one’s eyes and waited in place for five minutes. The ritual was then considered complete.

Since it cost nothing, Zhou Mingrui had dug out the book and followed the instructions before dinner. And yet, and yet—at the time, nothing had happened.

Who could have known that in the middle of the night, he would transmigrate?

Transmigrate!

“There is a real possibility it was that luck-changing ritual… Hmm. Tomorrow I will try it here. If it really was the cause, then I might have hope of going back!”

Zhou Mingrui stopped idly flicking the revolver’s cylinder and sat up sharply.

No matter what, he had to try.

Even a dead horse had to be treated as though it were still alive.