Part 1 Joker Chapter 9 Notes
After resting for half an hour, Zhou Mingrui, who already thought of himself as Klein, slowed down, during which he realized that there were four more black dots on the back of his right hand, which happened to form small squares.
These four black dots turned from dark to light, and quickly disappeared, but it was clear to Klein that they were still hidden within himself, waiting to be awakened.
”Four dots, square, could it be the counterpart of four staples in four corners? In the future, I won’t need to prepare the staples anymore and can just get on with the pace and spells?” Klein had a vague guess.
It seemed to be good, but having a little more “stuff” with strange origins and a lack of understanding was always scary.
When he thought of the inexplicable magic of Earth that could have an effect here, of his own strange travels in his sleep, of the mysterious, psychedelic world of gray mist that he did not know what it represented, and of the whispers of the “rituals” that hovered around him and drove him close to insanity, Klein shivered and shivered in the heat of the end of June. In the heat of late June, he shivered.
He had once heard the saying, “The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is the fear of the unknown,” and right now, he was acutely aware of the fear that stemmed from the unknown.
Unprecedentedly and uncontrollably, he had a strong urge to contact the mysterious field, to know more, to break through the unknown, but also had the thought of burying his head and pretending that nothing had happened to escape.
The sun was shining outside the window, covering the desk with a layer of “gold dust”, and Klein gazed at it as if he had touched a trace of warmth and hope.
He relaxed a little, and immediately felt a raging tide of fatigue come over him.
Last night’s sleeplessness and the exertion just now had left his eyelids heavy as leaden whites, and he couldn’t stop them from drooping.
Shaking his head, Klein reached out and braced himself against the edge of the table, not bothering to gather up the rye bread that had been placed in the corners, and stumbled over to the high and low bed, where he just lay down, dipped into the pillows, and drifted off to sleep.
Gollum! Grunt!
Hunger woke Crane, and he opened his eyes with a rush of refreshment.
”Except for the fact that my head still hurts a little.” He rubbed the corner of his forehead and rolled over to sit up, feeling like he could eat a whole cow right now.
As he straightened out the folds of his shirt, he went back to his desk and picked up the silver and white pocket watch with the branch and vine pattern.
Snap!
The cover popped open and the second hand ticked away.
”Twelve-thirty, after more than three hours …… of sleep,” Klein swallowed, and put the pocket watch into his linen shirt pocket.
On the North Continent, the day was similarly divided into twenty-four hours of sixty minutes per hour and sixty seconds per minute; whether each second was the same length as on Earth or not, Klein did not know.
For him, at this moment, even words such as occult, ritual, and gray mist world could not enter his mind, the most important thing at the moment was food, food!
Only when you are full can you think! Only then can we do things!
Without hesitation, Klein brought back the rye bread from the four corners, flicked off the little dust that stained it, and planned to take one of them as his main meal at noon.
Because of the custom of sharing the post-sacrifice offerings in his hometown, and these four loaves of rye bread didn’t look like they had changed at all, he felt that it was better to be thrifty and frugal as a human being when he only had five pennies left in his pocket.
Of course, there was the subtle influence of fragments of the original owner’s memories and habits of life.
Since gas was so expensive that it hurt to use it for lighting, he moved out the stove and added some coals, and Klein paced back and forth, waiting for the water to boil.
That rye bread, when eaten dry, would choke!
”Hey, is it going to be a life of black bread in the morning, black bread at noon, and meat only in the evening …… No, if it weren’t for Melissa’s consideration for my upcoming interviews, I’d only be able to eat meat twice a week …… “Klein, who had nothing to do and was too hungry to think about serious issues, looked left and right.
His eyes seemed to turn a little green as he looked into the cupboard at the thought of the pound of lamb.
”No, no, I have to wait for Melissa to eat it all together.” Klein shook his head vigorously, dismissing the idea of cutting half first and doing it now.
As a single dog drifting in the big city, although he mainly ate out, but the basic cooking skills were still honed, not to talk about delicious, but also enough.
Turning his body around, Klein planned to go out of sight and out of mind, just then, he suddenly remembered that in addition to buying meat in the morning, he also bought tender peas and potatoes!
Potatoes! Instantly inspired, Klein twisted back in a whirlwind, rushed to the cupboard, and pulled two potatoes out of the unlimited supply.
He went first to the communal washroom and cleaned the skins of the potatoes, then put them straight into the kettle and boiled them with the water.
After a while, he took the spice box out of the cupboard, removed the lid, and sprinkled a little yellowed and coarse salt into the water.
After a few more minutes of waiting patiently, Klein lifted the kettle and poured the not-quite-soup into a couple of cups and into a large bowl before finally spearing the two potatoes and setting them on the table.
Whew!
He peeled a little bit of skin and blew on his hand, the aroma of boiled potatoes filled out a little bit, tantalizing the appetite.
Mouth watering like crazy, Klein didn’t care that he had only peeled half of them, didn’t care that the potatoes were still a bit hot, picked them up and took a hard bite.
Powder! Fragrant! Sweet aftertaste! Klein’s heart was instantly filled with emotion, and he wolfed down the two potatoes, even ate some of the skin.
Only then did he pick up the large bowl and take a sip of the “soup”, the light salt flavor washing away the dryness in his mouth.
”I used to love eating like this when I was a kid ……” Klein, who padded his stomach, sighed silently as he broke the rye bread and soaked it in the “soup”.
Perhaps the previous “ritual” consumption is too much, he ate two, a whole pound.
Drinking “soup”, clean up, Klein felt completely alive, experienced the joy of being born again, and enjoy the sunshine.
He sat back down at his desk and began to think about what he should do next.
”There can be no escape, one must find a way to reach the mystical realm and become the extraordinary one that ‘Justice’ and ‘The Inverted Hanged Man’ speak of.”
”To overcome the fear caused by the unknown.”
”The only way to do that at the moment is to wait for the next ‘gathering’ and see if you can sit in on the recipe for the ‘audience’ magic potion, or any other mystical knowledge.”
”Four days until Monday, until then it’s time to face up to the original owner himself, why he killed himself, what happened to him ……”
Unable to travel back and pat himself on the back, Klein picked up the spread out notes, intending to rummage through them for any clues to see if he could fill in the tattered memory fragments.
Apparently, the original owner had the habit of taking notes and the hobby of using them as a diary.
Klein was well aware that the cabinet that served as the right leg of the desk was full of finished notebooks.
This one had been in use since May 10th, and at the top it mostly dealt with school, with mentors, and with knowledge:
”On May 12th, Mr. Aztec mentioned that the common language of the Byron Empire on the southern continent also originated from Ancient Forsak, a branch of the Giant language. Why is this so? Could it be that all creatures with spirituality once spoke the same language, no, this must be wrong, even in the accounts of the Night’s Revelation and the Book of Storms, in times older than ancient, giants were not the only continental masters, there were also elves, there were also fae, there were also gargoyles, well, it’s all just a legend, it’s just a mythological tale.”
……
”On May 16th, Senior Associate Professor Cohen and Mr. Azik discussed the inevitability of the Age of Steam, Mr. Azik believed that it possessed contingency, and that if it hadn’t been for the sudden appearance of Rosel the Great, perhaps the Northern Continent would still be in the Cold War era, just like the Southern Continent, and his mentor thought that he placed too much emphasis on the role of the individual, and believed that as the times progressed, there would have been no Rosel the Great and there would have been Robert the Great, in short, the Age of Steam may be late, but it will surely come. To their arguments, I just feel that there is no point, I prefer to discover new things, and restore the history that is shrouded in mist, perhaps, I should not study in the history department, I should study in the archaeology department.”
……
”On May 29th, Welch approached me about obtaining a copy of the Quaternary notes. My goddess, a Quaternary note! He didn’t want to beg his fellow archaeology students, and wanted to ask Naya and I to help decipher what was written, and how could I possibly refuse such a thing? Of course, it has to be arranged after the graduation defense, at this time, I can’t be distracted.”
Seeing this, Klein’s spirit was revitalized, compared to the previous notes on history and conceptual arguments, the newly appeared “Fourth Era” notes were more likely to lead to the original owner’s suicide.
The Fourth Age is the era before the current “Black Iron Era”, its history is full of fog, many missing, even the unearthed tombs, ancient cities and documents are few and far between, historians and archaeologists can only rely on the seven churches of the theology of the vague, mainly faith-based education to be able to put together a little bit of the “original picture”. “original picture” of the existence of the Solomon Empire, the Tudor Dynasty, and the Trenthost Empire.
Klein, who was determined to break through the fog and restore history, had little interest in the “First Three Ages”, which was more on the side of myths and legends, but only cared about the Fourth Age, also known as the “Age of the Gods”, and his excitement could be imagined.
”Hey, if you look at it this way, the original owner of the interviews, worried about the future employment, in fact, there is no need ah ……” Klein could not help but sigh.
The current university is still very rare, the vast majority of students are noble children and rich family children, civilians as long as they enter, even if they are discriminated against due to their status and are not included in other people’s social circle, but as long as they themselves are not extreme, relying on things such as group discussions, collective activities, and so on, they can still obtain a certain amount of networking resources, quite precious networking resources!
For example, Welch McGovern is the son of a banker in Constanton City, Intersea County, Kingdom of Ruen, who is brash and generous, and because he has long been divided into a group with Klein and Naya to do his homework and reports, he habitually asks for their help.
Without much hair-splitting, Klein continued to read down the notes:
”Graduated June 18th. Farewell, my Hoy University!”
”June 19th, I came across the notes, and after comparing structures, roots, etc., I realized that it was a variant of the ancient Forsak language, or more accurately, that the ancient Forsak language had actually been slightly diffused over the course of more than a thousand years.”
”On June 20, we deciphered the first page, written by a member of a family called ‘Antigonus’.”
”On June 21, he mentions ‘Black Emperor’, which completely contradicts the era deduced from the previous content; could it be that the tutor was wrong, and that ‘Black Emperor’ was in fact a common title for every emperor of the Solomon Empire? ”
”On June 22nd, this family called ‘Antigonus’ seems to have a prominent position in the Solomon Empire, and the owner of the note mentions that he is making a secret deal with someone called Tudor. Tudor? The Tudor dynasty?”
”On June 23rd, I controlled myself not to think about the note, not to go to Welch’s, and I’m going to prepare for my interview! It’s very important!”
”June 24th, Naya told me they had something new, I thought I’d check it out.”
”On June 25th, from what was newly deciphered, the owner of the notes accepted a mission to travel to the main peak of the ‘Hornachis’ mountain range to visit the ‘Land of Night’ at the top, my goddess, the The main peak is over six thousand meters, how could a country exist? What do they survive on!”
”Is all this strange stuff true on June 26th?”
By this point, the notes ended, and Zhou Mingrui had crossed over in the early morning of June 28th.
”That means that the June 27th notes actually have, is the line …… ‘Everyone dies, including me’ …… “Klein flipped to the page he had initially seen and made a slightly creepy judgment call.
He felt that in order to solve the mystery of the original owner’s suicide, he should go to Welch’s place and read the contents of the ancient notes, but with rich “experience” in novels, movies and TV shows, he felt that if he went there, and if the matter was indeed related, he would most likely encounter unknown dangers- -Those who knew the castle was haunted but still went to their deaths were the warning signs!
But he couldn’t go, running away would never solve the problem, it would only make things bigger and bigger, until the dike bursts and completely drowns him!
Call the police? I can’t say I killed myself. ……
Knock!
Knock knock!
There was a sudden sharp, strong knock at the door.
Klein sat bolt upright and listened with his side ear.
Knock!
Knock, knock!
The knocking echoed through the empty and silent floor aisles.