Part 1 The Joker Chapter 1 Crimson
Ouch!
It hurts!
Headache!
Light strange full of whispered dreams quickly fragmented, sleeping Zhou Mingrui only feel head throbbing abnormal, as if being used a stick hard swing a bit, no, it is more like by the sharp objects stabbed into the solar plexus and accompanied by churning!
Hiss …… daze, Zhou Mingrui wants to turn over, want to cover the head, want to sit up, but completely unable to move arms and legs, the body seems to have lost control.
It seems that I haven t really woken up, and I am still in a dream …… Later, there may be a situation where I think I have woken up, but I am actually still sleeping …… Zhou Mingrui, who is not unfamiliar with similar encounters, tried his best to concentrate his will in order to completely get rid of the shackles of darkness and psychedelia.
However, when half asleep and half awake, the will is always fluctuating like smoke, difficult to control, difficult to restrain, how hard he tried, still can not help thinking scattered, distracting thoughts emerge.
In the middle of the night, how could he suddenly get a headache?
And the pain was so severe!
It can’t be a cerebral hemorrhage or something, right?
Shit, I won’t die young like this, right?
Wake up! Wake up!
Hey, it doesn’t seem to hurt as much as it did just now? But it’s still like a dull knife is slowly cutting into my brain. ……
I can’t go back to sleep. How can I go to work tomorrow?
What’s there to think about? If you have a real headache, of course you should take a vacation! You don’t have to be afraid of the manager’s nagging!
When I think about it, it doesn’t seem so bad. Hey, hey, half a day of leisure!
One throbbing pain after another allowed Zhou Mingrui to accumulate illusory strength bit by bit, and finally, with a burst of energy, he pushed up his back and opened his eyes, completely getting rid of the half-asleep, half-awake state.
Vision was first blurred, then covered with a faint scarlet, and as far as his eyes could see, Zhou Mingrui saw in front of him a desk of original wood color, and in the center of it was a spread out notebook, the paper rough and yellowed, with a sentence written in strange alphabetic script on its head, and the ink was deep and black and striking.
To the left of the notebook, against the edge of the table, was a neat stack of volumes, perhaps seven or eight, and set into the wall to their right were off-white pipes and a wall lamp connected to them.
The lamp was classically Western in flavor, about the size of half an adult’s head, with a clear glass interior and a grill surrounded by black metal on the outside.
Diagonally below the extinguished wall sconce, a black ink bottle was shrouded in a pale red glow, its surface embossed to form a vague angelic pattern.
Before the ink bottle, to the right of the notebook, a dark fountain pen with a rounded belly rested quietly, its nib glinting with a shimmering light, its cap resting next to a brass-colored revolver.
Pistol? Revolver? Zhou Mingrui whole person are frozen, the things seen in front of him is so strange, and his room does not have half a point of resemblance!
At the same time, he realized that the desk, notebook, ink bottle, revolver are covered with a layer of scarlet “veil”, that is the light shining through the window.
Subconsciously, he raised his head and moved his eyes upward a little:
In the middle of the sky, above the black “velvet curtain”, a round of crimson full moon hangs high, shining serenely.
This …… Zhou Mingrui fear inexplicable, violently stood up, but the legs are not yet completely straight, his head is a burst of pain, which makes him briefly lose strength, the center of gravity involuntarily fell, buttocks hit hard on the hardwood made chair surface.
Snap!
The pain failed to make an impact, and Zhou Mingrui pressed his hand against the table and regained his footing, turning his body around in a panic and surveying the environment he found himself in.
It was a small room, with a brown door on the left and right sides, and a wooden high-low bed next to the opposite wall.
Between it and the left door sat a cupboard, open at the top, with five drawers below.
At the edge of the cabinet, a man’s height away, the same off-white piping was set into the wall, but it was connected to a strange mechanism, with gears and bearings exposed in a few places.
Stacked in the right corner of the wall near the desk were what looked like coal stoves, as well as saucepans, iron pots, and other kitchen utensils.
Across the right door was a dressing mirror with two cracks in it, the wooden base with a simple and plain pattern.
With a sweep of his eyes, Zhou Mingrui vaguely saw himself in the mirror, his current self:
Black hair, brown pupils, linen shirt, thin body type, ordinary features, deeper outline ……
This …… Zhou Mingrui immediately sucked in a breath of cold air, and his heart surged with many helpless and messy guesses.
Revolver, European and American classical flavor arrangement, as well as that round of scarlet moon that is very different from the earth, all of them are not stating something!
I, I won’t cross over, right? Zhou Mingrui’s mouth opened a little.
He grew up reading internet articles and often fantasized about it, but when he actually encountered it, it was hard to accept for a while.
This is probably the so-called Ye Gong Hao Long right? After a few dozen seconds, Zhou Mingrui spat out a bitter-sweet remark to himself.
If it wasn’t for the pain in his head that still existed, making his thoughts tight and clear, he would definitely suspect that he was dreaming.
Calm, calm, calm …… Taking a few deep breaths, Zhou Mingrui endeavored to make himself less flustered.
Right at this moment, as his body and mind reconciled, a fragment of memory popped out abruptly, slowly presenting itself in his mind!
Klein Moretti, a native of the city of Tingen, Ahova County, Kingdom of Rune, Northern Continent, a recent graduate of the History Department of Hoy University ……
His father was a Staff Sergeant in the Royal Army who died in the colonial conflict on the southern continent, in exchange for a pension that allowed Klein to attend a private grammar school, laying the groundwork for him to enter the university ……
His mother, a devotee of the Goddess of the Night, passed away the year Crane passed his entrance exams to Hoy ……
Has a brother and a sister who live together in a two-bedroom apartment ……
The family is not wealthy, not even close, and currently relies on his brother, who works as a clerk for an import/export company ……
As a history graduate, Klein has mastered the ancient Forsak language, which is known as the source of the Northern Continent’s writing, as well as the Hermetic language, which is often found in ancient tombs and is related to rituals and prayers ……
Hermetic script? Zhou Mingrui’s heart fluttered, reaching out to press his throbbing temples, casting his eyes towards the notebook spread out on the desk, only to realize that the line of text on the yellowed paper had gone from strange to unfamiliar, from unfamiliar to familiar, and from familiar to decipherable.
It was words written in Hermetic script!
The deep black, dripping ink said as much:
”Everyone dies, including me.”
Hiss! Zhou Mingrui was inexplicably terrified, his body instinctively leaning back, trying to distance himself from the notebook, from the line of text.
He was so weak that he nearly fell, and panicked as he reached out and pressed the edge of the table, only to feel that the air around him was becoming agitated, and there were thin murmurs echoing vaguely in his ears, a feeling of being a child and listening to his elders tell horror stories.
Shaking his head, everything was just a hallucination, Zhou Mingrui regained his footing, averted his gaze from the notebook, and gasped for air.
At this time, his eyes fell at the revolver that shimmered with brass luster, and a question popped up in his heart with a huff.
”With Klein’s family’s wealth, where would he have the money and channels to buy a pistol?” Zhou Mingrui could not help but frown.
In the midst of contemplation, he suddenly found a half red handprint on the edge of the desk, the color deeper than the moonlight, thicker than the “light veil”.
It was a bloody handprint!
”Bloody handprint?” Zhou Mingrui subconsciously turned over his right hand that had just pressed on the edge of the table, and when he looked down, he saw that his palm and fingers were covered in blood.
At the same time, the throbbing pain in his head was still coming, slightly weakened and continuous.
”It wouldn’t be a bump on the head, right?” Zhou Mingrui guessed as he turned his body towards the cracked dressing mirror.
A few steps later, the figure with a medium build, black hair and brown pupils, and a distinctly bookish appearance clearly reflected in his eyes.
This is the current me, Klein Moretti?
Zhou Mingrui was stunned for a moment, because there was not enough light in the middle of the night to see clearly, so he continued forward again until he was just one step away from hitting the mirror.
By the light scarlet moonlight, he turned his head sideways to check the corner of his forehead.
The clear reflection of the mirror presented as it was, a hideous gash perched at the position of his temple, edged with burn marks and stained with blood around it, while inside there was grayish-white brain matter slowly writhing.