Lord of Mysteries

Chapter Two: The Situation

Thump, thump, thump!

Zhou Mingrui was so frightened by the sight before him that he stumbled back several steps, as if the person in the dressing mirror wasn't himself, but a dried-up corpse.

How could someone with such severe wounds still be alive!

In disbelief, he turned his head to examine the other side. Even with the increased distance and blurred light, he could still see the penetrating wound and deep red bloodstains .

"This..."

Zhou Mingrui took a breath, trying to calm himself.

He reached out and pressed his hand to his left chest, feeling his heart pounding rapidly and vigorously.

He touched the exposed skin, feeling a slight coolness masking a warm flow.

He squatted down to verify that his knees could still bend, then stood up again, no longer so panicked.

"What happened?" he muttered, frowning, intending to examine the head wound more carefully.

He took two steps forward, then suddenly stopped, because the light from the blood moon outside the window was relatively dim, insufficient for a "careful examination."

A fragment of memory surfaced, and Zhou Mingrui turned to look at the wall lamp surrounded by gray pipes and a metal grid on the wall next to his desk.

It was a mainstream gas lamp, with a stable flame and excellent illumination.

Given Klein Moretti's family circumstances, they shouldn't have even dreamed of a kerosene lamp, let alone a gas lamp; candles were more befitting their status. But four years ago, when he was studying late into the night for Hoy University's entrance exam, his brother Benson believed it was crucial for the family's future and was willing to borrow money to create better conditions for him.

Of course, Benson, who was literate and had worked for several years, was not reckless, lacking in resourcefulness, or reckless. He persuaded the landlord to pay for the basic renovations by claiming that "installing gas pipes would improve the apartment's quality and make it easier to rent out in the future." He then used his position at an import/export company to obtain new gas lamps at near cost price, managing to do it all with only his savings, without borrowing any money.

Fragments of light flashed by. Zhou Mingrui returned to his desk, turned on the gas valve, and flipped the gas lamp switch.

A series of clicks and clatters rang out, but the light didn't appear as Zhou Mingrui had expected.

Click, click, click! He flipped it a few more times, but the gas lamp remained dim.

"Hmm..." He withdrew his hand, pressed his left temple, and began to piece together fragments of memory, searching for the cause of the incident.

After a few seconds, he turned and walked to the door, arriving at the mechanical device embedded in the wall, connected by gray-white pipes.

It was a gas meter!

Glancing at the slightly exposed gears and bearings, Zhou Mingrui pulled a coin from his pocket.

It was a dark yellow color, gleaming with a copper luster, with a crowned man's head engraved on the front and a cluster of wheat ears surrounding the number "1" on the back.

Zhou Mingrui knew this was the most basic currency in the Kingdom of Luen, called a copper penny. One penny had roughly the purchasing power of three or four yuan before his transmigration. These coins also came in denominations of five pence, half a penny, and a quarter penny, but they weren't very precise, and in daily life, one still had to round up the denominations to buy things.

After letting the copper penny, issued only upon King George III's ascension to the throne, twirl a few times between his fingers, Zhou Mingrui twisted it and inserted it into the vertically open, slender "mouth" of the gas meter. Clang

!

As the penny fell to the bottom inside the meter, the clicking of gears rang out, creating a short but beautiful mechanical melody.

Zhou Mingrui stared for a few seconds, then returned to his wooden desk and reached for the gas lamp switch.

Click, click, click!

A flame ignited, quickly growing larger. The bright light first filled the wall lamp, then pierced through the transparent glass, casting a warm glow over the room.

The darkness receded abruptly, the crimson faded from the window, and Zhou Mingrui felt a strange sense of relief. He quickly went to the dressing mirror.

This time, he carefully examined his temples, not missing a single detail.

After several comparisons, he discovered that apart from the initial bloodstains, the gruesome wound was no longer oozing fluid, as if it had received the best possible hemostasis and bandaging. The slowly writhing, grayish-white brain and the visibly growing flesh and blood of the wound indicated the approaching healing. Perhaps in thirty or forty minutes, perhaps in two or three hours, only a faint trace would remain.

"The healing effect of time travel?" Zhou Mingrui smirked, silently muttering to himself.

Then, he let out a long breath. No matter what, at least he was still alive!

Composing himself, he pulled open a drawer, took out a small bar of soap, picked up one of the worn-out towels hanging next to the cabinet, then opened the door and headed towards the shared bathroom on the second floor.

Hmm, I need to clean up the bloodstains on my head, otherwise it'll always look like a crime scene. It's not a big deal if it scares me, but if it frightens my sister Melissa, who has to get up early tomorrow, things will get complicated!

The corridor outside was dark, with only the crimson moonlight streaming in from the window at the end barely outlining the shapes of things, making them look like the eyes of monsters silently watching the living in the deep night.

Zhou Mingrui tiptoed, somewhat apprehensively, towards the washroom.

Inside, the moonlight was brighter, and everything became clearer. Zhou Mingrui stood in front of the sink and turned on the tap.

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

Because the water bill was included in the rent, this short, thin man with a top hat, a waistcoat, and a black suit jacket always diligently came to inspect the washrooms, eavesdropping on the sound of running water.

If the commotion was too loud, Mr. Franky would abandon all gentlemanly manners, fiercely waving his cane and pounding on the bathroom door, yelling, "Damn thief!" "Waste is shameful!" "I'll remember you!" "If I see you again, take your filthy luggage and get out!" "Believe me, this is the best deal in all of Tingen; you won't find a more generous landlord!"

Pulling himself back to reality, Zhou Mingrui wet a towel and began washing the bloodstains off his face, over and over again.

After looking in the tattered bathroom mirror and confirming that only the gruesome wounds and pale face remained, Zhou Mingrui felt a sense of relief. He then took off his linen shirt and rubbed the remaining bloodstains with soap.

Just then, he frowned, remembering there might be other trouble:

the wounds were exaggerated, the bloodstains numerous, and besides himself, there should be traces in the room as well!

A few minutes later, Zhou Mingrui finished cleaning his linen shirt, grabbed a damp towel, and hurried home. He first wiped the bloody handprints from his desk, then, using the gaslight, searched for other traces.

He immediately noticed numerous splattered bloodstains on the floor and under his desk, and a gleaming yellow bullet head against the wall to his left.

"...He fired a shot into the temple with a revolver?" The clues suddenly connected, and Zhou Mingrui roughly understood Klein's cause of death.

He didn't rush to verify it, but carefully wiped away the bloodstains and cleaned up the "scene" before taking the bullet head and returning to his desk. He opened the cylinder of his pistol to the left and emptied the bullets. *

Snap snap snap*—five bullets and one spent cartridge, all gleaming with a brassy luster.

“As expected…” Zhou Mingrui glanced at the empty cartridge cases, nodding slightly as he put the bullets back into the cylinder one by one.

His gaze shifted to the left, looking at the sentence written on the open notebook: “Everyone will die, including me,” and more questions welled up in his mind.

Where did the gun come from?

Suicide, or a staged suicide?

What kind of trouble could a history graduate from a commoner background get into?

How come this method of suicide only left so little blood? Was it because I transmigrated in time and came with a healing bonus?

After pondering for a moment, Zhou Mingrui changed into another linen shirt, sat down in a chair, and thought about more important things.

Klein's fate was not his main concern at the moment; the real question was figuring out why he had transmigrated and whether he could go back!

Parents, relatives, best friends, friends, the colorful online world, all kinds of delicious food… these were all reasons for his urgent desire to go back!

Snap, snap, snap… Zhou Mingrui's right hand unconsciously flicked the pistol cylinder, then pulled it back, again and again.

"Hmm, things haven't been much different from usual lately, just a bit unlucky. How did I end up transmigrating like this out of nowhere?"

"Unlucky... Oh right, I did a luck-changing ritual before dinner tonight!"

A flash of lightning struck Zhou Mingrui's mind, illuminating his memories shrouded in mist.

As a qualified keyboard politician, keyboard historian, keyboard economist, keyboard biologist, and keyboard folklorist, he always claimed to "know a little about everything," though his best friend often teased him for "knowing only a little about everything."

And magic was one of those things.

Last year, when he went back to his hometown, he found a thread-bound, vertically printed "Records of Secret Magic Techniques of the Qin and Han Dynasties" at a used bookstore. It looked quite interesting, and he thought it would be helpful for showing off online, so he bought it. Unfortunately, his interest came and went quickly; the vertical format made reading very difficult, and he only flipped through the beginning before tossing the book into a corner.

After a month of continuous bad luck—losing his phone, a client running away, making a mistake at work—he suddenly remembered a fortune-changing ritual at the beginning of the "Records of Magical Techniques," with extremely simple requirements, requiring no prior knowledge.

Thinking it was free anyway, he pulled out the book and performed the ritual before dinner. However, nothing happened. But then,

in the middle of the night, he found himself transported to another world!

He'd been transported!

"It could definitely be that fortune-changing ritual…hmm, I'll try it here tomorrow. If it really is because of it, then I might have a chance to go back!" Zhou Mingrui stopped fiddling with his revolver and sat bolt upright.

No matter what, he had to try! He

had to fight fire with fire!