"What did you do?" Luo En asked, looking at the mess in the washroom.
"Don't tell me you tried to take a bath, turned on the faucet, and then couldn't turn it off."
"Ow…"
Lachi raised her paw somewhat aggrieved, as if complaining that her paw was not useful.
"Sigh, how unlucky."
Luo En had no choice but to bend down and clean up the accumulated water on the floor.
However, what he didn't know was that a mystical upheaval was occurring in his room.
But unfortunately, there was not a single Spectator in the room.
…
"Strange, why can't I turn off this water!
And is this drain blocked?"
Luo En was a bit annoyed looking at the water that wouldn't drain.
After nearly an hour of struggling, Luo En finally cleaned up the washroom. Just as he was about to return to his room, he noticed his clothes were already a bit wet.
"Might as well take a bath."
And so, after the power of the notebook had been overflowing in the room for most of the day, it—withered away on its own, unable to find a host.
…
"Much more refreshed." Luo En, after taking a bath, changed into his bathrobe and returned to his room.
"No, what happened here?"
Having just cleaned up the messy washroom, Luo En was dumbfounded to see his room also in a complete mess.
The various books and materials he had bought earlier were scattered everywhere, and even the bedsheet on the bed was pulled up.
"This, this, was there a thief?"
Luo En didn't clean up immediately but quickly opened his suitcase to check his wallet and the small antiques he intended to sell.
"Nothing's missing…"
"Could it be the wind?"
Right in front of the desk was an open window. If a sudden strong wind had blown earlier, it was not impossible for everything on the desk to have been blown away.
"Because I was taking a bath just now, I didn't hear anything, did I?" Luo En pondered.
Experiencing his bad luck firsthand once again, Luo En could only accept reality and reluctantly began to clean up the room.
"Hmm? What's this?" Luo En picked up a piece of parchment.
"This was that free gift from before, but wasn't it blank?"
Luo En was dumbfounded looking at the parchment filled with content.
But what shocked him most was that the content on the parchment was a map.
"Could it be that it touched water just now and became visible, like in tomb-raiding novels?" Luo En examined the map before him.
"It looks familiar!" Luo En rummaged through a pile of materials and pulled out a map of Tingen City he had bought earlier, then began to compare them.
"That's right, the outline is the same, and so are the positions of these two rivers." Luo En was pleasantly surprised to find that the parchment displayed a map of Tingen.
"Then this place marked with a star, could it be…" Luo En pointed to a prominently marked location on the map.
"Could this be a treasure map?"
This parchment, like that notebook, was an old antique from the Fourth Epoch, possibly hundreds or even thousands of years old.
Even if there was no gold or jewels inside, any Fourth Epoch cup or chair would be a priceless antique.
"Has the transmigration welfare finally arrived?"
"Could it be that my luck is about to change?"
A series of thoughts appeared in Luo En's mind, making him involuntarily fantasize.
"No, I can't be happy so soon. This parchment was passed down from the Fourth Epoch. Maybe the so-called treasure has already been discovered by someone else."
After much thought, Luo En decided to go to the Tingen Library to look up information and investigate the location on the map.
…
One day later.
Luo En walked out of the library, somewhat excited.
The location marked on the map was a wasteland, with no news, not even urban legends.
"An unexplored treasure, could it really be my chance?"
The incredibly excited Luo En suppressed his emotions, waited a few minutes to confirm he didn't feel anything amiss, and then smiled again.
"Very good, I haven't received any warnings from fate, so it seems there really is treasure."
"Opportunity waits for no one, I need to prepare quickly."
…
…
After preparing various items and divining himself to confirm there was no danger, Luo En arrived at the address on the map.
On a barren mountain outside Tingen.
"This place is really remote, a desolate mountain wilderness, where exactly is it?"
Luo En's boot sank into the slippery pile of decaying leaves, pulling out a puddle of foul-smelling mud when he withdrew it.
This was his sixth hour in the mountain, and the edges of the parchment treasure map were already frayed.
But the marked spot, aside from a few pine cones, yielded not even a penny.
Luo En searched for a long time according to the map but couldn't find the so-called treasure.
"Ow—" Lachi suddenly cried out, then ran off.
"Lachi, did you find something?" Luo En quickly chased after her, and then saw the Orange Cat with a small field mouse in her mouth.
"This glutton…" Luo En rubbed his forehead, a bit speechless.
"You're a cat, when will you be a bit more graceful?"
"Where exactly is it?" After several more hours with no success, Luo En began to grow impatient.
He kicked the tree trunk, making a few dry leaves rustle down.
Luo En, who had circled back to the same tree for the third time, froze in place. Somehow, he vaguely felt something was amiss.
The damp smell of humus permeated his nostrils. He wanted to retreat but suddenly stepped on a hollow dead branch.
The feeling of losing balance came without warning. His back hit a protruding rock hard, and he tumbled down the steep slope like a broken sack.
Decaying leaves and gravel poured into his collar, and his right leg hit something hard, burning with pain.
"Oh my god…" Luo En spat out a bloody mouthful of saliva. He reached out in the Darkness, trying to find a solid place to get up.
He managed to steady himself by leaning on a nearby stone, and after regaining his balance, he took out a torch from his satchel and illuminated his surroundings.
"Who's there!" Luo En heard movement behind him.
"Meow."
"Lachi, it's you." Seeing the Orange Cat behind him, Luo En breathed a sigh of relief.
"But where exactly is this…"
He hadn't walked a few steps when he felt his body hit something hard. He crouched down and shuffled forward, his shoe kicking a protruding hard object. His right hand touched a cold, slippery surface, and he quickly raised the torch—illuminating a ferocious beast face as large as a basin.
His heart nearly jumped out of his throat, and the torch clattered to the ground.
The moss-covered fangs of the thing were less than two inches from his nose, and a half-rusted arrow was still stuck in the stone carved eye socket. Cold sweat ran down his spine into his pants.
The bell-sized stone carved eyes were covered with a layer of moss, and a spherical object was held in its cracked stone mouth.
This was a… Stone Lion?
"My goodness, a Stone Lion."
Such a Chinese element caught Luo En completely off guard.
After examining it closely, Luo En realized it was indeed a Stone Lion, not the more Western-style Griffin or other creatures he had in mind.
"Holding a ball in its mouth, very Chinese indeed."
Picking up the torch again and looking at his surroundings, Luo En discovered that he was in a strange underground cave.
The edge of the cave seemed to be a stone wall built with stones.
Luo En came to the stone wall and tapped it lightly, finding it hollow inside.
Then he turned his head and saw a huge crack in the wall, surprised to find that this stone wall was actually a stone Door.
"A stone Door, and a Stone Lion guarding it." Luo En chuckled twice, being all too familiar with these two elements.
This must be the masterpiece of some transmigrator.
By the faint light of the torch, Luo En noticed some strange protrusions on the stone Door.
"Could this be…?" His fingertips trembled as they hovered above the protrusions.
They were buttons!
The rough buttons had tiny scratches, and four trapezoidal buttons were arranged in an up, down, left, right sequence, while two other buttons nearby were faintly engraved with the letters "A" and "B".
This was clearly a controller for a Famicom!
"I've become Kazuma, there won't be any Monster demons inside, will there!"