Chapter 2: The Situation
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Thud, thud, thud!
Zhou Mingrui stumbled back several steps, terrified by the sight in the mirror. It wasn't himself he saw, it was like staring at a desiccated corpse.
How could someone with such a severe wound still be alive?!
In disbelief, he tilted his head to check the other side. Even with the dim light and increased distance, he could still make out the gaping wound and the dark red bloodstains.
"This…"
Zhou Mingrui took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
He pressed his hand to his left chest, feeling his heart pounding fiercely, full of life. His fingers brushed against his exposed skin, cool to the touch on the surface, but warm with the flow of blood beneath. He crouched down, confirming his knees could still bend, then stood up again, his panic subsiding slightly.
"What's going on?" he muttered, frowning, intending to inspect the wound on his head more closely.
After taking two steps, he stopped. The dim crimson moonlight streaming through the window wasn't bright enough for a thorough examination.
A fragment of memory flashed in his mind. Zhou Mingrui turned to the wall beside the desk, where a grayish-white pipe connected to a metal-gridded wall lamp.
This was a modern gas lamp, with a steady flame and excellent lighting.
For someone like Klein Moretti, whose family wasn't well-off, even a kerosene lamp would've been a luxury, candles were more fitting for their status. But four years ago, when Klein was burning the midnight oil to prepare for Hoy University's entrance exam, his older brother Benson believed it was a critical moment for the family's future. Even if it meant borrowing money, he wanted to provide Klein with the best conditions.
Of course, Benson, literate and employed for years, wasn't reckless or shortsighted. He convinced the landlord to cover the cost of installing gas pipes by arguing it would raise the apartment's value and help with future rentals. Meanwhile, leveraging his job at an import-export company, Benson secured a modern gas lamp at near-cost price. In the end, they managed to set it up using only their savings, without borrowing a single penny.
The memory flickered by, and Zhou Mingrui returned to the desk. He opened the pipe valve and twisted the gas lamp switch.
Click, click, click.
The sound of the igniter sparked, but no light came as he'd expected.
Click, click, click!
He tried a few more times, but the lamp remained dark.
"Hmm…" Retracting his hand and pressing his throbbing left temple, Zhou Mingrui dug through his fragmented memories for an explanation.
A few seconds later, he turned and walked to the door, where another grayish-white pipe connected to a mechanical device embedded in the wall.
It was a gas meter!
Glancing at the exposed gears and bearings, Zhou Mingrui reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin.
The coin was a dull yellow, glinting with a coppery sheen. Its front bore the image of a crowned man, while the back featured a wheat stalk encircling the number "1."
Zhou Mingrui recognized it as the Loen Kingdom's basic currency, a copper penny. One penny was roughly equivalent to three or four yuan from his previous life. There were also coins worth 5 pennies, half a penny, and a quarter penny, but they weren't precise enough for daily use, so people often rounded up when making purchases.
He flipped the copper penny, minted during King George III's coronation, between his fingers a few times before sliding it into the gas meter's narrow, vertical slot.
Clink, clank!
As the penny dropped inside, the sound of gears turning followed, playing a short, pleasant mechanical tune.
Zhou Mingrui watched for a moment before returning to the wooden desk and twisting the gas lamp switch again.
Click, click, click. Snap!
A small flame sparked to life, quickly growing larger. Bright light filled the lamp's interior, then spilled through the clear glass, bathing the room in a warm glow.
The darkness receded, and the crimson moonlight retreated beyond the window. Zhou Mingrui felt an inexplicable sense of relief. He hurried to the full-length mirror.
This time, he closely examined his temple, not missing a single detail.
After careful inspection, he noticed that aside from the initial bloodstains, no fresh blood flowed from the gruesome wound. It was as if it had been perfectly bandaged and treated. The grayish-white brain matter twitched faintly, and the torn flesh was visibly regenerating at a pace he could see. In perhaps thirty or forty minutes, or at most two or three hours, only a shallow scar would remain.
"Is this some kind of healing perk from transmigration?" Zhou Mingrui quirked the corner of his mouth, muttering to himself.
He let out a long breath. Whatever the reason, he was still alive!
Steadying his nerves, he opened a drawer, took out a small bar of soap, and grabbed one of the worn towels hanging near the cabinet. Then he opened the door and headed to the shared bathroom for the second-floor tenants.
The blood on his head needed to be cleaned up. Looking like a crime scene wasn't just unsettling for him, it'd be a disaster if he scared his sister Melissa, who had to wake up early tomorrow!
Outside, the corridor was pitch black, with only the faint crimson moonlight filtering through the window at the far end, vaguely outlining objects. They looked like pairs of monstrous eyes silently watching the living in the deep night.
Zhou Mingrui lightened his steps, feeling a bit uneasy as he made his way to the bathroom.
Inside, the moonlight was brighter, and everything became clearer. Zhou Mingrui stood at the washstand and turned on the faucet.
*Splash!* The sound of running water filled his ears, and suddenly, he thought of the landlord, Mr. Franky.
Since water was included in the rent, the short, wiry man, always dressed in a top hat, vest, and black suit, frequently patrolled the bathrooms, listening for the sound of running water.
If the flow was too loud, Mr. Franky would abandon all gentlemanly decorum, furiously banging on the door with his cane and shouting, "Damn thieves!" "Wasting water is shameful!" "I've got my eye on you!" "One more time, and you can take your filthy luggage and get out!" "Trust me, this is the best deal in all of Tingen. You'll never find a more generous landlord!"
Snapping out of his thoughts, Zhou Mingrui wet the towel and began scrubbing the blood from his face, over and over.
When he checked the bathroom's cracked mirror and confirmed only the ghastly wound and a pale face remained, he felt a wave of relief. He then stripped off his linen shirt and used the soap to scrub out the bloodstains.
At that moment, his brow furrowed as another concern hit him:
With such an exaggerated wound and so much blood, there should be traces of it elsewhere in the room!
A few minutes later, Zhou Mingrui finished cleaning his shirt and hurried back with the wet towel. He first wiped away the bloodied handprint on the desk, then used the gas lamp's light to search for other traces.
His search quickly revealed blood splattered on the floor and under the desk, along with a gleaming brass bullet casing near the left wall.
"…Shot himself in the temple with the revolver?" The clues clicked together, and Zhou Mingrui roughly understood the cause of Klein's death.
He didn't rush to confirm his theory. Instead, he meticulously cleaned the bloodstains and tidied the "crime scene." Only then did he pick up the bullet casing, return to the desk, and open the revolver's cylinder, tipping out the contents.
Clack, clack, clack.
Five bullets and one empty casing, all gleaming with a brass sheen, fell onto the desk.
"As expected…" Zhou Mingrui glanced at the empty casing, nodding slightly as he reloaded the bullets into the cylinder.
His gaze shifted left to the open notebook, where the words "Everyone will die, including me" were written. More questions surged in his mind.
Where did the gun come from?
Was it suicide, or staged to look like one?
What kind of trouble could a common-born history graduate get into?
How could such a suicide method leave so little blood? Was it because I transmigrated in time, bringing some kind of healing benefit?
After a moment of contemplation, Zhou Mingrui changed into another linen shirt and sat down, pondering a more pressing issue.
Klein's fate wasn't his main concern right now. The real question was why he had transmigrated, and whether he could return.
His parents, relatives, best friends, the vibrant online world, all sorts of delicious food… these fueled his desperate longing to go back!
Clack, clack, clack…
His right hand absentmindedly spun the revolver's cylinder, opening and closing it repeatedly.
"Nothing too unusual has happened lately, just a bit of bad luck. How did I suddenly transmigrate?"
"Bad luck… Wait, that's right! Before dinner tonight, I performed a luck-transfer ritual!"
A bolt of lightning flashed through Zhou Mingrui's mind, illuminating memories shrouded in fog.
As a self-proclaimed "know-it-all" in keyboard politics, history, economics, biology, and folklore, he often boasted of knowing a little about everything, though his friends teased he only knew "a little" about everything.
Occultism was one of those interests.
Last year, while visiting his hometown, he found a thread-bound, vertical-script book at an old bookstall called 'Secrets of Qin and Han Occult Arts'. It seemed intriguing and useful for online bragging, so he bought it. But his interest faded quickly, the vertical script was a pain to read, and after skimming the opening, he tossed it into a corner.
Then, over the past month, bad luck struck repeatedly: he lost his phone, clients bailed, and work mistakes piled up. That's when he recalled the luck-transfer ritual mentioned in the book's opening. It was simple, requiring no expertise.
With a "why not, it's free" mindset, he dug out the book and performed the ritual before dinner. Nothing happened at the time.
But in the middle of the night, he transmigrated!
Transmigrated!
"It's probably that luck-transfer ritual… Alright, I'll try it again tomorrow. If that's really the cause, I might have a shot at going back!" Zhou Mingrui stopped spinning the revolver and sat up straight.
No matter what, he had to try!
Even a dead horse was worth treating like a live one!