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墨書 Inktalez
"This is a line of poetry, or does it hide some other mystery?" I thought, and called over Li Zhisheng to help me analyze it. Li Zhisheng took a look and repeated, "To break the soul's separation, only Lock Heart. Prosperous Scene seals the door, Danwei seeks the person." He then fell into deep thought.
"To break the soul's separation, only Lock Heart. The first half is easy to understand; this 'soul separation' should refer to the Soul Separation Spell on you. And Lock Heart should be the method to break this separation. But what confuses me is the second half: Prosperous Scene seals the door, Danwei seeks the person. What does this mean…"
Li Zhisheng nodded in agreement with my interpretation. He said, "The first half is certainly correct; the problem lies in the second half. Since it mentions seeking a person, it clearly indicates that we need to find someone. But who is this person we are supposed to find?"
I looked at the envelope in my hand and replied, "According to your reasoning, I now have two people to find. One is the person who gave me this envelope, and the other is your person."
"Have you found any useful clues?" Hu Fang suddenly snatched the envelope from my hand. "Hey, you…" I reached out to take it back, but Hu Fang turned away from me and began reading the poem on the envelope.
"The letter says that we can use Lock Heart to break this Soul Separation Spell, right? As for this seeking a person part, isn't it telling us to find someone?! Let's go find them!" Hu Fang exclaimed, turning around with an eager look in her eyes directed at me and Li Zhisheng.
I understood that for a young and beautiful woman to watch herself age so quickly was more painful than death itself. But even so, until we deciphered the mystery of this poem, there was nothing we could do.
Seeing us two men silent, Hu Fang stomped her foot anxiously and said, "You two need to think of something! Look! Look!" She grabbed at her increasingly white hair and thrust it in front of us. Li Zhisheng lowered his head as he watched Hu Fang frantically tearing at her hair while shouting.
I knew that Li Zhisheng must be feeling just as bad inside. He spoke in a somewhat subdued voice, "I'm going to sleep now; let's think of something tomorrow morning." With that, he got up and returned to his room.
When Hu Fang saw him heading off to sleep, she wanted to stop him but I grabbed her arm. Looking into her tear-filled eyes, I said, "I know you're anxious and distressed. But right now we still don't understand what this poem means. Plus, you’ve also been affected by that curse." I rolled up Hu Fang's right sleeve and held it up before her. "Look at this mark; if you don’t rest well, who knows what else might happen? You should go to sleep too; we'll figure something out."
Hu Fang shook off my hand angrily: "Since you both won't help, I'll figure it out myself!" She ran over to my computer and started searching online. Seeing her stubbornness made it hard for me to stop her; I was just worried she might do something rash, so I sat down in the living room with her.
I don't know how long passed before drowsiness began to creep in. Afraid I'd fall asleep, I went to wash my face in the bathroom and then walked over to Hu Fang's side and patted her shoulder: "If you're tired, take a break; I'll help you look." She turned around, and I noticed her eyes were bloodshot and age spots were beginning to appear on her face.
But in her gaze, I saw a glimmer of joy; Hu Fang smiled slightly: "I found something..." Hearing this made me instantly alert as I leaned closer to the computer: "What did you discover?! Did you find a clue about that poem?!"
Uncertain whether it was because she had found a clue that eased her anxiety, or if it was the tranquility of the night that calmed her down, Hu Fang nodded. "The 'Prosperous Scene' refers to Fengmen Village. Perhaps if we go there, both Li Zhisheng and I will be saved."
As soon as I heard the name Fengmen Village, a sense of familiarity washed over me; it felt like I had heard it somewhere before, but I couldn't quite place it. I smiled to reassure Hu Fang, "You're so clever! Now that we've found a clue, you should go back and get some rest. I'll take care of the next steps. We'll set off early tomorrow morning. I promise I'll save you both!" I looked at Hu Fang with determination in my eyes.
Seeing my confidence, she felt more at ease and nodded before heading back to her room to sleep. Meanwhile, I took over the computer to continue my research. Fengmen Village is located on the outskirts of Qinyang City in Jiaozuo, Henan Province, at the southern foot of Taihang Mountain. The map showed that the entire village is almost built within a gorge, making transportation extremely inconvenient; there was no way to reach it directly by car.
So, I had no choice but to use their identification cards to book morning flights to Zhengzhou City. From there, I would take a car to Qinyang and then find a rental agency to rent a vehicle to drive to Fengmen Village. This was the fastest route I could think of.
After setting up the itinerary, I checked the time and decided to get some rest myself. I lay down on the sofa when a gentle breeze wafted in from the balcony. Watching the curtains sway, it suddenly dawned on me: "Fengmen Village! That ghost who helped me when I played the Four Corners Game mentioned it before. She said that if I didn’t follow her advice, this city would become a second Fengmen Village overnight. So 'Prosperous Scene' means that during times of prosperity, people vanish overnight. Isn't that exactly what happened in Fengmen Village?"
I chuckled to myself and muttered, "Looks like desperation breeds wisdom." With that thought, I drifted off to sleep. Not long after, I felt someone nudging me. Struggling to open my sleepy eyes, I focused and saw an elderly face staring back at me. Startled, I jumped up.
Hu Fang noticed my strange behavior and asked in a hoarse voice, "What’s wrong? Did I...?" I quickly waved my hands dismissively and said, "No, no! Just had a nightmare; don’t think too much about it. Oh right! I've booked the tickets; we should get ready to leave now."
"Okay, I'll go wake Li Zhisheng..." Hu Fang said as she shuffled toward Li Zhisheng's room with trembling legs. Seeing how rapidly they were aging was alarming; in less than two hours, a vibrant young woman had turned into an elderly woman.
I felt a chill run down my spine—thankfully, I had booked the tickets last night; otherwise, they might not have made it through another day. Soon after, Hu Fang returned with Li Zhisheng. "We found clues..." Li Zhisheng's speech was slurred; from his mumbling, I gathered he understood enough to respond: "We found them! We’re leaving right away; you must hold on!"
Upon hearing that we had found something, Li Zhisheng's eyes appeared dazed and unfocused—perhaps due to his rapid aging. Afterward, I instructed them to wait at the airport with their IDs while I went shopping for some basic camping supplies like tents and sleeping bags. The desolate village hadn’t been inhabited for years and was far from the city; we couldn’t possibly camp out in the wilderness without proper gear—especially with two elderly people along; if anything went wrong, there would be no way to explain it.
Having bought everything needed, I rushed to meet them at the airport. Upon arrival, I noticed Hu Fang and Li Zhisheng arguing with several airport staff members about something. "What’s going on? What happened?" I approached them with concern.
Hu Fang looked anxious as she explained, "They say our photos don’t match our IDs well enough and suspect we’re not who we claim to be. No matter how we explain it, they won’t believe us."
This unexpected situation caught me off guard as well. But time was of the essence; boarding was imminent. Desperately, I explained, "These two are indeed who they say they are! They’ve contracted some strange illness that caused them to age rapidly; we need to get them treated immediately or someone might die!" However, the staff remained skeptical.
In the end, out of options, they called the police department for verification of basic information before reluctantly allowing us through.
After a long flight of over two hours, we arrived in Zhengzhou around noon. The three of us grabbed a quick bite on the way and then took a bus at two o'clock in the afternoon to Qinyang City.
The weather was beautiful, with clear skies and pleasant scenery. However, we were too preoccupied to appreciate it; all we wanted was to reach our destination as quickly as possible. Even though we would soon arrive at Fengmen Village, we had no idea what awaited us next. Still, with the mindset that there would be a way when we got there, we pressed on.
An hour and a half later, we stood outside the Qinyang bus station. We hailed a taxi and told the driver, "Take us to the nearest car rental company." He readily agreed. A few minutes later, he stopped and asked for ten yuan. I thought to myself, "No wonder he was so quick; it’s so close."
But I didn’t have time to haggle. I paid him and got out of the car, noticing that Hu Fang and Li Zhisheng were moving faster than ever. I couldn’t afford to waste a moment. I quickly rented an SUV, set the navigation, and headed toward Fengmen Village.
As I drove, I asked Li Zhisheng from the back seat, "Have you figured out what that poem means?" He coughed twice and replied, "I don’t know... what poem?" Seeing that he seemed to have aged so much that his memory was failing him, I decided not to press further.
Instead, I turned to Hu Fang and asked, "Hu Fang, have you thought of anything?" She replied, "I've been thinking about it all this way; the second half might be the key." "Yeah, I think so too. But this Danwei looking for someone seems to indicate we need to find a person in a specific place. I believe finding this person is crucial to solving the mystery." I glanced at the navigation again to make sure we were on the right track.
Just as I turned my head to look at my phone's navigation, I suddenly realized it had malfunctioned. It seemed my phone had completely lost signal, rendering the navigation function useless. Noticing my unease, Hu Fang leaned over to take a look. "I saw something about this last night while researching; it means we should be near Fengmen Village."
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