Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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“Xiao Ma, leave the room first and hide in the security booth.” Li Yuebai raised his head from the computer and gave a serious warning without hesitation.
That strange figure must be a dormant vampire. The worst case scenario would be that it was still in this room!
“Okay, okay…” Ma Xiaoting was too scared to go near Xu Lili’s room. When she heard this, she nodded obediently and walked backwards step by step. Although she was very curious about what was on the computer, her fear still overcame her curiosity.
At this time, her cell phone rang. It was the sound of the instant messaging tool.
Ma Xiaoting was startled and took out her phone reflexively and opened it.
It was from Wu He.
Wu He: Xiaoting, what is Lili doing?
Wu He: Lili sent me a photo before, which scared me to death. Then she didn’t reply to me for a long time. Have you seen her?
Wu He: [Picture]
Wu He: That’s it. I don’t know what app she used to create it…
That terrifying photo appeared on Ma Xiaoting’s phone screen.
“Ah!” Ma Xiaoting let out a tearful scream. The phone slipped from her hands, and she collapsed to the floor.
She’d been working late, skipping dinner, and was in a state of fear, her nerves on edge. Now, this photo was the final straw.
Li Yuebai lifted her from the floor, carried her to the sofa, and covered her with a nearby blanket. He checked her pulse and breathing, and they were fine, she had just fainted from shock. In this situation, sending her out wasn’t necessarily safe, so she had to stay here for the time being.
Then, he turned on all the lights in the rental apartment and carefully searched the room, from obvious places to cabinets and drawers, but found no trace of the dormant vampire.
Could it have escaped?
Xu Lili’s body was right here, so why wasn’t it possessing her?
“Is Wu He suspicious?” Ye Qing asked. “If she hadn’t sent the picture to Ma Xiaoting…”
“Not necessarily. I think Wu He has been pretty normal so far,” Li Yuebai said. “Anyone else would have acted the same way.”
In this age of instant messaging, if a friend suddenly sends a terrifying photo and doesn’t reply, the first reaction is to check with the people you live with.
Ye Qing first opened Xu Lili’s personal homepage. Since her phone was password-protected, her homepage was accessible directly. There were both public and private entries.
The public entries were perfectly normal, but the private entries were filled with strange mumblings.
These mumblings began on July 20th, when Xu Lili posted a post titled: “I Really Want to Open a Box.” It was a stream-of-consciousness rambling about how much she wanted to open a box, how intense that desire was.
“Want to open a box? Is that a metaphor? Want to solve a problem, want to free myself?” Li Yuebai couldn’t tell if the entry had any connection to the case.
The diaries of the middle school boys and girls in his class were filled with this kind of stream-of-consciousness, constantly rambling, like, “In this dark world, I’m like a lotus flower trapped in a quagmire…”
Taking it all seriously would be foolish.
On July 30th, a few days ago, Xu Lili posted another entry titled, “I Really Want a Necklace.” Again, it was a stream-of-consciousness story, describing how the necklace enticed her, how she wanted it at all costs, even at the cost of her life.
This feeling was easier to understand; it was probably something everyone experienced: a favorite piece of expensive jewelry, a favorite game console, a favorite phone… For a girl of Xu Lili’s age, having a particular necklace was perfectly normal. Unable to find any significant clues in the diary, Li Yuebai instructed Ye Qing to open the online shopping platform, log in with the default account, and then open the “Purchased Items” list.
It was filled with affordable everyday items like clothes; there was no record of a particularly expensive necklace.
They had just searched the entire room. There were several necklaces, and according to Ma Xiaoting’s identification, they were all cheap, common brands and styles. None matched the cherished tone of the entry.
Li Yuebai frowned as he watched the list scroll down, his mind tangled like a knot of twine, unable to be untangled.
“Okay, go slower here.” Li Yuebai placed one hand on the table and the other on Ye Qing’s shoulder.
“Slow down?”
“Slow down your scrolling. It’s almost July 20th.” Li Yuebai stared at the screen, frowning. “On July 20th, Xu Lili posted a somewhat strange entry. Perhaps it’s related to something she bought.”
Strangely, there was no purchase record for July 20th; she didn’t buy anything that day.
“Then keep scrolling down. Maybe it wasn’t purchased on July 20th but received on July 20th!” Li Yuebai said.
Soon, a unique “purchased item” entry appeared.
The purchase date was July 1st, and it was promised to arrive within 20 days… just in time!
When they looked at the item’s description— there was no photo, just text: “Castle Stone.”
The detailed description stated: A centuries-old village castle collapsed in the eastern suburbs of Landshut, Germany. The fallen stones from there are being sold as souvenirs to tourists for just a few euros each. Attached are photos and videos of the castle before the collapse. The scenery was indeed beautiful. The castle however was a deep black, small, and ancient and heavy.
Selling bricks? That was not uncommon. There’s a long-standing joke in the inspirational world: When the Statue of Liberty was completed, the builders were worried about what to do with the leftover scraps. Then, a clever employee came up with the idea: process the scraps into miniature statues and sell them to tourists! They made a killing! Regardless of the truth of the joke, this business model is ubiquitous in modern society and isn’t at all unusual. Li Yuebai himself had purchased a souvenir made from leftover wood from a tourist attraction.
Just now, when they were searching through Xu Lili’s belongings, they found a single object with a different design among the miscellaneous items: a black, square stone. It had to be the Castle Stone.
The two clues connected, but their purpose was unclear.
After receiving the Castle Stone, Xu Lili posted in her blog: “I want to open a box… Stone, box, stone, box… Visually, there are similarities.”
Could the box be the Castle Stone?
Li Yuebai squatted down, dug out the stone, and held it in his hands—it wasn’t very heavy, about the size of an ordinary brick, but half the weight. It was made of black basalt, rough, and there was no visible opening.
If it was the box, did Xu Lili actually open it? Was it opened and then closed again, or had it never been opened?
Recalling the anxious tone in the log, Li Yuebai guessed that Xu Lili must have already opened the box, otherwise she wouldn’t have stopped mentioning it.
Could this thing really be opened? Li Yuebai and the stone stared at each other, their eyes agape. After struggling for a long time, he couldn’t find the trick. In desperation, he handed the stone to Ye Qing.
Ye Qing took it and weighed it. “The weight is wrong.”
“Lighter than an ordinary brick, at most a kilogram,” Li Yuebai estimated.
“It weighs 983.5 grams. The internal structure is a bit complicated.” Ye Qing’s face was gloomy, and he tapped on the stone with his slender fingers. “There’s a cavity inside. Besides the cavity, there’s a cylindrical channel on the left side, T-shaped…”
Li Yuebai was confused. “Xiao Ye, do you have a built-in X-ray scanner?”
“I can’t see it. I guessed it based on the knocking sound.” Ye Qing didn’t blink, making it hard to tell whether he was telling the truth. Never mind.
After all, he had already travelled through time, so having a companion with special abilities wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Ye Qing took a piece of paper and roughly sketched out his hypothesized internal structure.
After the drawing was complete, Li Yuebai took it and took a look. Suddenly, it dawned on him: Wasn’t this a variation of the “Lu Ban Lock[1]“?
When he was a kid, there were always toys like that sold at the school gate. There were wooden and iron ones, often in sets of several, square, round, and all sorts of shapes. They all used simple mechanical principles, with the pieces snapping together. With the right method, they could be disassembled. These little toys were sometimes called “Lu Ban Locks” or “Kong Ming Locks.” Even today, they could still be purchased.
One type of Lu Ban Lock was a square wooden box. It couldn’t be opened directly; you had to tilt it in one direction, then in another perpendicular direction—using gravity to push a small weight inside to a key point before it can be opened.
The castle stone was a bit more complicated—they contained a winding maze of passages, and inside each passage was a small stone ball. It could only be opened by moving the stone ball to the end of the passage.
“You do it.” Li Yuebai decisively assigned the task to Ye Qing.
Ye Qing might truly possess special abilities. He had an exceptionally keen sense of numbers, calculations, weight, and shape. Chinese teacher Li Yuebai felt ashamed of himself.
Ye Qing closed his eyes, gripped the stone in both hands, and delicately spun it. No matter what he did, his expression was one of intense concentration, devoid of any arrogance or disdain that befell him as a genius. Just like just now, no matter how simple the computer password was, he diligently cracked it, and even after successfully cracking it, his expression remained perfectly unchanged. This was completely different from Li Yuebai, who would eagerly boast about his success.
Not long after, a low, cracking sound echoed from within the ancient castle stone, and then it opened.
Li Yuebai, having read some martial arts novels, had a feeling that if a mysterious box was opened, poisonous smoke or needles might emerge. So, instinctively, he swooped in behind Ye Qing, covered his mouth and nose, and yanked him back.
Ye Qing was nearly thrown off balance by his pull.
Fortunately, nothing remarkable emerged from the stone.
Within the cavity lay a small coffin, black, crudely crafted, and of a primitive shape. Its material couldn’t be discerned. Several deep strangulation marks marked its surface.
At this point, Li Yuebai was certain this object was connected to Xu Lili’s death.
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