absurd deduction game.

The notebook's corners were worn, and it emitted a smell similar to the room's—a mixture of old parchment and rusty metal.

Yu Xing took out the notebook, brushed the dust off the cover, and opened the first page.

The handwriting inside was initially neat, but it became increasingly chaotic and illegible as it went on, as if the writer's rationality was being gradually devoured.

The ink color also varies in shade; sometimes it is a normal blue-black, and sometimes it presents an eerie dark red or deep purple.

[Date in Star Calendar Year X Month X Day]

...Routine observations. The Andromeda Nebula is unusually active, with energy fluctuations similar in frequency to those described in Chapter Seven of the Hermes Fragments... Perhaps it's not a coincidence. The blessing of the Knowledge Messenger allows me to perceive more... But is this a blessing or a curse?

[Date in Star Calendar Year X Month X Day]

...They're not stationary! They're moving! In a way that transcends the laws of physics! Trajectories...the trajectories contain information! I must decipher them! Emily says I'm crazy, she doesn't understand! She understands nothing!

[Date in Star Calendar Year X Month X Day]

...Last night I dreamt of a giant eye, opening in a sea of ​​stars. It was looking at me. No, it was looking at me through the stars! All the stars were its eyes! We have always lived under its gaze! ...Today the bread tastes strange, like rust.

[Date in Star Calendar Year X Month X Day]

...Trajectories are traps! They're bait! They deliberately display these tracks to lure observers like us! For what? For...connection? Assimilation? I must warn...warn whom? Who will believe me? The church? No, they'll only see me as a heretic!

[Year X Month X Day] (The handwriting is almost illegible, and the ink is dark red)

...Blood...the moon...is coming...it answered me...through the mirror...the mirror is a passage...I'm finally...about to see...the real...answer...

The further you flip through the pages, the more fragmented the records become, filled with meaningless symbols, distorted star charts, and scribbles that sound like painful groans.

Yu Xing calmly read through these insane ramblings, trying to extract useful information from them.

When he turned to the last page and his gaze fell on the words "the mirror is a passage" and "the blood moon is coming," a strange change occurred!
The notebook in his hand suddenly became scalding hot.

The chaotic handwriting on the pages seemed to come alive, wriggling like twisted tadpoles and radiating intense spiritual energy!

At the same time, the dusty mirror on the desk suddenly became crystal clear, no longer reflecting the blood moon illusion outside the window, but instead acting like a vortex, exerting a powerful suction on the mind.

Yu Xing felt the surrounding scenery begin to distort and rotate, as if the space itself was being folded.

The desk, the rocking chair, the old woman, and the entire room became blurry, but the mirror grew brighter and larger, as if it were about to swallow him whole!

He did not resist this force—because he did not feel any direct malice or aggression; it was more like a…replay of a record, triggered by some powerful residual intent.

The next moment, the dizzying sensation disappeared.

Yu Xing found herself still standing in that master bedroom, but everything was different.

The sky outside the window was no longer a perpetual blood red, but a normal, deep night sky, dotted with sparse stars.

The room was clean and tidy, free of dust, with furniture arranged in an orderly fashion. The air was filled with a faint scent of ink and books, not just decay and madness.

He seemed to be inside the mirror, gazing at the small room through an invisible barrier.

A man sat at the desk.

The man appeared to be around thirty years old, with disheveled hair, an unshaven beard, and deep-set, bloodshot eyes, but those eyes gleamed with an almost burning, morbidly fanatical light. He wore a wrinkled shirt and was hunched over a table, writing rapidly with a quill pen on an open notebook, muttering to himself unconsciously.

This is Riel in his youth.

All of this was reflected in the silver-rimmed hand mirror on the desk, which was now spotless!

Yu Xing seemed to become an invisible observer, peering through this mirror at that special night more than thirty years ago.

In the mirror, Riel finished writing the last few frantic characters, then abruptly threw down his pen, ran his hands into his hair, and let out a suppressed growl, seemingly under immense mental pressure.

at this time--

The scene in the mirror, the night sky outside the window, the originally bright moon, was rapidly stained with a thick, unyielding, and heart-palpitating blood red at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Blood-red moonlight streamed through the window, filling the entire room and casting an ominous glow over everything.

Riel suddenly raised his head and looked out the window at the blood moon.

The fervor on his face instantly transformed into a state of bewilderment and confusion, followed by an indescribable...devotion and longing.

He slowly stood up and walked unsteadily to the window—where a telescope, which Yu Xing would never see in this room thirty years later, was set up.

In the mirror's reflection, Yu Xing saw Ruier bring his eyes close to the telescope and begin to gaze at the night sky.

Riel's body began to tremble violently, not from fear, but from extreme excitement.

A huge, unnatural smile spread across his lips, and the blood-red reflection in his eyes grew brighter and brighter…

Through the reflection in the mirror, Yu Xing could also see that the door to the room had been gently pushed open a crack.

A young woman... a young woman who bore a striking resemblance to the old woman in the rocking chair, her terrified and worried face appeared behind the crack in the door.

She seemed to want to come in and check on her husband, but was too frightened to move by the sight before her.

"Rail...are you alright?"

After a long pause, the woman named Emily could only ask this cautiously in a low voice.

The man gazing at the moon, a strange smile on his face, murmured repeatedly, "Ryle?"

He said, "Oh, yes, of course."

“I am Riel, I am fine, I am fine... Emily.”

In the mirror, Yu Xing saw that young Emily's face was contorted with extreme fear. She covered her mouth, trying her best not to scream.

By the window, bathed in the glow of the blood moon, Riel's eerie smile, a mixture of fanaticism and piety, had not yet faded, but his aura had become even more ethereal and dangerous, as if he were transcending the realm of humanity.

“Emily…” Riel suddenly spoke, his voice no longer gentle as usual, but hollow and echoing, as if coming from a great distance, yet clearly penetrating Emily’s ears, “I heard the sounds downstairs… Are our church friends here?”

"Hmm? Why are you shaking?" (End of Chapter)