I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Richard picked up his pen again.

He thought of the copy of "The Taboo Song of the Well" in the Briston City Library.

Those miners never received a proper education in their lives.

Some people can only draw their own names crookedly, and those with many strokes simply leave a fingerprint.

Press your finger into the inkpad and then onto the paper; that counts as signing.

But every one of their rules carries the weight of human lives.

"When you hear its name called, don't turn around or answer. If it doesn't respond after three calls, it will go find the next one."

"When eating underground, the first bite is spat back into the palm of the hand and used to wipe the well wall."

"Never borrow a lamp from underground."

These rules have been around for decades or even centuries, yet no scholar has ever written them into a paper and published them.

They are alive because the dead tested it out with their lives.

Some who didn't look back survived; others who looked back perished.

The living old man tells the story to the newcomer, and the newcomer remembers it, and he too comes to life.

It was passed on one after another like that.

Scholars wrap their knowledge in dozens of layers of wrapping paper, so much so that even the people inside the wrapping are too lazy to unwrap it.

Industry rules are passed down orally and never written down, for fear that writing them down would cause trouble for outsiders.

The entire system is locking knowledge inside; nobody is passing it out.

Richard continued writing under the lines in his notebook.

"Tell stories to people who don't understand, in a way they can comprehend."

He paused, then added another line:

"After they finish reading this, they'll know where to hide if something happens."

………………

The next day, it was already evening when class ended.

Richard went around to the public phone booth and dialed Briston.

The phone rang four times before it was answered.

"Feed?"

"It's me, Mom."

"What happened?"

The first sentence is always this.

"It's nothing." Richard leaned against the wooden wall, the wind sneaking in from behind his neck.

"How's school?"

"good."

"Are you eating?"

"I eat in the cafeteria every day, and my senior classmates often bring me snacks."

Which senior student?

"Senior Sophia, the one who talked a lot at dinner last time."

"Oh...she's a really nice person." The mother's voice softened.

"Where is Evelyn?"

"She's doing her homework upstairs, do you want to talk to her?"

Let me say a few words to you first.

Richard quickly finished his casual conversation.

"Mom, I've been thinking about writing something lately."

"Write what?"

I want to write a collection of stories.

"It's full of old rules and taboos passed down from various places."

Some of them came from mining areas, some from rural areas, and some were told by fishermen from the port.

I wrote them down in the form of interesting stories so that ordinary people could remember them.

There was silence on the other end of the phone; only the slight rise and fall of her breathing could be heard through the line.

"That essay of yours from last time." Margaret's voice changed.

Are you satisfied with yourself?

Richard got to the point.

He thought about it.

"It's ironic, but... it's actually not very useful."

"So where do you think the problem lies?"

Richard thought for a moment and then said the words his mother had told him in the kitchen of Briston.

"Just write stories, let the stories speak for themselves."

"Did you manage to do it last time?"

Richard opened his mouth, then closed it again.

It wasn't done.

What readers read is an indictment: the cruelty of the poverty relief system, the doors that are repeatedly opened and closed, and the alkali stains that cannot be washed away from the fingers of washerwomen.

After reading the accusation, my anger dissipated within two days.

"You were afraid of the dark when you were little."

The mother suddenly changed direction.

"Do you remember the story I told you?"

"...I don't quite remember."

The mother's voice carried a hint of laughter.

"A mouse lived in a hole in the wall, and every night it heard a sound outside calling it out."

The mouse was very scared and asked its mother what to do.

"Mom said, you only need to remember three things."

"First, don't respond when someone calls your name."

"Secondly, even if you agree, don't leave the cave."

Third, don't look back when you come out of the cave.

Richard's hand slid off the wooden wall.

He remembered the night he told the story.

In his memory, the old house was where he and Evelyn shared a small bedroom until they were seven or eight years old.

In winter, the quilts are damp, smelling of coal smoke and a little bit of mold that can't be squeezed out of the old cotton.

He huddled under the covers, his nose sticking out, red from the cold.

The mother sat on the edge of the bed, her hand resting on the blanket, her voice low so as not to wake her daughter.

Evelyn was already asleep in the next bed, smacking her lips and occasionally turning over, kicking the corner of the blanket to the floor.

"Your aunt is an associate professor, and she uses Latin terminology every day."

My mother's voice came through the telephone line.

"Most students forget those things after leaving the classroom, but the mouse hole story my nanny told me when I was little..."

"Thirty years have passed, but I haven't forgotten."

Richard leaned against the wall of the phone booth and switched the receiver to his other hand.

Stories outlive道理 (principles/truths).

Margaret speaks slowly.

"People may forget the道理 (principles/truths), but they will not forget the stories that made them cry, laugh, and be afraid."

Write whatever you want.

"Bury the moral of the story into its core, and let the reader discover it for themselves."

Richard stood there holding the receiver for a long time without saying anything.

"Okay, we've talked for too long. Phone calls are expensive."

The mother's voice resumed its usual rambling: "Should we have your sister come over...?"

"No need, Mom, we just called last week."

"Then go to bed early and don't stay up late."

"understood."

"Are you dressed warmly enough? It's colder in the capital than in Briston, and your coat collar is too low to keep out the wind..."

"Mom, that's enough."

"Okay...hanging up?"

"Hang up."

Over the next few days, Richard took some time to make a list.

The list is full of old rules that he has personally experienced, heard from others, and read in ciphers since he entered the industry.

Some of them had already been compiled into notes, and he picked out a few basic, easy-to-understand, and widely applicable ones to start writing.

In his first piece, he wrote about the mining area, and he referred to Briston as Ironbridge Town.

In the winter of 1873, the Tieqiao Town coal mine hired a doctor to treat the apprentices.

The apprentice was fourteen years old, and on the third day after entering the well, he developed a high fever.

During the examination, the doctor found that the apprentice had a wad of cotton soaked in wax stuffed into each of his ears.

He took the cotton out; it was clean, without blood or pus.

He asked the foreman, who said it was the old rule.

He asked again about the old rules, but the foreman glanced at him and didn't answer.

The doctor threw the cotton balls into the trash can, prescribed fever reducers, then put on his coat and headed towards town.

He stopped when he passed the ventilation shaft in the mine.

A voice was calling a name from under the iron grate.

The doctor went to the foreman, who listened without showing any expression.

He went into the dormitory, took out the candle stub that the doctor had previously overlooked from under the apprentice's pillow, lit it, and placed it on the windowsill.

He then took out a bag of coarse salt from his pocket and sprinkled it along the threshold.

He moved a stool to the doorway, sat down, and stopped talking, smoking a pipe.

The doctor asked him how long he would sit.

"Dawn breaks."

The doctor wanted to ask more questions, but the foreman was no longer looking at him.

The next day, the apprentice's fever subsided, and on his way back, the doctor passed by the ventilation shaft again and found it very quiet.

He later went to Tieqiao Town to make house calls three more times.

Every time I pass that ventilation shaft, I subconsciously slow down.

The second piece he wrote about was about ports.

The washerwoman on the back street of the dock lost her husband.

The fishing boat was found, but the people were gone; the blankets on the berth were neatly folded.

After winter set in, someone knocked three times outside the back door every night.

She opened the door once, but there was no one outside.

A puddle of water on the steps resembled a footprint, with the toes pointing outwards.

She went to the retired boatswain at the dock.

"If someone knocks on the door again, ask them... which way did you come from?"

Why?

"Your husband is dead at sea; there is no way out at sea."

That evening, it happened three more times.

The washerwoman stood behind the door and asked that question.

It had been quiet outside for a long time.

Then a voice answered, sounding a lot like her husband.

"I came from the water."

In the third piece, he wrote a story related to a market.

The woman bought an old bronze mirror for two pence at the market; the stall owner said it was cleared out of a raided hotel.

She hung it in the bedroom to use for combing her hair.

On the seventh day, her husband said she looked better than before.

On the fourteenth day, the widowed lady next door who delivered eggs asked her why the wrinkle at the corner of her eye had disappeared.

She went back to her bedroom and looked in the mirror.

The face in the mirror did look younger; the wrinkles around the eyes had disappeared, and the furrows on the forehead were half the size.

She turns right when she leaves for work, but the textile factory is on her left.

After taking three steps, it stopped and turned back.

When she got off work and went home, she called her dog.

The dog tilted its head and glanced at her, looking somewhat timid.

I finished the first draft of all three stories in a day and a half.

He put the three articles in an envelope and attached a short message.

Miss Charlotte:

Attached are the first drafts of the three stories for your perusal.

I want to write a collection of stories, each one to two thousand words long, about strange tales and taboos circulating in various places.

On the surface, it's a light read, but each story contains at least one old rule.

What should an ordinary person do when faced with this kind of situation?

The story's format borrows from medical case reports and summaries of rulings by circuit judges.

Each account is narrated by a "person who experienced it firsthand," and includes the time, place, occupation, and age of the person involved.

This format makes the story seem real, and it also allows readers from different regions to find their own place in the story.

If you believe there is a possibility of publication, please forward it to the editor-in-chief.

Charlotte replied quickly.

"I've read all three. The chill in your last one reached the very bottom of the text; it took the reader several pages to feel the coldness in the back of their neck."

This chill crept into the back of my neck right from the first line.

The difference is that the last time I read it, it made me angry; this time, it made me afraid.

Fear is more effective than anger; fear makes people do what they're told.

Richard's lips curled up slightly when he saw this.

Charlotte aptly put it: fear is more effective than anger.

He continued reading.

"The editor-in-chief has seen it and said that this is not suitable for publication in the Northern Literature Review at the moment."

Wartime censorship is strict on horror-related publications, and the editorial department didn't want to cause trouble at this critical juncture.

He suggested that you could print pamphlets at your own expense and distribute them through street vendors and newsboys.

Newsboy distribution networks in northern industrial cities were still in operation, with a single newspaper costing a penny reaching dozens of cities.

Newsboys do not need to go through the press censorship authority.

The penny pamphlet was categorized under "Public Recreation Readings".

It's in the same category as astrology guides, church sermon summaries, and Christmas recipes; nobody would censor it as a 'publication.'

Richard carefully considered the other party's suggestion.

A penny can buy a hot pie in Bristol, and a pint of milk in the capital;

A penny was one-seventh of a textile factory worker's wages for two hours.

This price is just right.

An extra line was added at the end of the letter.

"Also, the editor-in-chief asked me to tell you not to only write stories about the North."

Write southwards, write about the ports, write about the cities behind the front lines.

The more places people can relate to this, the wider the coverage will be.

Richard folded the letter and put it in the drawer.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, his mind calculating something else.

The brochures were distributed through newsboys, which meant they were widely available, had low barriers to entry, and were subject to lenient censorship.

However, the most crucial benefits are not among these three points.

The most crucial benefit is that readers don't feel like they are being "educated."

A miner, off work, was drinking a penny-pint beer in a pub, casually flipping through a couple of pages of one of these pamphlets.

When he read the story, his first reaction was, "Hey, this ghost story is quite interesting."

He wouldn't feel like someone was lecturing him, and he wouldn't even know that he remembered it.

But one day, something will call his name.

He would remember that story, plug his ears, and survive.

He turned back to his desk and began writing a reply.

"Thank you for your and the editor's comments. I will revise the article about the port."

Regarding self-funded booklet printing, if the editor-in-chief knows any reliable small printing plants, please recommend them.

Also, I'd like to give this booklet a title, tentatively called "A Collection of Strange Tales."