I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Three minutes later, the things in front of them began to recede.

Richard was becoming increasingly adept at venturing into the spirit world for the second time.

It was still that thick, sticky layer of "water," with strands of thoughts floating on it.

Richard explored his inspiration.

The first patch was extremely cold; when it touched his finger on the material side, he jerked back sharply, almost dropping his pen.

He quickly bypassed the cold mass and moved on to a smaller one nearby.

The hand started moving.

The first line of words that the pen wrote on the white paper was crooked and uneven, a dialect of Gaelic from the northern highlands.

He continued writing, but stopped after writing most of it.

The fragment breaks off here.

I let go of that thought, and inspiration drifted to the side.

A string of numbers was written out by hand, without any accompanying language or symbols.

There are 27 characters in total, divided into five groups by short horizontal lines.

It doesn't look like latitude and longitude, or any date format.

The arrangement is somewhat similar to a certain encoding system.

Inspiration continued to drift outwards, but the next few strands caught were all shallow:

A certain accountant kept a record until his death that there was a discrepancy of three shillings and four pence;

One of the maids was still thinking about the unfinished embroidery sheet locked in a chest in the attic. She had only embroidered the seventh rose when she could no longer continue.

Richard copied them all down, though he probably wouldn't be able to sell them for much.

He could feel his knowledge, perception, and critical thinking all increasing.

Especially [Perception], it's not far from reaching level 4.

His hand quickly slowed down, and the trajectory of the pen tip changed from words to arcs.

Richard didn't take it seriously at first.

He thought it was some fragmented, lingering thought that had tugged at the pen tip, similar to the broken, garbled code he had encountered before.

The arc draws a long, upward slope.

After reaching the top, it veered down, then went up again, made two short jumps, and then trailed off in a long arc before coming to a stop.

This was a musical note; he recognized the melody, or rather, the entire empire recognized it.

"it#039s a long way to tipperary"

Since the start of the war in August, this song has been echoing in the streets, bars, and train station platforms.

The soldiers sang it as they boarded the troop transport ship.

A newspaper correspondent wrote that when the expeditionary force set off from the port of Bronne, the entire column sang this song in unison.

The song carried for a mile along the embankment, and even the French fisherwomen who helped carry ammunition boxes on the dock could hum along.

Evelyn called herself last week and said that a new tobacco shop had opened on Briston Central Street.

The shop owner had a tin loudspeaker at the entrance, playing "Tipperelli" on a loop from morning till night.

Richard's hand moved again, and he drew it a second and third time, completely.

He initially thought he had simply been daydreaming.

It's perfectly normal for a melody you hear every day to pop into your head while you're in a daze.

Just like humming a song unconsciously while taking a shower, you don't need to think about it.

But on the fourth try, he realized something was wrong.

That song echoes in the spirit world.

Within the range of his inspiration, he could distinguish at least dozens... no, hundreds of sounds.

From a distance, it sounds like they're singing in unison.

If you listen carefully, you'll find that it's hundreds of people each singing their own version, unaware that there are others singing next to them.

At the very moment he leaned forward, his shadow moved on the shallows.

He stopped, and a tiny dot of ink seeped from the tip of the pen, slowly spreading outwards.

Mrs. McNeil glanced at the pocket watch on the corner of the table; it was twenty-two minutes.

She reached out and gently patted Richard's hand.

The thick, sticky layer of water receded.

Richard's head felt a little swollen at the back, but it was much better than the first time.

He looked down at the sheet of paper, which contained four and a half pages of writing.

Mrs. McNeil took the paper and examined it more carefully than before.

When she turned to the first page containing the Gaelic fragments, she raised her eyebrows slightly.

"This has some value."

Her finger paused on a certain word root.

"The northern highland dialect is very old..."

This method of conjugation was established at least before Romanization, and it was recorded orally by those who wrote it down, with the strokes still showing traces of tongue movement.

She brought that page closer to the candle.

"The fragments of the Exorcism series, the frame and several Highland incantations I've seen are of the same type."

"They can be sold. There are several old guilds in the highlands that have been collecting these kinds of fragments and trying to restore them."

When she turned to the second page and saw that string of numbers, she glanced at Richard.

"Can you smell anything?"

"The smell of carbon and metal powder mixed together, and someone engraving numbers on copper plates in a cellar," Richard replied.

Mrs. McNeill used her inspiration to touch the lingering scent on the paper.

"It might be the recipe number of some alchemist."

"There are a few private collectors in the capital who specialize in collecting these kinds of coded indexes left behind by the dead. Occasionally, they might come across a number that matches a lost recipe perfectly."

She turned the page and continued reading, quickly skimming through the few fragmented paragraphs.

Then, she turned to the bottom half of the fourth page.

"You heard this song in the spirit world."

"Hmm." Richard leaned the back of his head back in his chair.

"It's very far away; at least several hundred voices are singing."

The melody is all correct... exactly the same as what's being sung on the street and played on the gramophone.

He stared at the ripples between the fifth notes on the paper.

"But every time we get to the same spot, it pauses for a beat, and during that pause, something is twitching."

"What are you smoking?"

"I can't explain it." Richard's hand unconsciously touched the silver ring on his chest.

"Take a breath straight out of your throat, then continue singing, and repeat the same action on the next repetition."

Mrs. McNeil pulled the paper out of that pocket.

"Something has been circulating in the capital and even throughout the entire north recently."

She looked away from the paper.

Have you heard about the phonograph wax cylinder incident elsewhere?

Richard nodded.

"The version I heard was something like, 'A female voice sang a song that no one had ever heard before in a wax cylinder.'"

Mrs. McNeil shook her head:

"The actual situation is more complicated than that."

"The songs played on this phonograph changed with the times. When the war broke out, the ladies listened to less opera and started listening to marches and war songs."

Newspapers were constantly advertising conscription, and the phonograph wax cylinder factory was working day and night to meet its production targets.

"It absorbed all these new sounds."

She continued, "At first, nobody thought anything was wrong."

"The marching song 'Tiperelli' was played in the wax tube, and it was sung throughout the entire empire."

"The first incident occurred at the end of September in a lady's living room salon in the Chelsea area."

"After the phonograph finished playing once, everyone was still chatting and no one went to flip it over and change the tube."

"But the phonograph started playing again on its own, and it was still playing the same song."

The people present exchanged glances, assuming the maid had accidentally pressed the switch, and didn't think much of it... Who would make a fuss about hearing this song just once more?

She tapped her index finger on the table.

The next morning, seven out of the eleven people present found themselves humming the song.

"Think about it, what's there to care about?"

"The whole empire is singing it, but if you walk down the street and hear someone humming it, you won't even glance at them."

The wife hums in the kitchen, the husband whistles while shaving, and the child taps out the same rhythm with a spoon at the table—it's all perfectly normal.

"So nobody cares."

Richard understood the hidden meaning in her words.

The more commonplace something is, the later people will discover a problem with it.

"Until the tenth day."

"Among those seven people was a woman whose husband worked at a branch office."

"He noticed one thing: every time his wife sang the same place, the 'doca' mark on the sheet music, her mouth would stop."

"During that pause, her mouth was moving."

"Her husband squatted down next to her and listened closely several times, but he still couldn't hear clearly."

The mouth was moving, and air was being exhaled, but the sound was trapped between the throat and the lips.

It couldn't come out, but it also didn't go back down.

"My husband is a professional in this field, and he used his clairvoyance to take a look at it."

"What did you see?"

"I didn't see anything."

"Later, investigators from the branch office came to check several times," Mrs. McNeil continued.

"Every time I checked the phonograph, it was very quiet, and the etheric field in the living room was no different from that in any other house."

"Is your wife not singing anymore?"

She stopped singing as soon as the investigator walked in.

"As soon as the investigator left, the wife started singing again."

"From the end of September until now..." Richard began slowly, "it's been more than a month."

"And it's spreading." Mrs. McNeil nodded.

That's the hardest part; you can't stop people from singing this song.

It was a pillar of strength during wartime, a slogan on recruitment posters, and a melody a mother hummed while holding back tears as she saw her son off at the train station.

Ban it? You might as well ban the sun.

But everyone who sings it could be a turning point.

"The branch office in the capital is also facing a dilemma."

Mrs. McNeil added another sentence.

"Every time we go for a checkup, they can't find anything, and the report can only say 'no abnormalities found'."

She folded the paper neatly.

"And it's not just the capital; it's happening in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow... in every city with a gramophone, a salon, and a gathering of wives."

"You can't tell who's singing normally and who's being led astray."

Richard looked at the musical notes on the paper.

He himself had listened to Tipperelli countless times.

In Greenwood, at Briston train station, on that old man's hand-cranked organ on the streets of College District.

Mrs. McNeil tucked the folded paper into her notebook.

"I'll take this one with me and show it to my teacher when I get back."

"Just memorize it yourself, but don't hum it out loud or tap the beat on the table with your fingers."

Richard kept his mouth tightly shut.

But what's the point if you don't sing?

As soon as he stepped out of that door, people started singing on the street, and he couldn't stop them from singing.

Mrs. McNeil closed the notebook.

"As for the rest, the fragment of the Gaelic spell and that serial number, I'll contact the buyer for you."

She started tidying up the desk.

"The main thing is that the serial number needs further verification. Let's keep it for now and not rush to sell it."

"Where's that melody?"

"The melody has no commercial value; its value lies elsewhere."

Someone is doing something with a song, simultaneously from both sides of the curtain.

The Angel of Mons was unintentionally formed from the fear and prayers of tens of thousands of soldiers; its existence ended after it was taken away.

This song is a net, and everyone who sings it is a knot. The net grows silently.

Mrs. McNeil stood up.

"The base fee for the second order is two pounds."

She counted out two one-pound notes from her handbag.

"After the spell is sold, the buyer's share of the money will be mailed to you."

"Okay." Richard put the two banknotes into his wallet.

Mrs. McNeil stood beside the curtain.

"You can try doing it yourself next time."

"You don't need any more care?"

"No need, but it can only be done at Imperial University. The sealing array at Imperial University is actually more effective than me watching over you here."

She glanced in the direction of the silver ring on Richard's chest.

"Moreover, with the teacher's mark on you, things from the spirit world are less likely to approach you."

She pulled her scarf up higher, and the wind from outside drifted in from the corridor.

"But you have to follow the rules yourself."

"Don't delve too deeply. I suggest you take at least one to two months off before continuing, Secretary."

"Understood."

Mrs. McNeil nodded and left, the curtain gently falling back behind her.

Richard sat in the darkness for a while, then got up, pushed open the curtain, and walked into the corridor.

As I passed the bar, the owner was polishing a copper kettle.

"Go out, turn left, walk to the end, then turn right. The road sign is crooked."

"I understand, thank you."

You're welcome.

Stepping out of the alley, the main street was bustling with activity.

Across the street, in front of a small tavern, two young men in military uniforms were squatting and smoking.

The bus stop is just a few steps ahead.

Richard stood on the platform, waiting for the next train to the college area.

Someone is singing in that little bar across the street.

"One day, a young man from Ireland arrived in the bustling capital city?"

"The streets seemed to be paved with gold, and everyone was humming the Piccadilly song with great joy."

It wasn't just one person; several voices mingled together, their sounds thick and slurred with the effects of alcohol.

"A long road to Tipperelli, a long road indeed?"

"A long, long road to Tipperelli, to see my sweetest girl?"

The song they sang was "Tipperelli".

Goodbye, Piccadilly?

Goodbye, Leicester Square?

"The journey to Tipperelli is long, but my heart is there."