After the meeting, Cyclops was "escorted" by the two Marshall officers, one on each side. It looked less like he was returning to the ship to rest and more like he was a prisoner being transferred. The collar of his eternally unchanging linen shirt was askew, and the sunburn on his neck was particularly garish under the camp's dim yellow lights. Before leaving, he turned and gave me a deep, complicated look, as if he had something to say, but in the end, he just waved his hand, his figure disappearing behind the small, bumpy dirt mound leading to the temporary dock.
The lingering shock from the day, combined with the high-intensity work and mental strain, had left my body feeling completely drained of energy.
At dinner, Marto had specially prepared a thick soup, supposedly "sleep-inducing," for those of us who had experienced the "hallucinations." It was served in a coarse earthenware bowl, a blackish, sludgy concoction that smelled strangely of earth mixed with herbs. But Marto wore an earnest expression that screamed, "This is good stuff," so I just held my breath, closed my eyes, pinched my nose, and gulped it down. The taste… well, let's just say my tongue was numb for half the day afterward. Two sleeping pills would have been a more straightforward relief.
I downed it in one go, then dragged my leaden legs back to the container. The momentary relief from a hot shower was almost immediately overwhelmed by a heavy drowsiness. My hair wasn't even completely dry when my head hit the pillow, and I lost consciousness, not even having time to dream.
I was woken again by the slight "clanging" vibration of the container's sheet metal shell as the night wind blew against it. The sound wasn't loud, but in the dead of night, it was particularly grating. I fumbled for the watch on my wrist and glanced at it – 9:30 PM. Well, it seemed I had only slept for two or three hours. The fatigue in my bones had eased considerably, but my mind felt as if I'd just had coffee, unusually alert.
Inside the container, only a small emergency nightlight was on, the light dim. The air was filled with the fresh scent of the olive-flavored shower gel Baba Yaga had just used. She had already washed up and was now lying quietly on her cot.
I instinctively turned my head to look at the container's pitifully small window. Outside, it was as dark as spilled ink. Only the cold light of the Frost Moon managed to squeeze a few feeble rays through the thick clouds, listlessly sprinkling them onto the distant, inky sea, illuminating a few shimmering waves. An indefinable sense of restlessness and oppression slowly crept up from the bottom of my heart.
I quietly opened the door of the dormitory container I shared with Baba Yaga, clutching my sleeping bag. The metal hinges let out a slight "creak," which sounded exceptionally clear in the silent night.
I had barely poked half my body out when Baba Yaga's voice came from behind me.
"You're going out to sleep again?"
My back stiffened, and I almost dropped the sleeping bag. Baba Yaga was leaning against her simple cot, her eyes exceptionally sharp in the dim light.
"Sphinx," her voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable penetrating force, "tell me the truth, do you have a problem with me or something? Did I sleepwalk last night?"
I stopped abruptly, almost immediately turning around, waving my hands, my speech quickening: "No, no! Absolutely not! You slept very quietly yesterday! Why would you think that?"
Baba Yaga didn't speak, just looked at me quietly, her gaze like she was preparing to snipe someone with her rifle.
I sighed, explaining somewhat helplessly: "Actually, it's… this container's window is too small." I pointed to the small window that only let in a few slivers of moonlight. "You can't see anything."
"Can't see what?" She raised an eyebrow slightly.
"The starry sky, and the moon." I hugged my sleeping bag. "My apartment in Libélin has a floor-to-ceiling window in the bedroom. Here… if I can't see the stars, I can't sleep." I added vaguely in a low voice, feeling that explaining this almost sentimental "quirk" to a battle-hardened female mercenary, I really didn't know what logical language to use to make her believe I wasn't making excuses.
A brief silence fell in the container, only the rhythmic sound of distant waves crashing against the reefs could be heard.
After a long while, Baba Yaga finally let out a soft "Hmm," breaking the silence.
She shifted her position, seeming to relax a little, her voice also a bit softer than before: "I see."
Those simple words dispelled the little discomfort in my heart. Thank goodness, she didn't press further, although I wasn't lying.
I glanced at her. She had already turned her gaze back to the tiny patch of night sky visible through the window, as if trying to understand the starry sky I was talking about.
I hugged my sleeping bag, nodded at her, and said softly, "Well then… I'm going out."
"Mm, good night, sweet dreams." Baba Yaga lay back down, turned over, facing the wall.
I opened the door, and a cool, salty, damp breeze rushed in.
Under the moonlight, the black sand of the beach seemed to have been sprinkled with a fine layer of silver powder, glowing with a soft, cold light. The distant Ember Moon was still its usual lifeless crimson, its edges tinged with an ominous dark glow, like a giant charcoal fire about to go out. The Frost Moon, however, was as cold as ice, emitting a ghostly blue halo, like a sapphire abandoned on velvet. The two moons hung there, one high, one low, in the inky sky, forming a picture that was both bizarre and strangely magnificent.
I took a deep breath of the cool air, feeling the tightness in my chest finally dissipate considerably.
On the other side of the beach, in front of the hastily erected simple projection screen, the other male team members had just finished watching a satellite broadcast of a football match they'd procured from somewhere. The screen had already gone dark, but they were clearly not done. Marto's booming voice could be heard from afar, loudly analyzing a controversial penalty. Minos, meanwhile, was strumming his perpetually out-of-tune battered guitar, interjecting intermittently with, "That goal was definitely offside!" Krishna, for once, wasn't fiddling with his communication equipment and had joined the discussion, though his words were always drowned out by the others' loud pronouncements.
That kid Cobra was boasting to the heavens, gesticulating wildly and telling them something, his voice tinged with unconcealed pride: "Let me tell you, the vision I had this afternoon, I went straight back to the big dirt field in my old village. The football matches there, that's what you call intense! I'm telling you, with my skills, getting into a Libélin professional team as a striker would be no problem! Volleys, bicycle kicks, those are all child's play!"
"Get off it, Cobra!" Marto picked up a flattened can from the side, flicked it up with the tip of his foot. The can obediently popped up, bounced a few times on the back of his foot, then with a clever back-heel flick, the can drew an arc and landed steadily in his palm. "With your clumsy skills, a professional striker? Last time on the ship, you kicked the medical kit over while juggling, remember? Want to have a go right here on the beach? Let your big brother Marto teach you how to play football with your brain!"
"Bring it on, I'm not afraid of you!" Cobra immediately perked up at these words, rolled up his sleeves, revealing two thin but reasonably sturdy arms. "Marto, don't think I'm scared of you just because you're big! This is called agility! Technical play, understand?!"
The others immediately started jeering excitedly, clamoring to see their "beach derby." Minos simply tossed his guitar onto the sand, volunteered to be the referee, and even officiously fished out a whistle from the first-aid kit and put it in his mouth. Mimir also got interested, camera ready to record this "precious" footage. A few emergency lights were gathered, illuminating a small patch of beach brightly.
Marto tossed the can onto the sand and made an "after you" gesture. Cobra didn't hold back, took a two-step run-up, trying to get past Marto with a fancy sole-drag, but his foot slipped, and he almost tripped himself, drawing a round of laughter from the crowd. Marto, however, remained calm, saw his chance, a simple side-step and body check easily pushed Cobra aside, then a gentle tap with the inside of his foot, and the can obediently rolled to his feet. He raised his eyebrows triumphantly at Cobra, grinned, revealing a set of teeth slightly yellowed from smoking.
Cobra, not to be outdone, got up, patted the sand off himself, muttering, "The sand's too soft, it's affecting my performance," and charged forward again with a yell. The two of them went back and forth on that temporary "beach football pitch." Cobra, relying on his youth and agility, darted around, trying to break through with speed and feints. Marto, on the other hand, was experienced, his stance solid, his defense impenetrable, and he could even occasionally exploit Cobra's mistakes, using seemingly clumsy but practical little tricks to intercept the "ball." Although their skills were a million miles away from "professional strikers," their earnestness and refusal to admit defeat were quite entertaining to watch.
Finally, after a breathless chase and Minos's haphazardly blown "final whistle," the two ended in a draw with neither "scoring a goal." Cobra collapsed onto the sand, panting heavily. Marto also stood with his hands on his hips, beads of sweat on his forehead, but with a victor's smile on his face.
The crowd erupted in even louder laughter and whistles. Cobra, teased by them, yelped in protest but was helpless. They were still arguing about a certain "brilliant moment" in the game and who had won or lost a few packs of compressed biscuits, the air filled with a cheerful atmosphere, temporarily dispelling the tension and strangeness of the day.
The crowd erupted in even louder laughter. Cobra, teased by them, yelped in protest but was helpless. They were still arguing about whether a goal from the game should have counted, and who had won or lost a few packs of cigarettes, temporarily dispelling the tension and strangeness of the day.
I had no intention of getting involved in this bunch of football fanatics' revelry.
Clutching my sleeping bag, I tiptoed around them and reached the sheltered side of the sand dune where I had slept the previous night. It was relatively quiet here, with only the sound of the waves and the faint hum of the generator from the distant camp. I expertly spread out my sleeping bag, then fumbled in my backpack for my emergency light, twisted it open, and a small circle of soft orange glow lit up at my feet.
Just as I was about to get into the sleeping bag, the corner of my eye caught a familiar figure sitting on a protruding reef on the beach, near the edge of the camp's high-voltage wire. It was Anubis.
His back was to the camp lights. He sat there alone, his head slightly raised, seemingly holding something in his hand, facing the deep night sky above. By the faint light cast by the two moons, I vaguely recognized the golden astrolabe in his hand.
This guy, I grumbled inwardly, not sleeping in the middle of the night, stargazing alone out here?
The hallucinatory incident during the day still left me shaken, especially his disturbingly meticulous observation of the surrounding environment, which always made me feel like this guy was hiding a lot of secrets.
Perhaps the commotion from the football match had stirred a slight desire to talk, or perhaps the quietness of the night made it easy for one's thoughts to wander. I hesitated for a moment, then, with a "what do I care if he snaps at me" attitude, I walked towards him.
"Have you finished cleaning that astrolabe?" I tried to make my tone sound casual, stopping a short distance from him.
Anubis seemed to have sensed my approach long ago. He didn't turn around, just gave a faint "Hmm," his fingers still gently sliding over the complex calibrations on the astrolabe.
"What… did you see in your hallucination this afternoon?" I asked, as if possessed. Perhaps because I had also experienced it, I was particularly curious about what others might encounter in that bizarre, shimmering realm.
His hand movements paused for a moment. He was silent for a while before slowly speaking, his voice somewhat ethereal in the night wind: "Nothing special. I saw… the courtyard of the house where I grew up as a child." He paused, as if lost in some distant memory. "There was a jujube tree in the courtyard, very tall. I climbed the tree and threw ripe jujubes to my sister who was swinging below." His voice was very soft, almost swallowed by the sound of the waves.
This was the first time I had heard him voluntarily mention his past, albeit only in fragments.
"And your sister?" I couldn't help but press. Someone he mentioned in such a tone must be very important to him.
Anubis didn't answer my question. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the astrolabe in his hand, his tone returning to its usual lazy drawl tinged with a hint of detachment: "What about you? Sphinx, what good things did you dream of?"
I could feel him deliberately avoiding the topic of his sister. Fine, everyone has corners they don't want touched.
I took a deep breath. The salty sea breeze filled my lungs; it was a bit cold but also cleared my head. I answered honestly: "I saw myself in a spaceship, with my mother."
Anubis raised an eyebrow, seeming somewhat surprised by my candor.
"She was an astronaut." My voice was a little hoarse as I looked at the distant, dark red Ember Moon. "Many years ago, she participated in an exploratory mission to the Ember Moon. But… the spaceship malfunctioned in its scheduled orbit, and then they lost all contact with the ground. That spaceship, and everyone on it, just got lost in space, and to this day… there's been no news." I tried to keep my tone calm as I said this.
Anubis listened silently, without interjecting, nor expressing any sympathy or surprise. He continued to hold the astrolabe, aligning it with the planet Iure, the moonlight casting shifting shadows on his face.
After a long while, he finally let out a soft "Oh," then put the astrolabe down. "The surrounding lights are still too bright right now, it interferes with the view. Let's talk later when everyone has dispersed."
As he spoke, his gaze inadvertently fell back on my tablet lying nearby, the screen still displaying the photos of those ancient Gönok documents. He didn't immediately reach for it, just looked at it. After a while, he finally spoke slowly, his voice low but carrying an undeniable penetrating force: "These images... my equipment might be able to make them a bit 'clearer.'"
I understood what he meant. This guy, always making requests in that indifferent tone. I grumbled inwardly but still nodded: "Okay. I'll send them to you via satellite signal later, but it will be very slow, you know. If you want to see them, look at this first." I handed him my tablet.
"Mm," he responded, taking the tablet, his fingertips sliding across the cold screen again.
After a while, he spoke as if to himself, or perhaps to me: "This Ardashir… ran into some trouble. First, he met two young ladies from the Xu Kingdom, their status unusual, like relatives of some high official."
"Wow!" I couldn't help but let out a small exclamation.
"He also got involved in some turmoil… Someone wanted to destroy the Gönok temple in Jinxiujing and extinguish the Sacred Fire." Anubis continued flipping through the photos, his brow furrowing deeper. "Wait… this part, the before and after are photographed too blurrily, many key details are unclear. What a pity."
I leaned over to take a look. Indeed, the focus of those few photos was a bit off, as if the hand had shaken during shooting, or the light had been too dim. I couldn't help but feel a little annoyed…
Anubis didn't seem to mind my annoyance and continued to flip through, as if piecing together a huge jigsaw puzzle with many missing pieces.
"Later, the old emperor of the Xu Kingdom died, and the country had a new monarch." His voice remained steady, betraying no emotion. "Ardashir seemed to admire this new monarch greatly, and even… began to serve in the Xu imperial palace."
"Mmhmm," I replied, trying to connect these scattered pieces of information with the history of the Xu Dynasty I knew. Jinxiujing was the largest city in the world at that time, and many foreigners already lived there, even becoming close confidants of the monarch in the imperial palace.
"This girl named 'Rong'…" Anubis suddenly stopped at a photo with relatively clear handwriting, his fingertip tapping the screen lightly. "She and Ardashir have a lot of interaction. There's also Paichelan script here, next to these Gönok records, appearing more than once, as if making annotations, or… supplementary explanations. Did she write this?"
My heart skipped a beat, and I froze for a moment. Indeed, in the stone coffin discovered in Princess Zhaohui's tomb, many poems and records written in Paichelan script were signed by a female official named "Dugu Rong." Could it be… that these two "Rong"s were the same person? I didn't immediately voice my speculation, not wanting to interrupt Anubis's train of thought.
The moonlight and the flickering lights from the distant camp cast shifting shadows on his face. He just kept flipping through them quietly, page after page. Time seemed to have frozen around him, with only the mournful sound of the sea breeze blowing over the dunes and the gradually subsiding commotion from the football fanatics in the distant camp.
I sat beside him, hugging my knees, watching his focused profile, his eyelashes casting a small shadow in the faint light of the screen.
Finally, he let out a long sigh and placed the tablet on the sand. He didn't look at me immediately but gazed at the distant sea, which was somewhat whitened by the moonlight.
"These things…" he finally began, his voice a little lower than before, "how were they first discovered? I mean the person who took these photos?"
His question was like a soft brush, gently sweeping away the dust from the surface of my memory.
I thought for a moment, trying to organize the content I had seen in my grandfather's, that is, Nantang's, fragmented diaries and notes, as well as my own speculations, into a relatively objective tone: "According to some of my grandfather's records, the negatives of these documents came from a… very special tomb. The epitaph said the tomb owner was a 'Princess Zhaohui' of the Xu Dynasty, Lanyi. But in official history, this princess seems to have vanished into thin air, with no record of her. Her father was Emperor Wenguang, Chu Jin."
I paused, recalling the words on those yellowed pages, and the suppressed excitement and confusion that permeated my grandfather's writing: "There were no bones in that tomb's coffin. Only these things, densely packed scrolls and silk books, written in various scripts that are now very difficult for us to fully identify. The conditions at the time… were very bad, many documents began to deteriorate rapidly as soon as they were unearthed. My grandfather and his team, they used the best method available at the time, which was movie film, to 'photograph' them, one by one."
Anubis listened quietly.
"As for the rest, it's even more complicated. There are some official documents, some that look like personal diaries, some scattered poems, and some… incomprehensible diagrams and symbols." I looked at him and shrugged. "So, these things are very mixed up. Paichelan is also a foreign language to me, and I'm still researching it. My grandfather did some numbering before, but this arrangement method is not commonly used in Libélin archaeological academia."
Anubis didn't speak immediately, continuing to flip through the Gönok images.
The waves rhythmically crashed onto the beach, one after another.
"I see," he finally said, his voice tinged with an almost imperceptible sigh.
He looked at me, a half-smile playing on his lips, his eyes under the moonlight like two bottomless ancient wells, seemingly capable of drawing out all one's secrets. "I will slowly explain the Gönok records of Ardashir to you, but I think it's also necessary for me to understand the Paichelan records from the Xu Kingdom. Because I suspect they are intricately linked."
"That should be the case. So thank you very much, if you are willing to tell me what these Gönok texts are actually saying."
"It's okay, it piqued my interest too. However, now," he began slowly, his voice low but carrying an irresistible gravity, "if you want the story we two can piece together to be more exciting. Those past events recorded in Paichelan script from the Xu Kingdom… I think I also have the right to know. After all, warp and weft threads must cross to weave a complete net, mustn't they?"
He handed the tablet back to me. "Sphinx, it's your turn to tell me a story."