The ceremony mentioned in the diary was clearly the "culprit" that had brought him here, but there was another problem: if the doctor was infected, was there a chance he would be too?
But things had already reached this point; there was no turning back.
Moreover, looking at the outcome, the doctor’s attempt at self-rescue had clearly failed.
The doctor hadn't summoned a wish-granting dragon, a magic lamp, or a blessing deity. Instead, he had summoned a black-haired, black-eyed "half-portion of dinner" who had nearly been eaten by a bear.
Lu Yuan looked down at a yellowed, leather-like scroll pinned beneath the diary.
As soon as Lu Yuan pulled the scroll out, a bone-chilling cold spread from his fingertips. He rubbed his hands and proceeded to unfurl the scroll completely.
On the scroll was a twisted, dark red pattern.
The lines of the pattern were dense, and if one looked closely, there was a faint regularity to them, as if they were some kind of script?
Beside the pattern were lines of text that were violently trembling.
Lu Yuan focused his gaze, waiting for his "translation" system to take effect, but after several seconds, his newly acquired golden finger seemed to have jammed.
'Something's wrong!'
Lu Yuan suddenly realized that it wasn't a problem with his golden finger, but that the text on the scroll was resisting!
The lines on the scroll, which resembled blood vessels, were now wildly coiling and squirming like a mass of insects intertwining their bodies.
【Translation failed... translation failed...】
A line of gray text finally appeared in his vision, and at that moment, Lu Yuan noticed that the world before him seemed to begin shaking.
A burst of fragmented whispers rang in his ears without warning.
“...Hiss... Great... mercy...”
At first, the voice sounded far away, like a call across the deep sea.
But in the next instant, that distant, ethereal voice seemed to press against Lu Yuan's ear.
The speech grew faster, the pitch becoming sharp and piercing, carrying a nauseating fervor.
Lu Yuan realized something was wrong and tried to look away, but he found his gaze stuck as if glued. He lost all control and could only stare fixedly at the twisted scroll.
A sharp pain began to radiate from deep within his brain, as if something was attempting to crawl out from inside.
At the edge of his vision, a grayish-white system box flashed frantically:
【You seem to have perceived traces that should not exist...! Warning! Sanity is being eroded!】
【Sanity I: +1.../20】
【You have glimpsed an ancient forbidden secret; new knowledge unlocked.】
【Forbidden Lore - Gazer: +0.5, 0.5/10】
【Forbidden Lore - Gazer: +0.5...】
“Holy sh*t!”
At the critical moment of life and death, Lu Yuan's intense survival instinct finally reclaimed control of his body for an instant.
With all his strength, he flicked his wrist and threw the scroll in his hand away.
“Thud.”
The scroll landed on the floor, still trembling.
But a moment later, an invisible force seemed to emerge, slowly suppressing the scroll until it eventually returned to its original state.
The moment the scroll returned to normal, the maddening whispers in Lu Yuan's ears ceased abruptly.
The room instantly returned to a deathly silence, save for the occasional crackle of the firewood in the fireplace.
Lu Yuan collapsed into his chair, unable to control his heavy breathing. Cold sweat instantly soaked his back, and the crazed murmurs still seemed to linger faintly in his ears.
Tapping his head, Lu Yuan stared at the scroll on the floor with a hint of trepidation in his eyes.
“What kind of hellish world is this...”
【Forbidden Lore - Gazer: 4.5/10】
【Sanity I: 11/20】
Lu Yuan glanced at the pop-up prompts and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Only after the remaining abnormality in his ears disappeared did he stand up.
He began to think about how to handle the scroll in front of him.
‘Should I just throw it directly into the fireplace?’
But he immediately rejected the idea.
Since this scroll was involved in the so-called "ceremony," it meant that if he wanted to go home in the future, he would have to decipher the secrets it contained.
But certainly not now.
After thinking for a moment, Lu Yuan grabbed some other books from the table, quickly sandwiched the scroll between them, and stuffed it into a desk drawer, pressing it down firmly with several heavy medical books.
Having done all this, Lu Yuan slumped onto the sofa and slowly exhaled, suppressing the layer of goosebumps that had risen on his arms.
Lu Yuan had a faint premonition that if he had continued to stare at that scroll for a few more seconds, 【Forbidden Lore】 would likely have leveled up directly, and that leveling up might have brought unexpected consequences.
“But I might also have just dropped dead.”
Lu Yuan muttered to himself, forcibly shifting his attention away from the drawer.
There was no time to think about such things; there was still one very important matter to attend to.
Namely, how to deal with this man-sized dead fish.
Judging by the current temperature, it would take at most a few hours for this giant dead fish to rot and stink.
If it took more than fifteen hours, this small building would basically be ruined.
But another difficulty lay before Lu Yuan: how to handle it?
If he were to dig a hole and bury it, not to mention how long it would take to dig a man-sized pit, just moving it would be a huge problem.
Furthermore, Lu Yuan was inwardly unwilling to come into contact with this dead fish. The diary clearly stated that Laisen, the unlucky doctor, had been infected by the "Strange Dream" on the Iron Whale. If he didn't touch it, he might more or less reduce the chance of infection.
But when he thought of the scene he had witnessed after opening the scroll, Lu Yuan fell silent.
‘Can not touching it really reduce the chance of infection?’
After a series of choices, Lu Yuan found that he really couldn't come up with a good solution.
It was now approaching evening, and night had already shrouded everything outside.
At this moment, it was unrealistic for Lu Yuan to find someone to help. Not to mention who he was, the source of this man-sized fish couldn't be explained.
With no other choice, he could only brace himself and do it.
Lu Yuan searched the building and eventually made a discovery: among the twin beds placed side-by-side on the first floor, one had two metal wheels installed under the legs at one end.
Lu Yuan prepared to use this bed as a cart.
He then took two pieces of clothing he couldn't wear from the wardrobe, spread them on the floor, rolled the fish onto the clothes, lifted it bit by bit onto the small bed, and secured it with rope.
Opening the door, Lu Yuan prepared to first look for a spot to "dump the fish."
From the diary, he could see that this was a coastal town; dumping the "fish" into the sea couldn't be better.
Moreover, standing outside, he could faintly hear the sound of the ocean waves. Presumably, this small building standing in the woods was not too far from the sea.
But pushing a bed out the door now would be too strange, no matter how he looked at it. And what he was wearing...
With no other choice, Lu Yuan rummaged through the doctor's house and finally found two sets of wearable clothes in the wardrobe: one was a dark custom suit with a pocket watch and a top hat, and the other was a somewhat old-looking vest.
Changing out of his original clothes and into the suit, Lu Yuan looked at himself in the mirror, a hint of satisfaction flashing in his eyes. At last, he wouldn't look so out of place.
Furthermore, if he encountered a "patrol," he could use excuses like "the doctor is on an emergency call transporting a patient" or "transporting medical equipment" to brush them off.
Provided, of course, that there was a "patrol."
At the same time, this allowed Lu Yuan to roughly judge that the civilization's tech tree in this world was a bit chaotic. They clearly used electric lights and rotary phones, yet they also had steel behemoths capable of long-distance sea voyages.
It was roughly equivalent to some stage between the mid-18th and late 19th centuries in Lu Yuan's impression.
Taking a bowler hat and placing it on his head, Lu Yuan finally stepped out of the house.
Rate on N.U.
