At half past six in the evening, the sky was veiled in a thin, orange-red halo, making it hard to distinguish whether it was air pollution, the gradually illuminating neon lights lighting up the night sky, or the not-yet-completely-faded sunset clouds still glowing. Every time Ma En saw such a night sky, he always had a psychedelic illusion, as if the world around him was entering a moment different from the ordinary. It was just that in the past, this illusion was merely an illusion; the lives of city dwellers were indeed different from the daytime, but still within the normal range. However, this evening, Ma En quietly felt a sense of tension, an expectation that made his heart pound.
His curiosity about that book finally overcame his fear of it. He boarded the bus, put on his headphones, listening to deep melodies. The people and scenery around him seemed to fade in color within his mood, their features dissolving, turning into pale cards. He gradually felt that in his own world, only he remained, and past experience told him this was the optimal state. He seemed to encounter a few acquaintances on the road, seemed to exchange a few words with them, but what exactly was said, he couldn't recall at all.
This was a common occurrence, and certainly nothing important, probably just small talk like greetings. Ma En generally still knew what he was doing.
Afterwards, he settled dinner at a noodle shop outside, until the urgency in his heart grew stronger and stronger, as if a hazy voice was summoning him home.
Returning home, locking the door from the inside, Ma En suddenly became fully alert. He didn't know if, in others' eyes, his dazed state along the way seemed somewhat strange, but to him, it was habitual. Even though the urging voice in his heart grew louder, he still unhurriedly took off his coat, tidied his briefcase, placed it where he could easily grab it when leaving, hung the large black umbrella back on its rack, went into the bathroom to wash up, and only then returned to his study to retrieve that book from the bookshelf.
Ma En found it quite strange; the feeling he had when first picking up this book could no longer be felt at all now, as if this book truly was just a book. However, the death of the bookstore owner added another layer of unusualness to this book. Within this contradiction between the ordinary and the extraordinary, there was an emotion stirring that he couldn't push out of his mind.
He spent a full minute observing the book's cover again, feeling the different textures of the paper, string, and staples – sometimes rough, sometimes smooth, sometimes warm, sometimes cold. He sniffed it; a faint smell emanated from the book, but he was certain it wasn't the smell of damp mold, nor the smell of ink, not any kind of smell he had encountered from books in the past, nor any smell he was familiar with.
Very faint, but a very peculiar smell. Like a fragrance, also like a fishy/raw smell , giving the impression it wasn't emitted by plants, but more like from an animal.
How exactly did he judge the age of this book back then? It looked like an old manuscript from the early years of the century, but that scene that rashly appeared in his imagination: that cultivator and his experiences, were clearly much older. And regardless of which era he thought it was, it probably didn't match the true age of this book, right? Thinking this way, he actually knew nothing about this book.
He composed himself and opened the book again. This time, he was truly certain he saw the content inside, unlike the dazed state in the bookstore back then, where it seemed he had seen it, yet was completely unaware of its content, only feeling a sense of fullness in his head. However, although he saw the content in the book, he couldn't understand it at all, not because the content was too profound and unfathomable, but because the characters in the book were ones he had never seen before.
They were characters that looked extremely ancient at first glance, seemingly pictographic, yet also seemingly some kind of cuneiform script; in some places, they were curved and winding like tadpoles. Their structure alone did not allow one to guess their meaning; rather, it made one feel they were meaningless shapes, which, if said so, would negate the idea of them being pictographic script.
Ma En, in his pursuit of peculiar things, had also put considerable effort into studying ancient scripts, but the characters before him were indeed completely different from anything he knew. The degree of difference surpassed the variation in scripts between ancient Asian civilizations and ancient European civilizations, seeming more like some kind of script entirely distinct from existing human history.
This is troublesome, Ma En couldn't help but think. Deciphering unknown scripts is an extremely difficult task. He knew several methods, yet felt none were applicable here, and besides, he merely knew some theory, not being a professional. Next, he carefully flipped through the book page by page from beginning to end, confirming that the entire content of this book was written in this unknown script.
"Seven Revolutions Cave Profound Secret Record," he could call the book this, but it emerged from his imagination, not the book's original name. This book simply had no name.
All previous conjectures about its age could not be proven through the script in the book. This strange script indeed made one feel the existence of some kind of grammatical ordering, yet carefully studying each character, one could discover that no single character was the same. Since there were no repetitions, why could it make him feel there was ordering? Ma En had never seen such a book that used entirely non-repeating characters.
However, after careful examination several times, Ma En did feel that every character in this book carried extremely rich meaning, much like ancient Eastern scripts. It was also possible that the same character had different pronunciations, perhaps allowing differentiation of usage based on that, or possibly different shaped characters could represent similar meanings when used with different pronunciations. In summary, the richer the meaning of such scripts, the more difficult they were to decipher.
He put down this nameless book he called "Seven Revolutions Cave Profound Secret Record" and dug out all his materials related to ancient scripts, attempting to find a relatively effective method from the materials that could allow him to begin work. If there was no way to start, there could be no continuation. From the existing materials, he absolutely couldn't find a starting method that would allow him to attempt decipherment. Every example in the materials, every approach, had a strict requirement for "repetitive characters," needing some clear reference points or background information.
However, for this book, no background could be found, nor was there repetitiveness, no pronunciation, nothing to compare it against. Although there was a feeling of order, he couldn't identify this order from the details, as if the order was just his own illusion.
"How could there be such a book?" Ma En felt that even if this book was just someone's joke, the person had truly gone to great lengths. To eliminate all correlation from the handwriting, strokes, and structure is not an easy matter. Rather, even if multiple individuals from vastly different cultures were to fabricate a script out of thin air and then assemble these characters, a certain degree of relatedness would still manifest. That reflects the commonality of being human in terms of species origin, the homology determined by human biological structure itself before the emergence of culture.
"Characters" written by humans, yet completely lacking findable points of similarity, are theoretically almost non-existent. This is especially true for this kind of character structure that seemingly uses "shapes" to contain meaning.
However, the fact was, Ma En truly couldn't find points of similarity between characters, nor could he find points of similarity between these characters and any currently known scripts. It was simply as if it was telling him: This is not script written by humans, but script written by some kind of alien intelligent species with extremely vast differences from humans in all aspects.
The more he studied, the deeper the peculiar flavor of this script became, the more it made one involuntarily generate all sorts of associations, yet it offered not a shred of help in deciphering the content of these characters.
He studied continuously until late at night, until he was completely drowsy, yet still couldn't make any progress. He felt he needed help, but, who to ask for help? Should he go to the library to search for more materials? Although he also wanted to try online, the internet was not yet widespread in this city, and besides, no one would casually upload precious and unique ancient script research materials specifically and in detail online. No, if it was just someone else's sudden whim, or some kind of uncertain inspiration, perhaps it would be preferentially posted online. Maybe, somewhere in the world, other people had seen similar books, just treated them as jokes. Would such jokes be mentioned online?
Regardless, now he was truly at his wit's end; he had to find ways to broaden his path.
Thinking this, Ma En tossed aside his draft papers, left the desk, and decided to sleep soundly until dawn. The preliminary research on this book was too mentally taxing, and he still had work the next day.
The night passed without incident. The next day he woke up as usual, only feeling his energy hadn't fully recovered. The second day, the third day, the fourth day, he spent his days working and his nights researching just like this, also gaining nothing, while his energy consistently failed to return to its peak. Some colleagues also noticed the abnormality in his complexion, asking if there were problems in his life, but he only answered that he had read too many books – this was the absolute truth, just not the complete truth.
Of course, it wasn't that no one suspected he vented his evening energy on things adults do, but it was just a few mocking remarks in private. Ma En didn't care at all; he never paid attention to such idle gossip.
For a whole week, until the last evening before the weekend, Ma En finally couldn't stand this research without any progress, and put the nameless book back into the bookshelf. He suddenly saw, on the book's spine, a label with "Seven Revolutions Cave Profound Secret Record" had been affixed at some unknown time. It looked like his own handwriting, yet he couldn't remember exactly when he had stuck it there.
Tomorrow I'll go to the library. The city library still has a lot of materials. If I still can't find anything, I can only try online. If that doesn't work, I'll have to contact some expert friends – although he didn't know many people, it wasn't that he completely lacked connections in this area, it was just that this book was too special, making him somewhat reluctant to let more people know of its existence.
The bookstore owner's sudden death was too coincidental. Although up to now, apart from this undecipherable book, nothing exceeding common sense, overly peculiar, existed. However, if it truly existed, then letting others have deep contact with this book would undoubtedly be harming these people.
Throughout this entire week, Ma En hadn't felt anything abnormal, however, he couldn't forget his own trancelike and strange experiences. Since coming into contact with this book, many things had happened that he had never encountered in his past. Even if these situations could all be explained rationally and logically, it still couldn't put his mind at ease.