Books and the Search for Grandpa Bates's Secret

That evening, Loren sat by the stove, flipping through the two books he had obtained during the day, while Grandpa Bates packed his bundle.

Complete Guide to Hieroglyphs was not some convoluted introduction to symbols. The "hieroglyphs" in the book likely referred to the Runes introduced in a large section near the middle.

The first half of the book contained mysterious Alchemy, most of which Loren considered baseless fantasy. The use of Dragon Blood, materials from magical creatures, and the names of various plants—many of which Loren had never heard of in either of his lives.

There were even distinctions between full moons and waning moons during refinement, as well as between thunderstorms and rainstorms without thunder.

Was this England's feudal superstition? Loren found it rather entertaining when treated as a collection of strange tales.

But the latter half of the book was more interesting. It was an account written by someone calling himself Nicolas Flamel.

He claimed to have been born in fourteenth-century Paris. In his early years, he had worked as a copyist, copying books, letters, and wills for nobles of all kinds. He occasionally came across material on Alchemy, which Nicolas pursued as a hobby.

His ordinary life had taken a tremendous turn one day. A man in a black cloak had appeared in his dream and told him that he would receive a miraculous book. If he studied it diligently and understood it thoroughly, he would gain extraordinary and astonishing power.

The dream had come true.

The book read: "I possess an ancient and immense book, purchased for two Florin coins. Unlike other books, it is not made of paper or parchment, but of exquisite, smooth young Bark. Its cover is tightly bound in brass, carved all over with writing or strange symbols... It consists of three groups of seven pages, including the first page. The seventh page of each group bears no writing, but on the seventh page of the first group is a drawing of a wand being devoured by a Giant Serpent."

Seeing this, Loren picked up the other book and examined it closely.

This should be The Book of Abraham. Its contents did indeed seem to have been stamped with some kind of metal before being inked. It was not written in any language Loren had ever seen, and he could not understand it at all.

The entire book had twenty-one pages, and every seventh page bore a strange illustration.

The first seventh page depicted an ancient staff wrapped with two snakes of unknown species, one of which was devouring the other.

The book was probably quite old. Its pages had yellowed, and the colorless image was outlined with simple strokes, far from clear. Yet when Loren looked at it, a vivid, colored image appeared in his mind.

The staff was an ancient black, and the two snakes had white spots. He could even sense the matte texture of their scales.

Loren guessed that life was simply too dull, and that the countless films and online materials from his previous life had made him imagine the details himself.

The second seventh page, the fourteenth page, depicted a cross. But nailed to it was not Jesus, but a snake.

Looking at the image, Loren felt that the snake in the picture was not the same one as before. The snake on the cross seemed to have two small horns on its head.

The third seventh page, the twenty-first page, depicted several clear springs gushing from a wasteland, with many snakes crawling out of the springheads.

What impressed Loren most about this picture was the water. In his mind, he could almost feel the sweetness and coolness of the spring water as it surged forth.

Besides that, the fourth and fifth pages each came with four small illustrations. They were too tiny for Loren to imagine anything from them.

In Complete Guide to Hieroglyphs, Nicolas Flamel's opinion was this: these small illustrations were unimportant. They seemed to be telling a story, or perhaps depicting elements from popular myths, and made no mention of Alchemy.

The account after that became incoherent. Many words were misspelled, and the grammar was complete nonsense.

Further on were travel notes. This Nicolas Flamel had apparently traveled to nearly every corner of the world, recording the customs and habits of many places. Of course, there were also passages that looked like gibberish mixed in, but Loren still found it fascinating as he picked through them.

Grandpa Bates finished packing his bundle and glanced at the sky through the small window.

Although it was snowing, the clouds were thin, and a low-hanging moon with a piece missing could be seen in the sky.

Grandpa Bates shut the little window and secured it with a wooden bar. "Listen carefully, Loren. Tomorrow, I'm going into the mountains. You'll stay home by yourself, as usual. Understand?"

This happened every month, and Loren could never get any answers from him. "All right, I know!"

Perhaps Grandpa Bates did not realize that he was no longer young. Winters had been especially hard on him these past two years. In particular, for several days after returning from the mountain, he would be as weak as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.

Sometimes Loren felt that, just as the villagers at the foot of the mountain said, Bates was making deals with the Devil up there.

But after living together for several years, Loren had found nothing else strange about Bates. He might have been somewhat solitary, but once one got to know him, he was merely a slightly sturdier little old man, no different from an ordinary farmer.

No matter what, Loren decided that he would secretly follow Grandpa Bates tomorrow and find out what was going on.

The next morning, after breakfast, Grandpa Bates took his packed bundle and a staff made from a wooden pole, then headed out into the mountains.

Loren did not hurry. Even without heavy snow piled up on the mountain, winter paths were still difficult to travel.

He slowly finished feeding the sheep, then placed enough hay and water in the Sheep Pen to last them several days. Using wood, rope, and a glass bottle full of water, he made a simple timing mechanism. Water would continuously drip from the bottle, and the temperature inside the Sheep Pen would keep it from freezing. Only after enough time had passed would the hay fall from the beam. This was to stop the sheep from quickly eating several days' worth of food.

Once he had finished everything, Loren packed several days' worth of provisions into his bundle: coarse bread, cheese, Smoked Mutton, a small knife, a windproof lighter, and a windproof tarp.

After thinking it over, he also put in the fur blanket belonging to that strange old Bookseller.

By the time he locked the door, it was already after lunch. Loren followed the tracks in the snow and the direction in which wild grass and flowers had been pressed down, pursuing Bates.

The trees seemed to have put on white coats. Scattered snowflakes occasionally fell on Loren, while the wind on the road sliced viciously across his exposed skin like little knives.

He did his best to protect himself with his hat, gloves, and scarf, but the wind still drilled through the gaps in his clothes, burrowing into his body and bones.

After walking for a while, Loren took out the tarp and fur blanket and wrapped them around himself, then layered the tarp over the outside like a cloak to shield his body.

The effect was excellent. The wind that had constantly been trying to bore into his body was blocked off, and the blanket was warm, as though he were sitting beside the stove.

This was definitely the fur of some kind of Polar Bear, Loren thought.

Less than an hour later, he followed the obvious tracks into the woods and emerged from another side. Footprints in the snow extended all the way to a huge boulder. One side of the boulder pressed tightly against a small hill, and the footprints scattered messily around the rock before disappearing.

Loren naturally did not think Mr. Bates had turned into a stone spirit.

There were several wooden stakes and poles beside the rock, forming a simple labor-saving lever. Clearly, Grandpa Bates had not moved the boulder with brute force. There should have been a Cave behind it, and likely similar labor-saving mechanisms inside.

After circling around a few times, Loren cleared a patch of ground in another sheltered spot. He used branches and the tarp to build a shelter, hoping to hear some sound from inside the Cave.

Wrapped in the fur blanket, he did not feel cold at all, so he did not light a fire. It was even warmer than Polar Bear fur.

He ate a little and waited there quietly for night to fall...