The notebook's corners were worn, and it gave off a scent much like the one in the room: a mixture of old parchment and rusted metal.
Yu Xing took out the notebook, brushed the dust off its cover, and opened it to the first page.
The handwriting was fairly neat at first, but grew more and more frantic and scrawled as the pages went on, as if the writer's sanity were being devoured bit by bit.
The ink varied in shade, too. Sometimes it was the usual blue-black, but at other times it took on a strange dark red or deep purple hue.
[Star Calendar, XXX Year, X Month, X Day]
...Routine observations. The Andromeda Nebula is abnormally active. Its energy fluctuations are similar in frequency to those described in Chapter Seven of Hermes' Remnants... Perhaps it isn't a coincidence. The Emissary of Knowledge's blessing allows me to perceive more... But is this a gift or a curse?
[Star Calendar, XXX Year, X Month, X Day]
...They aren't stationary! They're moving! In a way that defies the laws of physics! Their trajectories... There's information hidden in their trajectories! I have to decipher it! Emily says I'm mad. She doesn't understand! She doesn't understand anything!
[Star Calendar, XXX Year, X Month, X Day]
...Last night, I dreamed of a gigantic eye opening in the sea of stars. It was watching me. No, it was watching me through the stars! Every star is one of its eyes! We've always been living under its gaze!... The bread tasted strange today, like rust.
[Star Calendar, XXX Year, X Month, X Day]
...The trajectories are a trap! Bait! They're deliberately displaying them to attract observers like us! For what? To... connect? Assimilate? I have to warn... warn who? Who would believe me? The Church? No,