Symbols in the Brass Box

Under the lantern's light, the brass metal box in Fan Ning's hands gleamed with an archaic, dusky golden hue. Its surface was smooth, with no visible joints or seams.

Only one side was different. It had a circular ring of graduations with a pointer, an irregular slit in the middle, and a small black button beside it.

Seeing the slit, and combining it with the key symbol beside the pale-gold text [135/100] before him, Fan Ning naturally removed the Museum Key from around his neck and inserted it into the slot. He had just prepared to turn it—

The number 135 in the pale-gold text before him flashed more brightly.

"What is this?" Fan Ning's hands froze.

That side of the box suddenly filled with densely packed black instructional text!

The formatting was somewhat chaotic:

"Must pass through every graduation..."

"Can reset after remaining at the current graduation for one day..."

"After confirming, press hard..."

"An incorrect sequence will self-destruct..."

Fan Ning was speechless.

When Caloin Van Ning's father had left these items behind, couldn't he have built in a little more margin for error? Was he really that confident in his own son?

And he had even come up with such a huge pile of confusing instructions.

He began examining the circular ring of graduations surrounding the pointer knob.

"Isn't this just a clock? Twelve graduations... twelve... I suddenly have an idea... This should take much less time than before."

He had already summarized the information hidden behind the Remnant of the Musical Scale. One aspect was the association triggered by the absence of "C-sharp," and the other was "sequence"—the order of the twelve keys.

The eleven pieces of the Remnant of the Musical Scale had originally been numbered, but the keys of the pieces after deciphering were arranged out of order.

Fan Ning began to recall:

"The first was Beethoven's Tempest Sonata, in D minor; the second was Beethoven's Dawn Sonata, in C major; the third was Bach's Goldberg Variations, in G major; the fourth was Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 21, in B-flat major..."

Their order was:

D, C, G, B-flat, A, B, E-flat, G-flat, E, F, A-flat

Yet if the normal sequence of pitches rose upward, it should be:

C, (no C-sharp), D, E-flat, E, F, G-flat, G, A-flat, A, B-flat, B

Therefore, if he rearranged the eleven pieces of the Remnant of the Musical Scale according to the actual ascending order of pitch and stacked them again...

The sequence should be 3, (no 2), 1, 8, 11, 10, 12, 4, 7, 5, 6, 9!

So I just turn the knob in this order, then press the confirmation button to open the box?

Fan Ning read the pointer's current position.

The pointer was already pointing toward two o'clock!

"This confirms my guess. The missing sequence 2 is C-sharp. I don't need to worry about this position anymore."

He drew a deep breath, reached out, gripped the key, and slowly moved the pointer one notch clockwise.

"Tintintintintintin..." A series of fine, dense, crisp clicks rang out.

The pointer moved to the three o'clock position.

Then he moved it two notches counterclockwise.

"Tintintintintintin..."

The pointer moved to the one o'clock position.

He moved it seven notches clockwise.

"Tintintintintintin..."

The pointer moved to the eight o'clock position.

Eleven o'clock, ten o'clock...

Fan Ning operated it carefully. The closer he came to finishing, the faster his heart beat, and cold, slick sweat appeared on his palms.

At last, he placed his finger on the button, his expression changing several times.

He pressed down!

His finger trembled and felt somewhat weak. For a moment, he couldn't press it down.

It seemed rather tight. No wonder the instructions said to press hard.

"Couldn't it have given me a few chances for error? How is anyone supposed to open this? Why be so careful?" Fan Ning suddenly lost his nerve again. He pulled his finger away and muttered,

"That's probably what it means, and this should probably be the sequence."

"But I'm not sure whether it meets your old-timer's 'format requirements.'"

"If I destroy the box, won't your treasure be lost forever???

"Forget it. If you're not afraid of me getting it wrong, what am I afraid of!!"

After several rounds of deliberation, Fan Ning finally steeled himself and forcefully jabbed the button inward with his finger!

"Crack!" A dry, muffled sound.

Fan Ning saw black patterns suddenly appear across the surface of the brass box.

They crawled and spread, gradually claiming the smooth surface with their rough, craggy forms. Then large patches flaked away, and finally it collapsed into a rectangular mound of gray ash.

"Phew~" Fan Ning gently blew the ash away.

What appeared before him was a curled object resembling papyrus. It was dark brown, with some parts already blackened, making it seem extremely ancient.

He brought the lantern closer and extended a finger to push it open and smooth it out. It felt thick and coarse.

There was a simple design on it, but because it had been drawn inside a ring formed by several arcs of differing lengths, Fan Ning felt that it was more like a mark or a symbol.

The symbol consisted of four golden-yellow zigzag lines.

Viewed individually, each line rose and fell erratically, its undulations chaotic and without pattern.

But when four similar yet different zigzag lines were placed parallel to one another, they formed a wonderful, mysterious sense of uneven interlocking.

"Like four-part harmony in musical composition?"

Moreover, they had not been drawn on the surface. On the contrary, they were sunken into it.

A group of symbols or marks... grooves?

Fan Ning clearly had no idea how to interpret them.

His only feeling at present was that it had been hidden far too carefully!

To obtain it, one needed to possess the Museum Key, have extensive and familiar memories of classical music from Blue Star, decipher the meaning of the Remnant of the Musical Scale, discover the special features of those paintings, obtain the brass box, receive the guidance of the mysterious text messages, use text with progress exceeding 100/100 to activate the instructional words, and succeed in opening it on the first try.

To be honest, Fan Ning felt that when setting up these conditions, satisfying just one or two of them would have been enough to ensure that he was the one who ultimately obtained this papyrus.

Going to such lengths could only mean that whoever had hidden the papyrus would rather delay himself for a longer time—even if he couldn't obtain it for a year or six months—than allow it to fall into anyone else's hands. Not even the slightest risk was acceptable!

Fan Ning rolled it up, and when he thought of this, even his hands trembled slightly.

He carefully tucked it into the inner pocket of his trench coat and patted it a few times.

The lantern's light had grown extremely faint, and the large tallow candle was nearly burned out.

He took out his pocket watch. The time was 7:40 p.m.

He hadn't expected that he had already spent nearly six hours inside the art gallery.

To sum up what I've gained: the interpretation of the dream at the end of the corridor, the deciphering of the Remnant of the Musical Scale, Father's work files, the "Dream Man" case file, and the papyrus with the symbol... The exploration should have come to an end. I can more or less leave now.

However, he still hadn't figured out the Museum Key itself...

Then Fan Ning looked at the opened fan-shaped hidden compartment and frowned.

How am I supposed to restore this thing?

Leaving it like this doesn't seem right either... I may already have attracted attention by coming here.

He first tried pushing and pulling it, but it did not move at all.

Then he tried removing The Moonlit Night on the Dnieper from position two, but there was no reaction. Hanging Dusk on the Mountaintop and the Wall back up also produced no reaction.

In the end, Fan Ning thought for a moment and made a decision.

He took the tallow candle out of the lantern, found an empty patch of fine ceramic flooring, and set the stack of documents on fire.

The dim room brightened considerably in the flames. Accompanied by faint sizzling sounds, the shadows of the various objects on the walls kept leaping about.

There were quite a lot of documents, and burning them all took some time. Fan Ning didn't dare leave early. If he accidentally set the other objects alight, it would become a huge mess.

He watched as the files and case documents gradually curled and blackened under the licking flames, completely turning into thin, flaky ash.

When he put the candle back into the lantern, only a little over a centimeter remained.

Fan Ning left and descended the stairs to the first floor step by step.

That faint, rotten stench appeared in the air again. He couldn't help glancing several more times toward the darkness in the direction of the traveling exhibition hall.

At the copper lock on the main door, he had just prepared to insert the key around his neck into the lock when he suddenly hesitated.

For the sake of caution, he returned to the second floor and casually carried down an oil painting.

"Mm, I came to the art gallery looking for an item for auction, so I took something with me."

As he turned the key in the copper lock, the candle burned out, and the lantern's light on the floor vanished completely.

"Creak, creak..."

A heavy, teeth-grating sound rang out. Outside the main door, apart from a few distant scattered lights, the brightness was no different from inside.

Carrying the painting in one hand, he kicked the extinguished lantern a little farther inside with his foot, locked the main door, and walked straight out of the grounds with the painting in his arms.

The alley's lights swayed, and quite a few people were returning home.

It was the time when industrial workers finished their shifts, so the way back was actually livelier than the way there.

Fan Ning kept his eyes fixed ahead and never looked back. He paid no attention to anything on either side until he stepped onto Leiteqi Street.

But whether it stemmed from his earlier rational analysis or his emotional intuition,

he felt that right now...

he seemed to be being followed!