Reenactment: Crossing-Over Scene

"What? What Mystic Ritual?"

In the quiet small chamber music hall, Hiran's puzzled voice echoed through the room.

"No problem, Caloen." Qiong agreed gently and cheerfully. "We still need to go clean the tool storage room first, then tidy this place up."

While Qiong arranged the altar, Fan Ning gave Hiran a brief explanation:

"This is where I last saw Teacher Anton. Qiong knows a ritual that might help us see some scenes from the past."

It's also where I crossed over. He added the sentence silently in his heart.

Hiran asked Fan Ning in a low voice, "Does this have anything to do with you becoming a Knower?"

Fan Ning nodded. "Yes. They're both things studied by mystics."

"Don't forget that you promised to have a serious talk with me."

"I remember."

The altar was soon arranged. Qiong began reciting the prayer Hiran had taught her, written in the Tulungalia language, and prayed to the Lord of Witnesses, "Winter Wind."

At last, Qiong used her finger to wipe away a break in the triangle formed by coarse salt, pointing it toward the mirror submerged in the water.

"I still can't seem to see clearly..." Qiong crouched beside it, her little face filled with confusion.

"Why hasn't it worked either of the last two times...?"

Fan Ning walked over. "Let me try."

He stirred his Inspiration and imagined the sphere of spirit energy emerging where it converged at his chest, slowly expanding until it covered the surface of the water in the basin.

Beneath the leaping, glittering reflections, some disruptive colors and patterns were "peeled away."

Scattered, fragmentary, flickering revelations appeared on the mirror's surface beneath the water.

He saw the students in the audience, seated sparsely, no more than thirty of them.

The scene shifted. He was sitting at the piano in a black formal suit, with a female student in a white dress playing the violin behind him. Teacher Anton stood nearby in an old-fashioned formal suit, his belt buckle slightly askew, explaining things without pause.

"Teacher Anton..." After crossing over, Fan Ning was seeing his teacher's face and bearing "again" for the first time.

His emotions stirred slightly, but he still kept his Inspiration's "observation" under control.

The scene shifted again. Class was over. The students rose from their seats in twos and threes, while Teacher Anton hurried away carrying his briefcase. His self, seated at the piano, waved goodbye to the teacher.

The scene shifted again. A man and a woman in high-collared black formalwear stepped onto the stage and spoke with him.

The scene shifted again. He sat in the front row of the audience, listening to the girl play the piano. His eyes were closed as he nodded along to the beat. The boy stood with his hands behind his back at the side of the stage. The two exchanged a few glances during that time. Fan Ning also noticed that the fingers of the hand behind the boy's back were wrapped with a strap, apparently securing a small red drinking cup.

The scene shifted again. The light in the scene turned black in an extremely short time, as if the concert hall's lights had gone out.

It went dark?

The Mystic Ritual's effect is over already...? Fan Ning's heartbeat quickened, and his brows furrowed.

When he had performed the Retrospection Ritual on the other two deceased victims in Hall No. 4, the scene had also ended after going dark. In the end, his own reflection had even given him a fright.

But the current scene was precisely approaching the moment when he had crossed over...

Fan Ning was somewhat unwilling to give up, and continued staring at the ripples on the water's surface.

Yet this time, things seemed a little different.

"Why have the water and the mirror remained pitch-black?"

"It naturally isn't reflecting the ordinary things nearby in the present. Has the Mystic Ritual not ended yet?"

"I woke up from the darkness..."

Fan Ning's Inspiration continued to burn as he stared unblinkingly at the mirror beneath the water.

"I wonder how long I can keep up this full-force exertion..."

Fan Ning gradually began to feel dizzy and see stars. At one point, Qiong seemed about to speak, but he raised a hand to stop her.

Nearly a full minute passed—

Suddenly, a faint glimmer flickered in the darkness.

Then two even more incandescent bursts of light flashed brilliantly for an instant! The darkness continued. A few seconds later, his own reflection appeared in the mirror.

A strange cold wind blew out the altar's Candle flames.

"It's over."

Fan Ning drew a deep breath and stood up somewhat unsteadily. "Thank you, Qiong."

After cleaning up the altar, Qiong walked up to Fan Ning and looked up at him with her smooth little face.

"You're welcome, Caloen~ How strange. Why is it that you're the one who can see the scenes every time? What did you see this time?"

Fan Ning thought for a while before speaking. "There's something wrong with those two people who came onto the stage to talk."

"What do you mean?"

Fan Ning said, "Do you remember when we performed the Retrospection Ritual in Hall No. 4 yesterday? Four or five people came onto the stage and spoke with the victims after the gathering ended. Since their clothing was relatively uniform, I couldn't tell if there was anything special about them."

He paced back and forth across the stage. "But after comparing the two occasions, I found that the man and woman who spoke with me on Friday night had also been among that group the day before!"

Qiong's eyes widened. "You mean the same two people went to the hall where our academy rehearsed on Thursday, Hall No. 4, and the hall where you had your experience on Friday, Hall No. 1?"

"That's right. They were wearing formal clothes with higher collars."

"Could they be the masterminds?" Qiong asked. "Caloen, should we follow this clue and investigate the students who were present again? Maybe we can provide the police with more valuable leads and flush them out!"

Fan Ning considered the matter briefly.

From this moment on, he decided to place his complete trust in Qiong regarding this incident, just as he did in Hiran.

So he described the entire scene he had just seen, then recounted the humanoid silhouettes he had actually witnessed that night, leaving out the matter of crossing over.

As she listened to Fan Ning's account, Qiong drew circles around the ends of her hair with one finger.

"So those two didn't escape—they died right there at the scene? And you suspect it was connected to you?"

"Yes." Fan Ning nodded.

At first, he had felt rather depressed. Since everything had been pitch-black, he still hadn't been able to see what had happened before and after he crossed over...

But later, when he saw the white light in the darkness and the explosive flash...

He suddenly realized that the humanoid silhouettes on the stage might not have been students from the school.

So the reason those two came onto the stage might not have been to discuss music.

So those two might not have been "victims" either.

He also suddenly understood why the rumors at school only spoke of two students dying—because the two had vanished from the world neither beside their classmates nor through the horrifying act of suicide. It had been easy for the police to control the information.

Those two had first used some method on the two students, causing them to go mad and kill themselves the next day.

Then, when they tried the same trick on him the following day...

The white light in the darkness... the explosive flash... waking up unharmed... two humanoid silhouettes appearing on the stage...

Every sign indicated that those two had failed to achieve their objective.

As for Teacher Anton shooting himself after leaving, that had nothing to do with them—or at least, not directly that night. Judging from the teacher's diary, his mental state had gone awry long before that.

"For some reason, both scenes ended in darkness, as if the lights had gone out. But of all the possibilities, I think the process I described is the most likely."

Fan Ning finished analyzing the matter for Hiran and Qiong.

Yet he was thinking to himself... Did I accidentally "kill" those two in self-defense? Because I crossed over? Or because of the Museum Key? Or both?

A hint of fatigue showed on Qiong's pretty face. She patted her little mouth. "So our investigation has moved one step forward, and things are clearer now."

"That's right." Fan Ning gave a slight nod. "The next questions are only two: who are those two, and what were they originally trying to do?"

Qiong yawned as she said, "In my experience, with questions like these, once you figure out one of them, the other often comes to light easily too."

"Qiong, thank you for your great help. It's very late today, and you can barely keep your eyes open. Go home first."

"You're welcome, Caloen. I ate too many of your pastries and got sleepy."

Qiong stretched out both hands and adorably tugged at the corners of her eyes.

Hiran spoke last. "Qiong, I'll see you at the school gate after class tomorrow afternoon, before the auction tomorrow evening."

A row of dim gas lamps shone beneath the music academy building, and Qiong's family's private carriage had already been waiting for quite some time.

Fan Ning lifted the curtain and symbolically placed a hand lightly against Qiong's fair, slender arm, helping her into the carriage.

Holding his cane, he watched the carriage depart into the distance. As he watched Hiran and Qiong wave goodbye to each other, he wondered whether today's clues were connected to Hiran's attack that night.

The two of them walked through the campus at night. Some stray thoughts from the rehearsal once again flickered in fragments through Fan Ning's mind, and he sighed softly.

If he had not found even the slightest connection to his past life, perhaps one day he could have accepted everything in this world with a clear conscience, casting the crossing-over incident behind him as something utterly unknowable.

But he had discovered the pieces in The Remnant of the Musical Scale and the paintings in the museum... Those inexplicable links to his past life left him forever feeling like an unsettled passerby, never knowing what tomorrow would bring or where the ending would lead.

I hope the danger around Hiran can be resolved soon too. Living at the little girl's home all day isn't ideal for me either.

As for the direction of the next investigation, if he chose the more aggressive route, he might obtain some information by attending the gathering of "Sylvia" mentioned by the man in gray. If he chose the conservative route, he could first wait for the Guidance School's small team to return from investigating the mysterious incident in the South Wharf District.

I'll see how things develop...

"Caloen, are you in a bad mood?"

"No. I'm a little tired too."

The two returned home. After washing up, Fan Ning continued as he had the previous few times, giving Hiran a reminder before they said good night.

Today, I should be able to resume exploring the Migrant Surge.

He prepared to study the Museum Key, as well as the church indicated by the signpost of the Lord of Witnesses, "Endless Fugue."