With his plan settled, Zhou Mingrui immediately found his anchor. His fear, hesitation, and unease were all shoved into a corner.
Only then did he feel up to carefully examining the fragments of memory Klein had left behind.
Zhou Mingrui rose out of habit and closed the pipe valve, watching the wall lamp slowly dim until it went out. Then he sat back down, unconsciously stroking the revolver's brass cylinder with one hand while pressing the other against the side of his head. In the crimson-tinged darkness, he quietly "revisited" the memories, like the most attentive viewer in a movie theater.
Perhaps because of the bullet passing through his head, Klein's memories were like shattered glass. Not only had they lost their continuity, but many parts were clearly missing: where the finely crafted revolver had come from, whether this had been suicide or murder, what exactly the words "Everyone will die, including me" in the notebook meant, and whether he had been involved in anything strange in the two days before the incident.
Not only were these specific memories fragmented and incomplete, but the knowledge he had acquired was too. Judging by his current state, Zhou Mingrui believed that if Klein returned to university, he probably would not be able to graduate, even though he had actually left campus only a few days ago and had not slacked off at all.
In two days, I have to attend an interview with Tingen University's history department...
Universities in the Kingdom of Loen have a tradition of not retaining their own graduates directly... My mentor gave me letters of recommendation for Tingen University and Backlund University...
As Zhou Mingrui silently "watched," the crimson moon outside the window slanted westward and gradually sank, until a faint light appeared in the east and the horizon turned gold.
Just then, sounds came from the inner room, followed shortly by footsteps approaching the connecting door.
Melissa's awake... She really is as punctual as ever. Zhou Mingrui smiled faintly. Under the influence of Klein's memories, looking at Melissa felt like looking at his own younger sister.
But I don't have a younger sister... he promptly remarked to himself.
Unlike Benson and Klein, Melissa had not received her early education at the Church of the Evernight Goddess's Sunday school. When she reached school age, the Kingdom of Loen had enacted the Elementary Education Act, established the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, and increased its investment through dedicated funding.
In just three years, with quite a few church schools incorporated into the system, numerous public elementary schools had been established. They strictly maintained religious neutrality and stayed out of the disputes between the churches of the Lord of Storms, the Evernight Goddess, and the God of Steam and Machinery.
Compared to Sunday schools, which cost only one copper penny a week, public elementary schools seemed rather expensive at three pence a week. However, the former held classes only on Sundays, while the latter provided a full six days of classes each week. Taken as a whole, the price was so low it was almost free.
Unlike most girls, Melissa had loved gears, springs, bearings, and such things since childhood, and aspired to become a steam mechanic.
Having suffered from his own lack of education and understood its importance, their eldest brother Benson supported his sister's dream just as he had supported Klein's university studies. After all, Tingen Technical School only counted as secondary education and did not require preparatory study at a grammar school or public school.
Last July, fifteen-year-old Melissa had passed the entrance examination and fulfilled her wish of joining Tingen Technical School's Department of Steam and Machinery. Her weekly tuition had also risen to nine pence.
At the same time, the import-export company Benson worked for had been affected by the situation on the Southern Continent. Both its profits and its volume of business had shrunk drastically, forcing it to lay off more than a third of its staff. To keep his job and make ends meet, Benson could only accept a heavier workload, frequently working overtime or traveling to places with harsh conditions on business, as he had these past few days.
It was not that Klein had never considered helping shoulder his brother's burden. But as a commoner who had entered university from an ordinary grammar school, he had keenly felt his own shortcomings as soon as he arrived. Ancient Feysac, for example, was the root language of all the Northern Continent's national languages. Children of nobles and wealthy families had to learn it from childhood, whereas he had encountered it for the first time only at university.
There were many, many similar areas. Klein had exhausted almost all his strength, often staying up late and rising early, just to barely catch up with the others and successfully graduate with middling grades.
Memories of his older brother and younger sister flitted through Zhou Mingrui's mind. Only when the handle turned and the inner room's door creaked open did he suddenly snap out of it and remember that he was holding a revolver.
This is a partially restricted item!
It'll frighten a child!
And-and the wound on my head!
Seeing that Melissa was about to come out, Zhou Mingrui pressed his temple while hastily pulling open the desk drawer and tossing the revolver inside with a bang.
"What happened?" Hearing the noise, Melissa looked over in confusion.
She was in the bloom of youth. Though she had little good food to eat and her face was thin and slightly pale, her skin remained lustrous, radiating a young girl's freshness.
Seeing his sister's brown eyes studying him, Zhou Mingrui forced himself to remain calm. He picked up something near his hand, then calmly shut the drawer, hiding the revolver. Meanwhile, the touch of his other hand against his temple confirmed that the wound had already healed!
What he had taken from the drawer was a silver-white pocket watch patterned with leafy vines. A light press on its top popped the cover open.
It was the most valuable possession left behind by the three siblings' father, a Royal Army sergeant. But secondhand goods were secondhand goods, after all. In recent years, it had malfunctioned from time to time, even after being repaired by a watchmaker. This had repeatedly embarrassed Benson, who liked carrying it to elevate his status, until he simply left it at home.
It had to be said that Melissa might truly have a talent for machinery. After acquiring the theoretical knowledge, she had begun tinkering with the pocket watch using her technical school's tools. Recently, she had even declared that she had repaired it!
As the cover sprang open, Zhou Mingrui saw that the second hand was motionless and instinctively turned the knob at the top, intending to wind the watch.
However, even after he turned it several times, there was no sound of the spring tightening, and the second hand remained still.
"It seems to be broken again." He looked at his sister, searching for something to say.
Melissa gave him an expressionless glance, strode over, and snatched the pocket watch away.
Standing there, she first pulled up the knob at the top of the watch. After just a few turns, the ticking of the second hand sounded.
Normally, shouldn't pulling it up let you adjust the time... Zhou Mingrui's expression instantly went blank.
Just then, the distant cathedral's bells rang out six times, their sound far-reaching and ethereal.
Melissa tilted her head to listen, then pulled the knob atop the pocket watch up another notch and turned it repeatedly to set the time.
"Done," she said briefly, without a trace of emotion. Then she pressed the knob back down and returned the pocket watch to Zhou Mingrui.
Zhou Mingrui responded with an awkward but polite smile.
Melissa gave her brother another long look, turned toward the cupboard, and picked up her toothbrush, towel, and other things. Then she opened the door and went out to the communal washroom.
Why did her expression just now seem so disdainful and helpless?
Was that a look of concern for her intellectually disabled older brother?
Zhou Mingrui shook his head with a quiet chuckle, snapped the watch cover shut, then clicked it open again.
As he repeated the motion, his wandering thoughts landed on a question.
Without a silencer, Klein's suicide-well, let's call it suicide for now-must have made quite a noise. Yet Melissa, just one wall away, hadn't noticed anything.
Was she sleeping too soundly? Or was there something inherently bizarre about Klein's suicide?
Click, open. Snap, shut... When Melissa returned from washing up, she saw her brother unconsciously opening and closing the pocket watch's cover over and over.
Helplessness once again entered her gaze as she said in her sweet voice:
"Klein, take out all the bread we have left. Remember to buy fresh bread today, and meat and peas too. Your interview is coming up, so I'll make you lamb stew with peas."
As she spoke, she moved the stove out of the corner, used the remaining coals to start a fire, and put on a pot of water to boil.
Before the water boiled, she opened the cupboard's bottom drawer and took out a tin of inferior tea leaves as though it were a treasure. She sprinkled a dozen or so leaves into the pot, pretending it was proper tea.
After pouring two large cups each, Melissa and Zhou Mingrui shared two loaves of rye bread with the tea.
No sawdust mixed in, and not too much bran, but it still tastes awful... Weak and hungry, Zhou Mingrui relied on the tea to force down the bread while grumbling inwardly.
A few minutes later, Melissa finished eating, gathered the black hair hanging down to the middle of her back, and looked at Zhou Mingrui.
"Remember to buy fresh bread. Just eight pounds. The weather's hot, so if you buy too much, it'll spoil easily. And lamb and peas. Remember!"
So she really is looking after her bookworm brother. She even has to repeat herself... Zhou Mingrui smiled and nodded.
"All right."
As for a pound in the Kingdom of Loen, comparing Klein's memories of judging weight by feel with his own experience, Zhou Mingrui believed it was close to the jin he was used to, or 0.5 kilograms.
Melissa said nothing more. She got up and tidied things, packed the last loaf of bread for lunch, put on the worn gauze hat their mother had left behind, and picked up the bag she had sewn herself for her books and stationery, ready to leave.
It was not Sunday, so she had a full day of classes.
It took about fifty minutes to walk from the apartment to Tingen Technical School. There were public carriages, charging one penny per kilometer, capped at four pence within the city and six pence in the suburbs. To save money, Melissa always left early and walked there herself.
Just after opening the front door, she stopped again and half turned.
"Klein, don't buy too much lamb or too many peas. Benson might not be back until Sunday. Oh, and remember, just eight pounds of bread."
"All right, all right," Zhou Mingrui replied helplessly.
At the same time, he silently repeated the word "Sunday" several times.
On the Northern Continent, a year was likewise divided into twelve months, with between three hundred and sixty-five and three hundred and sixty-six days in each year. A week likewise had seven days.
The former was a result of astronomy, making Zhou Mingrui suspect that this was a parallel world. The latter came from religion, as the Northern Continent had seven orthodox deities: the Eternal Blazing Sun, the Lord of Storms, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, the Evernight Goddess, the Earth Mother, the God of Combat, and the God of Steam and Machinery.
Watching his sister close the door and leave, Zhou Mingrui suddenly sighed. Soon, his thoughts shifted to the luck enhancement ritual.
Sorry, I really do want to go home...
PS: It's Monday-please send recommendation votes~