A Wandering Youth

Глава 48

The girls picking out books at the stall were now looking at me strangely, as if I were beaming.

The woman took a crystal ball from under her stall, asked my birthday, closed her eyes, and held the ball in her hands as if she were holding it tightly, her fingers bent as if she were using a lot of force.

A layer of white mist slowly rose from inside the crystal ball.

The girls nearby whispered among themselves, "The ball is fogged up." "Yeah, amazing!" "Let's see what the result is."

And then, in a daze, I entered a dream again, walking on that street paved with giant stones...

Suddenly, a light came on, and I found myself standing in front of the fortune-telling book stall again.

The woman who gave me the lesson sat there, staring blankly at me, her body seemingly trembling slightly.

I looked at her strangely: "Have you figured it out? What's my fate?" I said this with a hint of teasing in my voice.

The woman's face was somewhat ashen: "I'm sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable. I really can't calculate your fate, your future, or even your entire past life. I can only trace back to a part of your past life and the life before that. But your destiny stops at the age of 25, and I can't calculate anything more."

25 years old? My heart skipped a beat. Aren't I exactly 25 this year?

The woman took something out and handed it to me: "This is for you, as my compensation."

I took it and saw that it was a small, light purple crystal box, heart-shaped, with a leather cord attached, which could be worn as a necklace. "What is this?" I asked curiously.

"Open it and take a look."

I opened the box, and inside was a tiny beetle, carved from yellow rutile quartz. The carving was so fine that even the tips of the beetle's feet were visible.

"This must be very valuable!" I was stunned.

"Whether it's valuable or not depends on whether you're destined to have it or not." The woman had calmed down. "This insect can ward off evil and bring good fortune. Wear it around your neck. When you feel the little insect in the box is uneasy, it means you are in danger. You should be careful and not go near a certain place, or find a safe place."

"Wow, that's amazing!" I exclaimed inwardly. "How much is it? I'll buy this necklace."

"It's free, I'm giving it to you." After saying that, the woman stopped looking at me and put the crystal ball back behind her stall.

I took out a 100 RMB note from my bag and put it on the stall, then took the crystal necklace and left.

After walking a few steps, I heard several girls behind me asking the woman in a flurry of voices, "Can you tell my fortune?" "Do you still have that crystal beetle? I want one too." Amidst these voices, I faintly heard the woman sigh, "Be careful, I can sense a heavy resentment behind you."

I held that crystal box in my hand the whole time. When I got home, I turned on the light, threw my shoes aside, and sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, studying the crystal box in my hand.

In the end, they didn't discover anything more, only that the craftsmanship of the crystal box and the crystal beetle carving was exquisite.

So I held the crystal box and lay back.

The moment I lay down on the tatami, I suddenly felt the crystal box in my hand tremble slightly!

I hurriedly opened the crystal box. In that instant, I didn't know if it was the refraction caused by the light, my hallucination, or something that had actually happened, but I clearly saw the tiny legs of the crystal beetle crawling inside the box, as if it were trying to escape from the crystal box that sealed it!

how so?

I remembered what the woman who gave me the box had said. Could it be that I might be in danger even in the room?

I sat up from the tatami mat, and the tiny crystal beetle stopped crawling and returned to its original state. The trembling in my palm also disappeared.

If what that woman said is true, then where is the danger at this moment?

I looked around in alarm, but found nothing that made me think of danger.

My gaze eventually settled on the tatami mats.

The materials that Shuiying and I were studying that afternoon were laid out on the tatami mat. The map of that country was spread out on the tatami mat, and I had just slept on the map when I lay down.

A map? My heart skipped a beat again. Could it be related to this map?

I gripped the crystal box tightly and lay back down on the map. Sure enough, I felt a slight tremor in my palm again. I got up from the map, and the feeling immediately disappeared.

So I lay down in another spot, but I couldn't feel anything in my palm.

I sat under the lamp, looked at the crystal box in my palm, then at the map spread out on the tatami mat, and a question arose in my mind once again:

Could it be that country is like a nightmare to me, always shrouded in an unknown danger?

III. Stepping into a Foreign Land

The next day, I was still dreaming when I was woken up by the ringing of the phone.

I crawled out of bed, stepped over the various books and messy photocopied documents scattered around the room, and climbed to the computer desk to pick up the phone that was ringing incessantly.

"Hello..." My eyelids were still stuck together when I answered the phone.

"Ziyue, I found some relevant information and sent it to your email. Go online and take a look. I'll be there in a bit."

I immediately snapped out of it: "Wait, bring a printed copy of the document. My internet broke down last night, and I don't know if I can get online now."

"Okay, wait for me." Shui Ying hung up the phone after saying that.

I hurriedly took the quilt off the tatami mat, turned on the computer and went online. Thank goodness, the network was back up.

I opened the email account I usually use to contact Shuiying, and sure enough, there was a letter from her. I opened the letter, and it was a screenshot of a webpage. The webpage looked like a tattered book, with some creases at the edges, but it still looked quite pretty.

The webpage only contained a few sentences: Legend has it that in a certain desert (the desert I'm referring to is the one I pointed to on the map at the end; I won't specify which desert it is here as it's a story), there is an ancient city. The people in some of the local towns call this ancient city Sile. Sometimes the ancient city appears after a great storm, but anyone who sees it never has a good ending. Some disappear in the desert, and others return only to die from various unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, this ancient city is also known as the "Cursed City."

After reading this webpage, I felt both surprised and delighted. I was surprised that the city in my dream was such a place that people feared, and delighted that my intuition was correct—there really was such an ancient city in the desert. Although the name of the ancient city in the information wasn't exactly the same as the one I had intuition—one was Sila, and the other was Sile—it was only a one-letter difference. Perhaps my intuition wasn't accurate enough, or perhaps the name of the ancient city was misrepresented later, hence the slight discrepancy.

I was staring blankly at the computer, not knowing what I was thinking, when the doorbell rang.

I opened the door and let Shuiying sit up. Before she could even greet me, I asked, "Is this all the relevant information we found?"

Shuiying rolled her eyes at me: "I searched through all the information about ancient civilizations, but I couldn't find anything called Xilan or Sila. It's already pretty good that I found this webpage. Do you know how many ancient cities in the world might have disappeared and never been discovered?"

I scratched my head, unsure of what to say.

As soon as Shuiying entered my study, she exclaimed like a housewife, "Are you an idiot? You must have slept here with your blanket again last night! Don't think I wouldn't know just because you put the blanket in the bedroom!"

"It's convenient to sleep here!" I chuckled.

Shuiying put down what she was holding—a pile of documents and a box of snacks, which was for my breakfast. Seeing the food box immediately made me hungry, and I was about to reach for a piece when Shuiying slapped me: "Go brush your teeth and wash your face!"

"You really have defeated me! You even knew I hadn't brushed my teeth or washed my face!" I grumbled as I walked towards the bathroom.

After washing myself up, I sat amidst the pile of documents Shuiying had just brought, munching on some snacks as I flipped through them. The documents Shuiying had found were all about that country and the town near that desert.

After quickly reviewing the information, I patted the crumbs off my hands and said to Shuiying, "I've decided to book the plane tickets tomorrow."

Shuiying stared at me with wide eyes, as if she had seen a monster: "What did you say? Buy plane tickets tomorrow? Fly to that chaotic country where there is no guarantee of safety?"

"What? Didn't I tell you this already?" Now it was my turn to look at her like she was a monster.

"I thought you were just saying it for fun. Asking me to help you find information was just a game, and then you'd write some nonsense to make some money to satisfy your little vanity." Shui Ying had this "I knew you all along" look on her face, which made me so angry that I really wanted to pinch her until she bled.

"Pah! Only you would be so boring," I said angrily.

Seeing that I didn't seem to be joking, Shuiying cautiously leaned closer and asked, "Are you really going? If I'd known you were serious, I wouldn't have helped you find the information. You saw that website too; there really is an ancient city there, the kind that's really eerie."

“I know it must exist.” My gaze became unfocused again, as if I had traveled through time and space, all the way to that ancient city.

"Sigh, never mind, don't scare me like that. Don't get possessed again. I really don't know what to do with you." Shui Ying waved her hand and said, "Go a couple of days later. I'll prepare some things."

"You should prepare some commonly used tools. Your archaeological tools are useless to me, and I don't know how to use them."

"Tch! Would I let you go on such a fun trip by yourself? I'm telling you to give me two days to prepare, and remember to book two plane tickets. Of course, you'll have to cover the cost of the tickets, since you have a stepfather who's richer than me."

"Girl, are you silly? That place is a notorious cursed city, it's very evil." I was a little stunned by Shuiying.

"Come on, I studied archaeology. I've encountered these kinds of things more often than you. It's not like I'm more timid than you!" Shui Ying said with a defiant expression.

"Darling, why do you always make me feel like I'm going to die for you?" I pinched Shuiying's chin hard.

"Haha, I'm thinking about whether I can hook up with a few handsome guys along the way." I haven't seen Shuiying for two days, and when I called her, she hung up quickly, saying she was busy making preparations. Honestly, who knows what she's busy with?

Two days later, while I was still sleeping, the doorbell started ringing incessantly.

When I opened the door, Shuiying was standing there fully armed, which startled me. "My God, why didn't you put on some armor and put yourself inside?"

Shuiying ignored me and went straight in. She put her huge backpack and a rolling suitcase at the door, then took off her leather shoes and multi-pocketed canvas vest, and finally threw away her canvas sun hat and sunglasses.

"It's so hot!" Shui Ying exclaimed.

"You're insane."

"What do you know? This is professional equipment. I got a set for you too."

Urged by Shuiying, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and ate breakfast. Then I tried on the outfit Shuiying had prepared for me, working up a sweat before Shuiying finally let me go, satisfied.

Shuiying spread out a map on the tatami mat. Pointing to a small black dot on the map that marked the edge of the desert, she said to me, "We'll first fly to this country, then take a car to this town. I've already looked it up in detail; it's the closest town to the center of the desert. We'll stay at the Tebula Hotel in this town. I've already contacted a friend of my teacher's, and he'll leave some of our necessary but hard-to-carry items at the hotel. We can just pick them up when we get there."

Shuiying seemed to have everything under control, and as an outsider, I could only listen to her say, "This desert isn't very big; it usually takes five or six days to cross by camel. We'll rent camels when we get to town. By the way, you should prepare enough money. If our expedition finds the exact location of the ancient city and some useful information, my teacher's friend will help us contact an archaeological team to conduct a rapid excavation, and the ancient city of your dreams can see the light of day again."

"How long will the rapid excavation you mentioned take?" I asked eagerly.

"Well, that's hard to say. It could be done quickly, maybe in three to five months, but it could also take three to five years. There are many unknown factors involved, including political ones."

"Oh, I'm dizzy!" I slapped my head and collapsed onto the tatami mat. Three to five years, oh my god, I might be tormented to death by nightmares.

"What are you dizzy about? Do you think this is a child's game?" Shui Ying looked at me with a professional air and disdain.

"Alright, alright, I can't just do nothing and wait for nightmares to come to me every day." I rolled over and knelt on the tatami mat, clasping my hands together in the air in a chaotic gesture: "All gods and spirits, please help me! Please let me find the ancient city and bring it back to light. Sigh, maybe I'll witness the ancient city's reappearance as soon as I get there." I muttered, "Didn't that information say someone had seen the ancient city reappear?"

"Alright, alright, you're really obsessed. You're talking nonsense. Go book your plane tickets and pack your bags."

I first called and booked a plane ticket, but there were no direct flights to that country, and I had to transfer. Then I called George Chen, the manager of the supermarket I own, who was sent by my stepfather to help me manage the supermarket. I asked him to prepare cash for me, deposit money into my bank account, and also to keep his mobile phone on 24 hours a day so I could call him whenever I needed money.

I've thought of every possible measure to ensure I can get the money I need in time if I run out, so I don't end up unable to go home and end up as a wife to robbers in that kind of country. Oh God! I can't even bear the thought of it.

My action startled George, who kept asking me why I needed so much money.

I replied to him, "You're so long-winded, are you even a man?" and hung up the phone.

Shuiying laughed so hard she rolled around on the tatami mat. She asked me, "Isn't this George handsome? He seems to care about you a lot. Does he have feelings for you?"

"My God!" I stared wide-eyed at Shuiying. "With my personality, I'd die if I were with a man like him. He'd probably ask me how many times I go to the bathroom in a day, and how many times I poop!"

"If a good man is handsome, then keep him for me."

"Handsome, really handsome, his eyes are especially beautiful, they could charm you, and he's very capable, and still unmarried," I said seriously.

"Great, it suits me perfectly!" Shui Ying exclaimed. If you met Shui Ying outside and didn't know her well, you would never see these expressions on her face; you would only see an elegant lady.

Sigh, I feel so inferior. Why can't I act like a lady? I had just finished packing my luggage when the doorbell rang.

I thought it was someone delivering plane tickets, so I opened the door without even glancing through the peephole. But when I opened the door, I found George standing there. He ignored me, yelled loudly, and stormed into my study.

Shuiying was sitting on the tatami mat looking at documents (that brat, she must have heard me yelling, she really knows how to pretend).

George was somewhat surprised to find such a beautiful woman in his study. Shui Ying looked up and smiled at George at the right moment, a smile that defeated him. He scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly: "I am Zi Yue's housekeeper. Her parents asked me to take care of her."

"You're George, right?" Shuiying's voice was so sickeningly sweet it made me want to vomit. "I've heard Ziyue talk about you before, saying you're very capable."