The earth's egg is formed from the soil, and within it lies light and time. First, the light of heaven gave birth to water, and within the water arose white fish, which exhaled and inhaled vapor, transforming me into a circulating being.
—This is the opening of the book *The Rules of Witchcraft*. The following sections describe specific methods for practicing witchcraft. Fang Fei is currently reading intently, hoping to understand it as soon as possible.
The film in the developing tank hadn't been developed yet, so Mu Yiran and the others were checking the contents of the package. Seeing Shao Ling's xun (a type of
ancient Chinese wind instrument), Mu Yiran asked, "What's different about this xun compared to the ones you've used before?" Shao Ling had already examined this xun many times: "I haven't played a xun for many years. When I was a child, I used a ceramic xun, a nine-hole one. This xun is a stone xun, an ancient one. It doesn't have any tone holes, only a blowhole."
Wei Dong didn't understand: "Luckily you know about it. If it were me, I definitely wouldn't have known it was a musical instrument. I thought it was some strange little jar. How can you play a xun without any holes?"
Shao Ling picked up the xun and looked at the blowhole: "A xun like this probably can't produce any music. The ancients originally used it to imitate bird calls or animal cries to catch prey. Ancient xun with only one blowhole have been unearthed at the Hemudu and Yangshao cultural sites. This should be the most primitive form of the xun, dating back at least six or seven thousand years."
"Six or seven thousand years, and I haven't even had a chance to read 'Five Thousand Years of Chinese History' yet," Luo Yu remarked from the side. Xin Chun, however, seemed quite interested in the stone ocarina, constantly leaping to reach it.
"I think this ocarina is shaped like an egg. I wonder if this thing has informational or practical value," Zhu Haowen said.
Qin Ci quickly understood what Zhu Haowen meant: "We just don't understand what the 'earth egg' mentioned in that book is. Could this ocarina be an allusion to an earth egg?"
This caught Shao Ling's attention. He carefully examined the stone ocarina in his hand: "Actually, the standard shape of an ocarina is a flat-bottomed oval. The flat bottom of this one isn't very prominent, so it's closer to the shape of an egg. If this shape really is an allusion, then there are indeed clues to follow. For example, our world has many Tang Dynasty-style buildings and foods, but this ocarina is definitely not Tang Dynasty style, because the ocarina has existed since the Shang Dynasty." It developed to have five holes, thus becoming a formal musical instrument. By the Tang Dynasty, it already had five or six holes, certainly not the way it is now.
Wei Dong also started thinking: "Why is this so complicated? If they really wanted to hint at 'earth eggs,' they could just use an egg or an egg-shaped stone to represent it. Why bother with an ocarina?"
Shao Ling: "One possibility is that the shape of the earth egg itself is like this ocarina, with a hole at the top."
Zhu Haowen: "Another possibility is that leaving an egg might be obscured by the drawing."
"Obscured?" Wei Dong asked.
Zhu Haowen: "Yes, although the items in our packages weren't brought into the paintings with us, they have a strong connection to us. For example, this xun (a type of ancient Chinese wind instrument) appeared in the package of Shao Ling, who can play the xun, but not elsewhere. If these are things left behind from another timeline, I think a large part of the items that give us clues have been blocked, leaving only 'correct items,' that is, things related to the owner."
"If that's the case, these things are likely clues sent to us today by another 'us'?" Qin Ci speculated, still confused, but feeling that he was getting closer to the truth.
"If that's what you mean, then there are some things in my collection of paintings as well," Wei Dong picked up his "Wei Family Painting Collection," "Look at this page, it's a bunch of Easter eggs, right? Don't you think this one is particularly strange?"
The picture on this page did indeed look like a bunch of Easter eggs, each egg painted with various beautiful patterns, except for one in the corner, which was larger than the other eggs, but had no patterns, only a thick waistline around the middle of the egg.
Luo Yu stared at it for a long time: "I don't think so. This line is just the pattern on this egg."
"No, I know my own drawing habits," Wei Dong shook his head decisively, "I couldn't possibly draw an egg like this among a bunch of fancy eggs. Besides, I drew the line in the middle of the egg particularly heavily, which is obviously a focus of ink. I think it's a hint."
As he spoke, Wei Dong flipped through the other pages: "Also, I noticed that there are many blank pages among these drawings. This is really not my habit, and it's definitely not due to carelessness. If I'm not mistaken, these blank pages originally had drawings, but because of the issue of information leakage, they were naturally obscured by the drawings!"
Natural obscuration—everyone had already regarded the artist's ulterior motives as a natural phenomenon.
As everyone flipped through the picture book, they gradually came to agree with Wei Dong's explanation. Qin Ci said, "Therefore, the shape of this egg is the key to solving the problem. There is a hole on the Xun (a type of ancient Chinese wind instrument) in Shaoling, and there is a waistline on the egg that Dongzi drew. It is very likely that these are two characteristics that the 'earth egg' possesses at the same time."
Everyone agreed with Qin Ci's summary, and at this moment, they all turned their gazes to Mu Yiran.
Mu Yiran had already opened the developing tank and taken out two rolls of film: "Let's look at these negatives before we analyze them."
Wei Dong and Luo Yi quickly switched into "projectionist" mode, processing one roll of film before putting it into the projector: "Is this... the film from Mai Peng's camera?"
"Yes, I think the first photo we took after coming into this world is crucial," Mu Yiran said. "The other photos taken last night at other locations and times are meaningless because they didn't capture any people."
As the lights in the room were turned off one by one, the light screen on the wall gradually became clear, displaying a landscape of the countryside. The black and white contrast was strong, and the whole picture had a great sense of depth. If it were developed, it would be a fantastic photograph.
"No wonder Mai Peng is called the God of Mai," Wei Dong said, looking at the frames of negatives flashing on the light screen. "These photographs are truly divine."
As these landscape paintings and street portraits slowly flashed by, the final image settled on a familiar world—a wide perspective, capturing not only the stairs but also the entire corridor.
Indeed, just as Mai Peng said when he took the photo, a person was walking up the stairs. This person was wearing a large robe and his entire face was snow-white.
"My god, how terrifying is this person?" Luo Yu's hand trembled with fright.
"This looks like—it's Master Wu." Wei Dong looked at the face on the screen; the snow-white mask was very similar to Fang Fei's mask. "Based on the color reflection effect, this Master Wu is wearing a pure black mask."
Fang Fei also stood to the side, staring at the screen on the wall: "If I'm not mistaken, this should be a Wu from the Cold Night Journey."
This was the first time the camera had captured a Wu, making the photo very eerie.
"Look here in the corridor, there's another person." Zhu Haowen pointed to the other side of the photo. "This person is squatting there, and is quite short, so it's easy to miss."
Soon everyone noticed the person squatting by the corridor wall. This person was facing the wall, squatting with their right hand raised, seemingly drawing something on the wall.
"This should be a woman," Fang Fei said. "She looks somewhat like... but the pattern on her clothes is wrong. None of our members have ever worn a robe with such large blocks of color."
Even if Fang Fei hadn't said it, the others had the same feeling; the woman squatting there, judging from her hairstyle and figure, somewhat resembled Du Lingyu.
"Don't you think the pattern on this person's robe is somewhat similar to Xia Yu's?" Wei Dong pointed out.
Indeed, it was very similar.
If this person really was Du Lingyu, why was she covered in blood? And what was she writing by the wall?
"If I'm not mistaken, she was probably drawing lines on the wall; all or part of those seven lines were her handwriting," Shao Ling said.
"But how could so much be captured on camera? How did Mai Shen manage that?" Luo Yu couldn't help but ask. In his opinion, if someone stood in the shooting position looking in that direction, it would be impossible to see so much below the stairs and along the entire corridor at once.
"It's probably because a wide-angle lens was used, which makes the image wider and the perspective larger," Shao Ling replied. "My new phone includes a wide-angle lens, which certainly can't compare to a professional camera lens, but I still looked up some information about wide-angle lenses online—wide-angle lenses can create negative space, which is somewhat similar to negative space in image composition. Obviously, the wide angle of this photo also creates negative space, but this space isn't all blank; it seems like there's something else."
Everyone stared intently at the picture on the wall. Perhaps because a wide-angle lens was used, the proportions of the image appeared slightly unrealistic, but it still successfully captured Lord Wu going upstairs and Du Lingyu on the far side of the corridor. Besides these elements, there were indeed some "blank" things at the edges of the photo. These things didn't belong to the light, nor were they simply spatial stretching; rather, they were strange phenomena resembling the starry sky.
"There's some stretching around the buildings and figures. According to the principle of color inversion, what we've captured are actually white dots on a black background," Wei Dong frowned as he studied the image. "What exactly are these things?"
Mu Yiran also stared intently for a long time. "This photo contains a lot of information. Let's analyze it step by step: According to Mai Peng, the shutter speed of this photo is 1/60 of a second, and the time of the photo is when we first entered this world. In other words, the photo captures the scene an hour before we
entered the picture. "Through comparisons from various aspects, we can almost confirm that the girl drawing lines on the wall is Du Lingyu. That is to say, an hour before we entered the picture, another Du Lingyu was in this corridor."
"When we entered the scene, the lights weren't on yet. Analyzing the timeline, this point in time is one hour before midnight, which is 11 PM the day before the scene was created. This should be the time when another timeline is running, which is why the camera lens captured another 'member.'
"But here's the problem: it's clearly nighttime in the photo as well, since the corridor wasn't lit. Why would Du Lingyu come to the corridor alone at night? Judging from the bloodstains on her, something urgent must have happened, but her reaction wasn't to look for help; instead, she was drawing lines on the wall. Clearly, drawing lines was a crucial action."
"Whether the bloodstains on Du Lingyu are her own or someone else's, we don't know; whether the wizard going upstairs is related to this, we also don't know; Du Lingyu once said that when she first came to this world, she felt a sharp pain in her head, like being hit hard. Was it the wizard who attacked her, another Du Lingyu, or someone else..."
Fang Fei suddenly interrupted Mu Yiran: "If another Du Lingyu was also in the same place when we first came to this world, it would create a twin situation. If the two met, something terrible would happen."
"But so far, Du Lingyu is relatively safe. We haven't seen anything terrible happen to her," Qin Ci said.
"So let's make a bold assumption," Mu Yiran continued, "that Master Wu stopped the negative consequences of twins in time. Fang Fei once said that someone specifically asked Master Wu to break the twins' condition. I suspect that the heavy impact was probably the method to break it."
Fang Fei nodded excitedly: "I just saw that page of the book. The way to break twins is to draw the two people together and then 'match' them at the top of their heads!"
Wei Dong was also excited, unable to believe that everyone had deduced to this extent based on just one photo: "That makes sense! But why did the other Du Lingyu meet us? Logically speaking, we've never been on the same timeline, have we?"
Mu Yiran: "It seems that the time when we first entered the painting is an important node, a node that causes the two timelines to overlap. At this node, it is very likely that people from the two timelines will meet."
"I still don't understand. Why is there only Du Lingyu? Why is she alone so late at night? Where is the other 'us'?!" Wei Dong still couldn't figure it out.
Mu Yiran's expression turned grim, and a pity that seemed out of character flickered in his eyes: "Perhaps, she was the only survivor back then."
"Wh-what?" Everyone turned their gaze to Mu Yiran's face. "You mean, back then, on another timeline, everyone else was already dead?"