"Did you remember everything I mentioned?"
Finally snapping out of his daze, Shard looked around, puzzled by his surroundings. Just a second ago in his memory, he was helping a friend with funeral arrangements, and the next, he found himself here.
This was a bedroom... definitely not a bedroom of the twenty-first century. The light inside was a muted yellow, not very strong; the somewhat darkened wooden floor was still clean, but the walls had begun to yellow. A stack of books piled in a corner seemed about to topple, while the bookshelf next to it held various ornaments like metal pots and picture frames.
The photos were all in black and white.
Aside from the paintings, there were also two metal pipes on the wall. One could faintly see that the joints connecting the pipes had rusted, with one thin pipe branching off near the desk. That brown wooden desk was covered in papers, and its drawers were half-open, revealing documents inside.
Attached to the brass-colored pipe, the desk lamp was still lit, its heavy, bell-shaped head having an unusually novel design—
"Hmm? Not electric? Gaslight?"
It was hard to tell by looking whether it was a gas lamp, but the pipes clinging to the wall and the wall lamps connected to these pipes certainly weren't electric. The warm yellow glow wasn't very bright either, only illuminating the area around the desk, but it inexplicably made Shard feel warmth.
Guided by this light, he saw the decorative oil paintings on the wall, a black-and-white photograph of a lone figure on the desk, and newspapers spread across the floor in the shadows. He couldn't make out any of the words on the newspapers, but he could see that they were written in letters, not Chinese characters.
The sense of being from a different era was overwhelming. No matter where this was, it was no longer his hometown.
The air was permeated with a rotting scent, but it was more like the smell of a funeral home. Shard remembered the smell, for he had just been aiding a tragically deceased friend...
"Did you remember everything I mentioned?"
The voice echoed again, and only then did Shard fully come out of his stupor. He quickly realized someone was gripping his right wrist. Now fully conscious and aligned with his body, he thought to lower his head.
He stood at the bedside of what seemed to be a nineteenth-century man's bedroom. The bed was a four-poster, but with curtains on only three sides. The visible parts of the bed and headboard gleamed metallic under the bedhead gas lamp.
The lamp at the bedhead was shaped like an angel holding it up, and Shard was momentarily captivated by the exquisite design.
The person holding his hand was the man lying in the bed, presumably the owner of the bedroom. This middle-aged man, wearing a dark checkered nightgown, was covered up by blankets except for his head and right hand.
His distinctly Caucasian facial features were gaunt, eyes sunken, cheeks drooping, and the hand gripping Shard's wrist was terrifyingly skinny. The man looked as if he was about to starve to death, and Shard even believed that speaking too loudly might require him to plead with the man not to die.
Shard really didn't know anything now and needed to understand the situation from this man.
"So... is this time travel?"
He thought to himself, grasping a general idea of the current situation.
Fortunately, although the man in the bed was weak, at least there were no signs of corpse discoloration. Otherwise, Shard would really be worried about his current predicament.
"Did you remember everything I mentioned?"
The frail man in the bed asked a third time, his brown eyes deeply recessed yet fixedly staring at Shard. Although Shard didn't understand why he had inexplicably traveled to this place, at least he knew it was best to play along for now, to grasp the current state of things before planning further.
He tried to speak and only then realized that the man wasn't speaking Chinese, nor any language he knew, but Shard somehow understood him. He tried to reply in the man's language, but only managed to slightly open his mouth; he understood but couldn't speak it.
"No way? I can understand but not speak?"
Instantly, a buzzing sound arose in his ears and his back itched from nervousness. Being unable to speak the language of this Otherworld was not something he had anticipated, and it was the worst-case scenario.
A humming noise filled his head, and he soon realized that this noise wasn't due to his own nervousness. He understood the voice inside his head—it was a woman speaking, a whispering sound:
"Sixth Era, Common Era Calendar 1853, summer, the day of Silvermoon's shine, you have come to this gloomy world. You understand you need an identity, so you must inherit everything of this inexplicable body. Now is the first step, to prove, prove that you can enter this world."
"System..."
His instinct was that this was the legendary system, but he immediately realized that it was definitely not the system.
The woman's voice was unusually elegant and soothing, like a whisper reciting a poem chapter, intoxicating to those who heard it. But the language she used was different from Chinese and from the language of the frail man on the bed.
The language was even older and more profound, like an ancient breeze that had traveled through the curtains of time and suddenly brushed the present. The language itself was a manifestation of mystery. Even just understanding its meanings, Shard felt as though he was peering into the deepest darkness.
Even though Shard understood this second language, purely comprehending it made his head buzz and his new body's stomach felt nauseous.
It was a sense of spiritual oppression; the language used by the voice in his mind itself possessed extraordinary power.
"This is the language system of this world! It's not a system in my mind; this is something that originally existed in this body!"
Shard made his judgment. As his pupils slightly contracted, a more terrifying speculation arose before his eyes:
"A new world, this world akin to the Victorian Steam Era, is a world where the transcendent and the mysterious exist!"
He wasn't the kind of person who rejected reality. Since transmigration had occurred, the existence of the transcendent wasn't entirely unacceptable. However, his first task now was to clarify the current situation, answer the man's question, and identify his own identity.
Therefore, Shard tried his best to convey information to the voice in his mind using his language:
"Whoever you are, listen well. I want to accept everything about this body, but I don't have the memories of this body, nor do I have the language habits of this body."
"Now, you do."
It felt as if a brick had been forcibly shoved into his fontanel and maliciously stirred around. It was a miracle Shard thought he hadn't passed out.
He didn't obtain the original body's memories; instead, knowledge about "Common Language of the Northern Kingdom Human Draleon Kingdom Language" was stuffed into him. But this knowledge merely existed, like a translator—it didn't immediately integrate and understand all the slangs, dialects, religious cultures, allusions, or language habits.
"I apologize, sir, I'm not feeling well. Could you please repeat what you wanted me to remember?"
With this knowledge, he translated the Chinese in his mind into the "Common Language of Northern Kingdom Humans" of the Otherworld and deliberately spoke with a translated tone. The frail man gripping Shard's hand suddenly squeezed hard. It was hard to imagine that such a slender wrist could possess such strength:
"You are still the same, your brain doesn't function well... alright, I'll say it again..."
It seemed that the original owner of the body was not very bright, and Shard's words for now did not raise any suspicions.
"Shard (Shade)..."
The pronunciation of the name was very similar.
"I am about to die. I knew three months in advance that I would die, so I selected you from among the wanderers. I changed your life, gave you a new name, taught you basic literacy, and some common sense. After I die, you will inherit everything I have—my detective agency and all my belongings. But you need to do something for me, a very simple thing—"
Though his tone was very weak, his terrifying eyes stared at Shard like a dying lone wolf. The great terror evident in his gaze chilled the heart of Shard, the outlander who still didn't understand this world very well.
But Shard kept his breathing as steady as possible and did not meet his gaze bravely. It was not that Shard was frightened at the moment, but from the previous statement, he had begun to understand the original owner's situation.
Therefore, at this moment, he should not meet the man's gaze but should fearfully look away, which was more in line with the known character setting.
"Inherit my detective agency, no matter what you decide to do with it, at least keep it running until September 5, 1853, three months from now. At that time, you will receive a letter. Fetch it and burn it—that is the price for inheriting all my estates."
His hand gripped Shard's tightly, and even as Shard acted with a slight struggle, he didn't believe he could break free; the man's strength was indeed formidable:
"This is my, Sparrow Hamilton's, only requirement for leaving the inheritance to you, Shard Hamilton."