"Have you remembered everything I told you?"
Suddenly snapping out of his daze, Shad looked around, confused by everything in front of him. In the last moment of his memory, he had been helping a friend handle funeral arrangements; in the next moment, he found himself here.
This was a bedroom... but definitely not a 21st-century bedroom. The soft, yellowish light in the room wasn't very bright. The slightly worn wooden floor was relatively clean, though the walls had begun to yellow. A stack of books was piled up in the corner, leaning as if about to topple over. Beside the pile, the bookshelf held some metal kettles and photo frames as decorations.
The photos were all in black and white.
Aside from paintings, there were two metal pipes running along the wall. It was faintly visible that the clamps connecting the pipes had rusted, and one thinner pipe branched off near the desk. On the brown wooden desk, scattered with papers, the drawers on both sides were partially open, revealing documents inside.
A desk lamp, connected to a brass pipe, was still lit. Its horn-shaped design was quite unique—
"Huh? Not an electric lamp? A gas lamp?"
It was hard to tell whether it was a gas lamp just by looking at it, but with the pipes running along the walls and the wall lamp connected to them, it clearly wasn't electric. The warm yellow glow wasn't very bright, illuminating only the area around the desk, but for some reason, it gave Shad a sense of comfort.
By this light, he saw the decorative painting on the wall, the black-and-white portrait on the desk, and the newspaper spread out in the shadows on the floor. He couldn't make out any details of the paper, but he could tell it wasn't written in Chinese characters—it was in letters.
With this sense of time, it didn't matter where he was; this place was no longer home.
There was a faint smell of decay in the air, but it was more like the smell of a funeral home. Shad remembered this scent—after all, just moments ago, he had been helping with his friend's unfortunate passing...
"Have you remembered everything I told you?"
The voice rang out again, and Shad finally snapped out of his trance. The young man quickly realized that someone was gripping his right wrist. Now that his mind and body had fully merged, he thought to look down.
He was standing by the bed in what seemed to be a nineteenth-century man's bedroom. It was a four-poster bed, though only three sides had curtains. The visible parts of the bed and headboard gleamed with a metallic sheen under the gas lamp by the headboard.
The lamp was held up by a small angel, and for a moment, Shad was captivated by its intricate design.
The person holding his hand was the man lying in bed. This middle-aged man, likely the owner of the bedroom, wore dark checkered pajamas. Apart from his head and right hand, his entire body was covered by the blanket.
His face was distinctly Caucasian, but his eyes were sunken, and his cheeks sagged. His right hand, clutching Shad's wrist, was shockingly thin. He looked as if he was on the verge of starving to death. Shad believed that if he spoke any louder, he might have to beg the man not to die.
Shad knew nothing right now, and he needed to understand the situation from the man.
"So... did I time-travel?"
He thought to himself, starting to grasp the situation.
Fortunately, the man in the bed, though weak, didn't seem to have any signs of decay. Otherwise, Shad would truly be worried about his current predicament.
"Have you remembered everything I told you?"
For the third time, the frail man in bed asked, his brown eyes sunken deep into their sockets, yet fixed intently on Shad. Though Shad had no idea why he had suddenly time-traveled to this place, he at least knew it was best to play along for now. He needed to understand the situation before making any plans for the future.
He opened his mouth to speak but immediately realized that the man wasn't speaking english, nor any language he knew, yet Shad somehow understood it. He tried to respond in the same language, but when he slightly opened his mouth, he found he could understand but couldn't speak it.
"No way? I can understand but can't speak?"
A buzzing sound echoed in his ears for a moment, and his back tingled with anxiety. Being unable to speak the language of the people in this other world was something he hadn't anticipated—it was the worst-case scenario.
As the buzzing in his head grew louder, Shad angrily scolded himself for not staying calm and began searching for a solution. But then he realized that the buzzing wasn't from his own nervousness. He could understand the voice in his head—it was a woman's voice, a whisper:
"Year 1853 of the Sixth Epoch, Summer, on the Day of the Shining Silver Moon, you arrived in this world. You understand you need an identity, so you will inherit everything from this mysterious body. This is the first step—prove that you can enter this world."
"A sys..."
His first instinct was that this must be some kind of system, but he quickly dismissed the idea.
The woman's voice was unusually elegant and soothing, like a whispered recitation of poetry, mesmerizing in its cadence. Yet the language she used was different from both Chinese and the frail man's language.
Her language was older, deeper, like an ancient breeze blowing through the veil of time, suddenly reaching the present. The language itself was a manifestation of mystery. Even merely understanding its meaning made Shad feel as if he were gazing into the darkest depths.
Though Shad could understand this second language as well, just comprehending it made his head buzz, and his stomach, in this new body, churned with nausea.
This was a kind of mental pressure; the very language used by the voice in his head carried extraordinary power.
"This is the language of this world! The voice in my head isn't a system—it's something that already existed within this body!"
Shad came to this realization, and as his pupils slightly contracted, a more terrifying thought crossed his mind:
"This new world, this world that resembles the Victorian steam era, is one where the supernatural and the mysterious exist!"
Shad wasn't someone who rejected reality. Since time-travel had already happened, the existence of the supernatural wasn't entirely unacceptable. However, his immediate priority was still to figure out his current situation, respond to the man's question, and understand his identity.
So, Shad made an effort to convey a message in his own language to the voice in his head:
"Whoever you are, listen carefully. I want to accept everything about this body, but I don't have its memories or its language skills."
[Now, you have it.]
It felt as though a brick had been forcibly shoved into the top of Shad's head and maliciously stirred around. Shad thought it was a miracle he didn't pass out.
He didn't receive the original body's memories but was instead force-fed some knowledge—the knowledge of the 'Drarian Royal Language,' the common language of the Northern Kingdoms. However, this knowledge merely existed in his mind, like a translation device. He couldn't immediately master all the slang, dialects, religious references, idioms, or linguistic nuances.
"Apologies, sir. I'm not feeling well. Could you repeat what you wanted me to remember?"
Relying on this newfound knowledge, he clumsily translated Chinese into the Northern Kingdoms' 'Common Tongue' in his head, and deliberately spoke with a translator-like awkwardness. The frail man gripping Shad's wrist suddenly squeezed tighter. It was hard to imagine how such a thin wrist could possess such strength.
"You're still like this—your head doesn't work too well... Fine, I'll say it again..."
It seemed that the original owner of this body wasn't too bright either, and Shad's words didn't raise any suspicion for now.
"Shad..."
The way he pronounced the name was very similar.
"I'm about to die. I knew three months ago that I would die, so I chose you from among the vagrants. I changed your life, gave you a new name, taught you basic literacy, and some common sense. After my death, you'll inherit everything—my detective agency, all of my possessions. But you need to do one thing for me. A simple task—"
Though his voice was weak, his eyes—those terrifying eyes—stared at Shad like the eyes of a lone wolf on the verge of death.
Shad kept his breathing steady but didn't dare meet the man's gaze. It wasn't that Shad was scared at the moment, but from what he had just heard, he had a basic understanding of the original owner's situation.
Thus, now was not the time for him to make eye contact with the man. Instead, he should appear frightened and avert his gaze, as this would fit the known personality of the body's former owner.
"Inherit my detective agency. No matter what you intend to do with it, you must at least keep it running until September 5, 1853—three months from now. At that time, you will receive a letter. Retrieve it, burn it, and that will be the price for inheriting all of my assets."
The man's grip tightened on Shad's hand. Even though Shad, in line with his act, pretended to struggle slightly, he had no illusion of breaking free. The man's strength was immense.
"This is my only request, from me, Sparrow Hamilton, to you, Shad Hamilton, in exchange for leaving you my inheritance.