Chapter One: The Man on the Brink of Death

“Did you remember everything I told you?”

Finally coming to his senses in a daze, Shade looked around with some confusion. The last thing he recalled was helping a friend with funeral arrangements; the next moment, he found himself here.

This was a bedroom—definitely not one from the twenty-first century. The interior was bathed in a soft yellow light, not too bright. The slightly darkened wooden floor was fairly clean, but the walls had begun to yellow with age. In one corner, a pile of books leaned precariously as if about to topple. Nearby, a bookshelf held metal kettles and framed photographs.

All the pictures were black and white.

Besides the oil paintings on the walls, there were two metal pipes. The clamps connecting the pipes showed rust. One thinner pipe branched off at the desk. The brown wooden desk was covered with papers, its drawers half-open, revealing documents inside.

A brass desk lamp connected to the pipes was still lit. The lamp’s bell-shaped shade was uniquely designed—

“Hm? Not electric? A gas lamp?”

It was hard to tell if it was a gas lamp just by looking, but the pipes clinging to the wall and the lamp attached to them didn’t look electric at all. The warm yellow glow wasn’t bright, only illuminating the desk area, yet it gave Shade an oddly comforting feeling.

In this light, he could see the decorative oil paintings on the wall, the black-and-white individual photos on the desk, and newspapers spread out in the shadows on the floor. The text was not made up of block characters but letters.

This sense of era told him that no matter where this was, it was no longer his hometown.

The air carried a faint stench of decay, more like that of a funeral parlor. Shade recognized the smell, having just been with a friend who had passed away...

“Did you remember everything I told you?”

The voice rang out again, jolting Shade fully awake. The young man quickly realized someone was gripping his right wrist. Only now, with mind and body fully aligned, did he look down.

He was by the bedside in what seemed to be a nineteenth-century man’s bedroom. The bed was a four-poster, but only three sides had curtains. The visible parts of the bed and headboard gleamed metallically under the bedside gas lamp.

The lamp was shaped like a small angel holding it up—Shade was briefly captivated by the delicate design.

The man holding his hand lay on the bed. Possibly the room’s owner, a middle-aged man in dark plaid pajamas, was buried under the covers except for his head and right hand.

His face was unmistakably Caucasian, but his eyes sunken, cheeks sagging, and the gaunt hand gripping Shade’s wrist were horrifyingly thin. He looked as though he was starving to death alive. Shade even believed that if he spoke too loudly, he would have to beg the man not to die.

Shade knew nothing now; he had to learn the situation from this man.

“So... I traveled through time?” he thought, roughly understanding the situation.

Fortunately, the man on the bed looked weak but showed no signs of death. Otherwise, Shade would truly worry about his own predicament.

“Did you remember everything I told you?” The frail man asked for the third time, his deep brown eyes fixed on Shade.

Shade didn’t understand why he had suddenly traveled to this place, but he knew it was best to play along for now—to understand his situation before planning for the future.

He attempted to speak, only realizing the man’s language was neither Chinese nor any tongue Shade knew, yet somehow he understood it. Trying to respond in that language, Shade parted his lips slightly, but though he understood, he couldn’t speak it.

“Could it be? Understand but can’t speak?”

A sudden buzzing filled his ears; his back itched from nervousness. Not being able to speak the native language was the worst-case scenario.

The buzzing in his head grew louder, and then he realized it wasn’t caused by his anxiety. The voice in his mind was a woman’s—softly murmuring:

[Year Six of the Sixth Era, Common Calendar 1853, Summer, Day of the Silver Moon’s Radiance, you have arrived in this dark world. You understand you need an identity, so you must inherit everything about this unfamiliar body. The first step: prove that you can enter this world.]

“Sy—” His instinct was that this was some kind of system, but he quickly dismissed the idea.

The woman’s voice was exquisitely elegant and soothing, like softly recited poetry that entranced the listener. Yet the language she spoke was different from Chinese and from the man’s language on the bed.

It was more ancient and profound, like a breeze from a distant epoch that had crossed the veil of time to reach the present. The language itself was a manifestation of mystery. Merely understanding its meaning made Shade feel as if he glimpsed into the deepest darkness.

Although Shade understood this second language, simply comprehending it caused his head to buzz violently, and his new body’s stomach to churn.

This was a mental oppression; the language used by the voice held extraordinary power.

“This is the native tongue of this world! The voice in my head is not a system but something that existed in the original body!”

Shade made this judgment, his pupils shrinking slightly as he formed a terrifying hypothesis based on what he saw:

“This new world, resembling a Victorian steam-age era, is a realm where the supernatural and the mysterious exist!”

He was not one to reject reality. Since he had traveled here, the existence of the supernatural was not entirely unbelievable. But his first task was to understand his current situation, answer the man’s questions, and clarify his identity.

So Shade tried to convey information to the voice in his head in his own way:

“Whoever you are, listen carefully. I want to accept everything about this body, but I have no memories of it and do not know its language habits.”

[Now, you do.]

It felt as if a brick had been forcefully shoved into the crown of his head and maliciously twisted around. Shade considered it a miracle that he did not pass out.

He had not regained the original body’s memories but was forcibly implanted with knowledge—knowledge of the “Northern Kingdom’s common human language, the Drarion Royal Tongue.” But this knowledge was merely present like a translation device; he had yet to fully grasp the slang, dialects, religious culture, idioms, or language nuances.

“Sorry, sir, I’m not feeling well. Could you please repeat what you want me to remember?”

Relying on this knowledge, he haltingly translated his Chinese thoughts into the foreign “Northern human common tongue” in his mind, then deliberately spoke with a translation-like accent. The frail man gripping his hand suddenly squeezed hard. It was hard to imagine such a thin wrist possessing such strength:

“You still are the same—your brain isn’t working well... Fine, I’ll say it again...”

It seemed the original body’s owner was mentally impaired; Shade’s words had not yet aroused suspicion.

“Shade...” The pronunciation was very similar.

“I’m dying. I knew three months ago I would die, so I chose you from among the homeless. I changed your life, gave you a new name, taught you basic literacy and common knowledge. After I die, you will inherit everything—my detective agency, all my assets. But you must do one thing for me, a simple thing—”

Though weak, his terrifying eyes stared at Shade like a dying lone wolf. The horror in his gaze made the already unfamiliar foreigner shudder.

Shade kept his breathing steady but avoided meeting his eyes. It wasn’t fear; from the man’s words, he already understood his predicament.

Therefore, he should not look him in the eye but avert his gaze in fear, fitting the character he now inhabited.

“Inherit my detective agency. No matter what you do here, keep it running until September 5, 1853, three months from now. Then you will receive a letter—retrieve it and burn it. That is the price to claim my entire inheritance.”

His hand gripped Shade’s tightly. Even when Shade feigned a slight struggle, he doubted he could break free—the man’s strength was immense.

“This is me, Sparrow Hamilton. Leaving my inheritance to you is my only request to you, Shade Hamilton.”