As he finished translating the last sentence of the first volume, Acheson Rupert took a deep breath and put down his quill and fell back into his rocking chair, looking tired.

It's much harder to decipher than you think, even if you're the best paleolinguist in all of London.

"Old friend, are you at home? This is the fresh coffee bean I just ground in the morning, come and open the door." A short knock on the door echoed through the small room. Rupert scratched his ear, reluctantly left the rocking chair, and opened the door grumbling.

"Hey, old friend, you're busy translating again, I said, your room is not big, and there are so many books piled up in the room, it's really crowded. "The one who walked in was an annoying guy named Doyle Leslie, who worked for the largest publishing house in the city, and was usually responsible for going out to negotiate the publishing business, although he was a father (there were twin girls who had just turned 10 years old), but he still looked like an old urchin, and he and Rupert were college roommates all day long, and from time to time he took the opportunity to visit the door to see the new translations of "Prey".

"You're the only one who still uses a quill, and don't keep locking yourself in the house, you see it's been two years, and the calendar is still stuck in 1937, which means that you have hardly left the house since the beginning of your pen!" Lester, with a bag of ground coffee in one hand and a new calendar in the other, unceremoniously squeezed through the door the moment he opened the door.

"You don't have to worry about it, I have a nanny and I clean it once a week. Due to his family's special circumstances and financial difficulties, Rupert applied for a considerable amount of employment and entrepreneurship funds when he graduated from university, and successfully found a decent job at the city's Institute of Classical Literature. Two years ago, he abruptly quit his job where he had worked for many years, withdrew the employment money from the bank and the savings he had accumulated over the years, and found his purchase records in libraries, museums, and even some obscure second-hand book markets across the country.

"Slow down, watch your step, this is the Continental Drift Paradox that I managed to find!" Rupert exclaimed with a frown, pointing to his hands, one of the reasons he didn't like to be disturbed by others was because there were so many books in the room that it was easy for visitors to "destroy" their own collections.

"Continental drift paradox?" Leslie picked up the book from the ground with interest, patted the dust on it, and carefully opened it.

"Leslie, I think you should know that our continent was originally connected to a single piece, but there was no name that would satisfy me, and after consulting countless ancient books, I gave it a fitting name, named 'Tansfog', which is a transliteration of the word 'fog', which means 'unexplored, full of unknowns, but tempted to step into it'. Rupert slowly became excited when he mentioned this obscure knowledge, "After that, under the long river of history, the continent gradually divided into what we know now, and that time, that is, the history before the split, there was hardly a systematic and complete narrative and record. ”

"In other words, you want to be the first person to eat crabs to make up for and dig up the truth of this history?" Leslie snapped his fingers, "Isn't it?"

"To be precise, to decipher and restore that history, do you remember Cromwell Nelson from the university's Department of Archaeology, who is now a member of the National Archaeological Team, who would write to me every six months and ask me to send me some photos of the archaeological site. Rupert pulled a file bag out of the locked drawer in his desk, which opened to reveal a thick stack of black-and-white photographs.

"Oh God, it's illegal in England, and you're so good at convincing that stereotypical Nelson to send you so many things. Leslie exclaimed.

"Hehe, I don't have the power to convince him, but he persuaded me to do it, and I remember that it was at the party the night before I quit my job, and we sat on the edge of the balcony and drank several bottles of old wine, and he told me many interesting stories and wonderful discoveries that have taken place in archaeology all over the country, among which there are several ancient books, very old, even far exceeding." The history of our generation of humanity stimulated my desire to explore that had been dormant for a long time, so we hit it off, he was in charge of archaeology, and I was in charge of deciphering ancient texts, and together we did our best to show the world the history that had been erased in Tansforg. ”

"I see, that guy must have made some incredible discoveries in archaeology, otherwise he wouldn't have found you, after all, you are a top student in the Department of Literature, and after graduation, you have worked in the cataloguing of ancient literature and foreign language translation for so many years, and you are still a college classmate he knows, so he can trust it completely, who will he look for if he doesn't look for you?" Rillis walked around the room and didn't find a low stool, so he simply sat on the ground and looked at the archaeological photos sent by Nelson one by one.

"If you look at these murals, they clearly record what people were like at that time. Rupert is like a museum docent, and each one is explained in detail.

"What! no way, how could there be humans, and it's still in the style of the Middle Ages!" Lyllis wiped the graying lenses in disbelief, he recognized the soldier's outfit in the mural, "I have also studied history and geography, and I know a little common sense, the continental drift must have occurred at least a few hundred million years ago, and there would be no record of human existence at all, let alone such a mural!"

"This is a report measured with a state-of-the-art chemical measuring instrument, and it is written that it is older than human origins, and can never be from the Middle Ages. Rupert said and took out a report from his portfolio, which was a photocopy, and the end was stamped with the official seal of the National Institute of Archaeology, proving that what he said was true, "So this is a paradox, and the book "The Paradox of Continental Drift" is very thoughtful, mentioning the possibility of human life before the division of the continent, but it is a pity that the author has passed away, otherwise I would have visited him." ”

"In other words, the book you are translating now has characters in it??!" Lester gasped, walked quickly to the edge of the writing desk, flipped through Rupert's manuscript, and exclaimed again and again.

"Of course there are characters... You should have noticed earlier that since it is an ancient book, someone must have written it. Rupert paused, "Do you think I'm just writing about the movement of the earth's crust, as Nelson's archaeological work gets deeper and deeper, the entire creative framework of this book is gradually erected, and many facts prove that in the history before the division of the continent, there were indeed human activities, they divided countries according to geography, and created a very distinctive civilization, which can be called the first human history, and our current human civilization should belong to the second human history." ”

"Wait, magic, there's some magic in the book?"

"To be exact, it's the paranormal, a concept that we can't understand with our current level of technology, and I've written it all for magic in the book for the sake of easy understanding. Rupert replied, "Just like in the days when we put our technology five hundred years ago, they certainly couldn't understand the products of our time, and could only call us 'mystical magic.'" ”

"Do you have any evidence of the paranormal you speak of—" Lester held the manuscript and never took his eyes off the paper.

"Yes, this green crystal that once belonged to Tansfogg is one of the evidences. Rupert took a small piece of green crystal from the safe under the table, put on plastic gloves, carefully wrapped it in a layer of linen, and placed it on the edge of the iron spoon, "The hedron was found in the skull of a four-legged beast that lived in Tansforg, and it was deeply embedded in the skull, as if it were a natural product of the beast. ”

"Smack!" the green spar automatically attached to the spoon like a magnet.

"Maybe it's just a magnet with a special color. Lester quickly found a reason to explain.

"And how do you explain this?" Rupert took the spoon containing the green hedron in his hand, took a fire-burning iron tong from the room, and slashed at it.

I only heard a crisp sound of "click", and the thick iron tongs were neatly split in half by the thin soup spoon.

"It's... What's going on!" Lester was so surprised that he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"It can make the attached device several times more aggressive, and this paranormal phenomenon is just one of the things that happens to Tansforg. Rupert put the hedron away, "Nelson has hidden this discovery from the military, this is a precious antiquity, and I only allow it to appear in the National Museum." ”

"Hmm... It's an eye-opener today..."Lester flipped through the draft and said to himself, "But don't say it, I took a closer look, and the category of this book makes me a little difficult to determine, it looks like a history book on the left, a biography on the right, it feels absurd and bizarre like a fairy tale, and it feels like a novel interlocking below..."

"The title page with his name on it was written by one of the writers of Tansforg, and all I could do was translate it. Rupert pulled out another bag from the cabinet next to the desk, which contained a thick handwritten book, the words recorded on the book were unreadable, and each line was marked with some red and blue marks, as if it was still being deciphered, "Nelson could not send me the original of the ancient book, so he could only take a large number of photographs for me, and I copied the words on the photographs on paper and organized them into a book, you see, these words that we have never seen before are in Tansforg Continental, and I have only deciphered part of them so far..."

Rupert put away a few things that Leslie sent and continued: "I think the author of this book should have collected rumors, allusions and some historical books scattered among the people at that time, and even listened to some stories told by storytellers such as bards, before writing this book, as for the style, it is really impossible to find an accurate direction, but after all, this is an ancient book hundreds of millions of years ago, so there is no need to worry about it so much, even if it is as bizarre as a fairy tale, at least there are these supernatural phenomena that can be correct." ”

"The person who wrote this book should want to praise a certain part of the book through specific allusions, to bring them to life, and this kind of behavior is like... How can you say it, it's like a missionary, right?" Leslie's eyes lit up, "You see what is written in the book, the Scarlet Castle, as an administrative fortress of a country, is actually dark and dilapidated, and the six swordsmen, each one is more terrifying than the other, this may be the author's subjective intention, deliberately ugly the villain, so as to scare the casual children." ”

"Ha, Leslie, your idea is quite novel, I haven't figured out the author's intentions yet, but I don't agree with your point of view in the second half, it seems that I need to show you this... Shh Rupert mysteriously lit a candle and lowered the sunshades one by one, then he reopened the safe, and took out a small transparent plastic bag and placed it on his desk, which contained a small page of rough parchment with lines of broken and mutilated Tansforg on it, and a faint yellowish glow on the outer ring of the paper, illuminating a small space around it.

"Whew—" Rupert blew out the candle, leaving only a small spot in the room with light.

"Look at this light, this is the greatest credit that keeps the book from rotting in its long history. Rupert put on his archaeological white gloves and carefully opened the plastic bag to remove the contents, "If you dare to sneeze now, I won't finish with you, this is a small fragment of that ancient book, and it took a lot of effort for Nelson to get it into my hands while people were not looking." ”

"It's mysterious enough, my intuition tells me, Rupert, you shouldn't be trying to show me the embalming technology of books hundreds of millions of years ago. Leslie didn't dare to come out, so she simply covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

"Look, this page is about the Scarlet Castle. Rupert gently wiped the edge of the fragment with his index finger, and several streaks of light suddenly scattered, filling the small room.

The light flowed with color, and in an instant, it was combined into a three-dimensional picture, enveloping the two people in the room.

"It's... It's!!" Leslie trembled and hid behind Rupert, and a castle appeared out of thin air in front of her!

I saw that the castle was still under the thunder and lightning, illuminating the outer wall covered by unknown plants of crimson color, and the only two high-rise rooms were lit with reddish lights, as if two blood-red eyes were looking, and the whole scene looked very strange and even a little scary.

"Have you seen enough, this is the bloody castle written in the book, but don't be afraid, it's static. Rupert put the page away, and the image disappeared, and then he closed the sunshade, and everything was back to normal.

"Oh God, it's terrifying, is this the supernatural phenomenon you are talking about, and the picture is so realistic, a hundred times more terrifying than Frankenstein Castle. In just ten minutes, Leslie actually exclaimed God twice, it seems that he was very frightened today, and he had to take a hot bath and rest when he went back to digest these things.

"That's right, the author of this book, I guess it's a bit of a magic trick that can make the reader feel like they're reading the book and add credibility, and it seems that a lot of effort has been put into it. ”

"So that's all for today, dear Rupert, and thank you for your 'hospitality'. Rilis straightened his messy expression and walked towards the door, "I'll keep it a secret for you, and I'll come back to you when you finish the second volume!"