Chapter 0
Prologue
Translated by FlowerBridgeToo
(Temporary took it from moonbunnycafe, as it is down)
Shao Xuan sat in a remodeled bus and looked at the multitudinous mountains outside the window. Summer Solstice had just passed and the mountains were brimming with greens that burst with life. Seeing such a scene after living long in the city made his mood—despondent due to failures—quite brighter. Initially, Shao Xuan planned to call up a few friends for a journey far away to unwind his heart, but he didn’t expect to come across his fellow townmate and classmate who studied archeology, Shi Qi, who then pulled him over for an archaeology trip.
Now, they were heading towards a relatively remote small mountain village. It was said that things of the Stone Age were discovered there. A batch of people had already set off for that location, and currently, they were in the second batch.
Shao Xuan listened to his classmate start from the primitive humans’ skull, to the stone tools they used, to the murals on rocks. He even took out a few pictures and explained them in detail—the researchers did this and that . . . after drilling in, it was hard to pull it back out . . . Although Shao Xuan didn’t understand a thing, he still gave face to him and listened attentively.
On the paper were murals that archaeologists had discovered. Shao Xuan glimpsed at them, and felt they were no better than his nephews’ and nieces’ who had yet to even enter kindergarten.
The lines on the drawings were rather simple—for most of them, one could tell they were people who held tools for hunting, as well a few drawings of various species of animals. For the rest, however, he did not have a clue what they were.
Shao Xuan played around with the stone in his hand, his eyes staring at it. Hearing about the discovery of ancient organism fossils in the walls’ rocks, Shao Xuan recalled the “watermelon-sized insect” Shi Qi spoke of.
He was just planning to shift his gaze away when suddenly, Shao Xuan saw a snake-like thing appear on the wall. It was even squirming around. As thick as a small water tank, and its scale-like patterns emitted a cold glint. It was several meters away, but Shao Xuan felt a chill go down his spine, and all his hair stand on end. It frightened him so much he almost leaped into the air. Yet, when Shao Xuan blinked and looked back, he discovered absolutely nothing. The rock wall was still the broken rock wall that took many years of beating from the weather.
Illusion?
Shao Xuan looked at the other places of the wall. Afterwards, his line of sight fell upon a hole in the wall. There was a large rock over there, left behind after the wall at that area collapsed. The small parts were taken by the villagers back home to build their own walls, the larger ones were left, untouched. And, at that moment, Shao Xuan saw a green-coloured sprout pop up from the rock. The sprout quickly bud leaves and grew tall. At the same time, several vines extended outward towards all directions. The initially three-meter tall hole was instantly veiled by the vines and leaves. A fragrance belonging to plants even permeated the air.
Shao Xuan took several steps back, breathing deeply. Focusing his eyes and looking back, he discovered the vines and branches had disappeared. The rock wall was same as usual, but the ground was full of the large smooth stones.
Feeling some strange movement in his hand, Shao Xuan looked down at the stone.
The stone that could not be heat up nor could be scratched became sand in a split moment. They slipped through the gaps between Shao Xuan’s fingers
When the final speck of sand fell, Shao Xuan’s vision went pitch-black.