Chapter 257: Black Jade And The Diary
Although unable to save Fang Jingjing made Fang Mu feel regret and heartache, Fang Mu decided to agree to Fang Jingjing’s final request, which also thoroughly repaid the Fang family’s kindness.
However, no one expected that the Fang family’s tragic fate had not ended.
When Fang Mu found the Fang family siblings’ hometown, he discovered that the elders in the hometown had already passed away more than half a month earlier. It turned out that after learning that their granddaughter far away in a distant place had given birth to a critically ill child on the verge of death, the maternal grandfather among the two elders died of a heart attack due to emotional agitation, and the maternal grandmother, whose body was also frail, died of a blockage shortly after her companion’s death right beside him. It was not discovered by the villagers until more than a week later.
Now, the Fang family siblings’ hometown had long been occupied by relatives like autumn birds taking over a magpie’s nest; all the things in their hometown had been cleared out, and no one knew where the garbage truck had taken them. It was as if the world no longer had a place for their family.
The only consolation was probably that the whole family could finally be neatly together, buried in one place.
This family’s fate made Fang Mu feel emotional, and being unable to repay their whole family also became a lump in Fang Mu’s heart that could not be resolved.
Fang Mu received Fang Jingjing’s mourning articles from her rental room in the city, which included the box that Fang Jingjing said she wanted to give him, the one that could only be opened with that ancient key.
The box was not big, about the length of a small arm, a rectangular-like body made of paulownia wood painted ink-black. Gently shaking it, there were many hollow areas inside with sounds, and it seemed there was something to it. Upon closer inspection of this black box, it was actually somewhat horror-inducing, because the more he looked, the more it resembled a small coffin.
Opening the small box with the key left by Fang Jingjing, what met Fang Mu’s eyes was half a piece of black jade. Beneath the black jade was a palm-sized diary with a cowhide cover.
Before flipping through the diary, Fang Mu first curiously checked the half piece of black jade. It seemed to have once been part of a jade pendant, with a pattern that was probably some kind of toad frog. But eerily, the carving of the toad frog on this jade was so excessively intricate that it was somewhat unbelievable. The fine particles and larger protrusions on the toad frog’s body were carved with meticulous precision. Due to the jade’s smooth and soft texture, one might easily feel as if touching real skin, stroking that toad frog creature of unknown form.
Fang Mu had once had a friend send it to a research institute studying jade for appraisal, and it was determined that this jade pendant’s formation could be traced back more than five thousand years.
In that barbaric legendary era when work tools were not developed, such a jade pendant with carving techniques far surpassing the era actually appeared—this was undoubtedly a great discovery.
Fang Mu’s friend at the research institute excitedly said he hoped Fang Mu could leave this jade pendant at the research institute for continued research, perhaps to find evidence of the ancient civilization once possessed on this land in the Shenzhou region.
However, Fang Mu still refused his friend’s request. After all, this black jade was a mourning article left by Fang Jingjing’s father, and he did not want to use it to gain fame and fortune.
Putting down the black jade, Fang Mu felt that his fingers still retained the touch of the toad frog pattern on the black jade. When he picked up the cowhide diary again, he felt as if everything he touched was the skin of a toad frog, making him feel creepy inside.
And next, Fang Mu would deeply regret his action of flipping open this old diary for himself, because the content inside made him greatly shocked the instant it entered his eyes.
Flipping open the diary, the yellowed pages and mottled stains told the flipper of the traces of the passage of time. Turning to the first page where the diary began, Fang Mu’s breathing stopped in the second second after seeing the words.
The pupils in Fang Mu’s eyes rapidly changed between dilating and contracting. After a bout of suffocation, he suddenly started breathing rapidly. He did not pay attention to what the content on the diary said, just quickly flipping through the pages, jumping from the beginning to the middle, then to the end, back to a quarter, a fifth, and finally collapsing weakly onto the sofa in the living room with a ghastly pale facial expression.
The handwriting on this diary was actually no different from his own… even the habits of word grouping and sentence construction were astonishingly similar.
How could there possibly be someone in this world whose not only handwriting but even writing style was so similar.
But Fang Mu was certain that this diary was definitely not his own, because he had never had the habit of writing a diary from childhood to adulthood!
Vaguely feeling that he seemed to have encountered some absurd eerie event, a voice surged in Fang Mu’s heart, anxiously urging him not to look anymore, to burn the diary directly.
Don’t look anymore, must not look anymore!
And human curiosity is like a snowball rolling down a high mountain—once it starts, it cannot stop, and it only gets bigger and bigger.
With trembling hands, Fang Mu flipped the diary back to the first page, which read: June 7, 1992, sunny. I finally chose to get married, to a woman who could be my mother. My wife looked very charming today in her red wedding dress. She and I worshiped like ancient people in front of her parents’ witness. In the bridal chamber, before the bed, she asked if I was happy. I smiled and deceived her.
June 18, 1992, my wife and I lived like an ordinary couple, respectfully and amiably. The days were simple and happy. Today, my wife stewed a pot of fish for me returning from overtime at the newspaper office, and I ate it all. When we bathed together, she hugged me and said the days should always be this happy. Listening to the frog croaks outside the window, I got goosebumps all over, hoping she didn’t notice my anomaly. Today, I deceived her again.
July 7, 1992, my colleague Old Zhang at the unit asked me how the first month of marriage felt. I said nothing special. He teased me for not knowing how to be romantic, saying that a son’s full moon is worth commemorating, and you as a couple’s new marriage full moon naturally is too. If you understand romance, prepare some good wine and dishes tonight; at the very least, bring a gift back. I didn’t understand these, so I asked him. Old Zhang was extremely skilled at eating and drinking; he recommended the market on Shihan Road where there were many shops selling frogs recently. Though not frog-eating season, the frogs in the market now were plentiful and fat, and cheap too… I didn’t listen to the rest. My wife often bought vegetables at the market on Shihan Road. When I got home tonight, I found she had made a sumptuous dinner. I gave her the bunch of roses I bought. I glanced at the dining table; there were no frogs. I thought my wife probably already knew I was afraid of them.
July 10, 1992, I ate a lot at dinner tonight. My wife noticed I hadn’t eaten at the unit at noon and inquired about the reason. I didn’t hide it from her and said the unit had frogs today. My wife didn’t say anything after hearing it and went back to the kitchen to add a dish of farmhouse stir-fried pork for me.
September 12, 1992, haven’t written in the diary for a while because the newspaper office’s business boomed, and my workload increased. After life immersed in busyness, I seem to no longer hear Its approaching voice. This is really good. Incidentally worth celebrating is that my wife is pregnant.
