Chapter 258: 254 Black Jade and the Diary

Although failing to save Fang Jingjing left Fang Mu feeling regretful and heartbroken, Fang Mu decided to fulfill Fang Jingjing's final request, which could also be considered a complete repayment of the kindness shown by her family.

However, what no one expected was that the tragic fate of the Fang family had not ended.

When Fang Mu found the old home of the Fang siblings, he discovered that the elderly people there had already passed away for more than half a month. It turned out that upon learning their granddaughter, who was far away, had given birth and was critically ill, the grandfather had died of a heart attack due to extreme emotional distress, and the grandmother, whose health was equally frail, had subsequently died of a heart attack right beside him following her husband's passing; they were only discovered by villagers more than a week later.

Today, the old home of the Fang siblings has long been occupied by relatives, and their belongings were all cleared out, sent off to who knows where by garbage trucks, as if the world no longer had a place for their family.

The only thing worth finding comfort in was perhaps that the family could finally be together, side by side, buried in one place.

The fate of this family made Fang Mu feel a sense of sorrow, and the inability to repay them became a knot in Fang Mu's heart that could not be untied.

Fang Mu received the belongings Fang Jingjing left in her rented apartment in the city, which included the box she said she wanted to give him, the one that could only be opened with that ancient key.

The box was not large, a rectangular shape about the length of a forearm, made of paulownia wood painted ink-black. When shaken gently, there was a lot of hollow space inside and it made a sound, suggesting there was something to it. Looking closely at this black box, it was actually somewhat chilling, because the more one looked at it, the more it resembled a small coffin.

Using the key left by Fang Jingjing to open the small box, what met Fang Mu's eyes was half a piece of Black Jade, and beneath the Black Jade was a palm-sized diary with a cowhide cover.

Before looking through the diary, Fang Mu first curiously examined the half-piece of Black Jade. It seemed to have once been part of a jade pendant; the pattern on it was likely some kind of toad. But what was eerie was that the carving of the toad on this jade was so excessively detailed that it was mind-boggling. The fine grains and larger bumps on the toad's body were all carved with meticulous precision. Because the texture of the jade was moist and smooth, one felt as if they were touching real skin if they weren't careful, stroking that toad creature of unknown origin.

Fang Mu had once asked a friend to send it to a research institute specializing in jade to be appraised, and it was determined that the formation of this jade pendant could be traced back more than five thousand years.

In that primitive, legendary era when working tools were not advanced, such a jade pendant with carving skills far exceeding its time had appeared; this was undoubtedly a great discovery.

Fang Mu's friend at the research institute excitedly expressed the hope that Fang Mu could leave the jade pendant at the institute for further study, perhaps to find the ancient civilization that once existed on this land in the Shenzhou Region.

However, Fang Mu still refused his friend's request. After all, this Black Jade was a relic left by Fang Jingjing's father, and he did not wish to use this object to seek fame and fortune.

Putting down the Black Jade, Fang Mu felt the tactile sensation of the toad pattern still lingering on his fingertips. When he picked up the cowhide diary again, he felt as if everything he touched had the texture of toad skin, and he felt a bit creeped out.

And next, Fang Mu would feel deep regret for his decision to open this old diary, because the content inside made him turn pale with fright the moment it met his eyes.

Opening the diary, the yellowed pages and mottled stains told the person opening it of the passage of time. Turning to the first page of the diary, Fang Mu's breathing stopped the second he saw the words.

The pupils in Fang Mu's eyes rapidly shifted between dilating and contracting. After a moment of suffocation, his breathing suddenly became rapid. He didn't pay attention to what was written in the diary; he just flipped through the pages quickly, jumping from the beginning to the middle, then to the end, then back to a quarter, a fifth, and finally, his whole body went limp, and he collapsed onto the living room sofa with a deathly pale complexion.

The handwriting in this diary was exactly the same as his own... even the habits of phrasing and sentence construction were shockingly similar.

How could there be someone in this world whose writing style, let alone handwriting, was so similar?

Yet Fang Mu was certain that this diary was definitely not his, because he had never had the habit of keeping a diary from childhood to adulthood!

Faintly sensing that he seemed to have encountered some kind of absurd and bizarre event, a voice emerged from within Fang Mu's heart, anxiously urging him not to look anymore and to burn the diary directly.

Don't look anymore, you can't look anymore!

But human curiosity is like a snowball rolling down a high mountain; once it starts, it can never stop, and it only grows larger.

Fang Mu tremblingly flipped the diary back to the first page. It read: June 7, 1992, sunny. I finally chose to get married, to a person who could be my mother. My wife looked very moving in her red wedding dress today. Under the witness of her parents, she and I bowed to each other like people from ancient times. In front of the bed in the bridal chamber, she asked me if I was happy, and I smiled and lied to her.

June 18, 1992. My wife and I live with mutual respect like an ordinary couple. The days are simple and happy. Today, my wife stewed a pot of fish for me after I came home from working overtime at the newspaper office, and I ate it all. When we were bathing together, she held me and told me that life should continue to be happy like this. Listening to the croaking of frogs outside the window, I got goosebumps, and I hoped she didn't sense my Abnormal state. Today, I lied to her again.

July 7, 1992. A colleague at work, Lao Zhang, asked me how I felt about the first month of marriage, and I said I didn't feel anything. He even teased me for not knowing how to handle things, saying that since a son's first full month is worth commemorating, a couple's first month of marriage is naturally worth commemorating too. If I knew how to be romantic, I should prepare some good wine and food tonight, or at the very least, bring back a gift. I didn't understand these things, so I asked him for advice. Lao Zhang is extremely skilled at eating and drinking; he recommended that the market over at Shinan Road has many stalls selling field frogs lately. Although it's not the season for eating frogs, the field frogs in the market now are many and fat, and they sell them cheaply... I didn't listen to the rest. My wife also often buys groceries at the Shinan Road market. When I got home tonight, I found she had made a sumptuous dinner, and I gave her a bouquet of roses I had bought. I glanced at the dining table; there were no field frogs on it. I think my wife probably already knows I am afraid of them.

July 10, 1992. I ate a lot at dinner today. My wife saw that I hadn't eaten at noon at work and asked me the reason. I didn't hide it from her and just said we had field frogs at work today. My wife didn't say anything after hearing this; she went back to the kitchen and added a dish of farm-style stir-fried meat for me.

September 12, 1992. I haven't written in my diary for a while because business at the newspaper office is booming, and my workload has increased. After life became immersed in busyness, I seem to have never heard the sound of her approaching again. This is really good. By the way, it is worth rejoicing that my wife is pregnant.