Translator: Lonelytree
The watcher had mostly night shifts, and he could often hear some weird noises coming from inside the mansion. At midnight, he could see a figure standing behind the curtained window on the second floor, and they would stay there until dawn. But that night, things were curiously different.
“The sky on that night was particularly dark. Even after night fell, the howling of the wind had never stopped. Like usual, I set up my post not far from the house and would occasionally turn to see Mr. Chandler standing behind the window at the second floor. But that night, the mansion doors were pushed open, and it was Mr. Chandler who walked out. As my eyes flitted upward, I noticed the figure whom I thought to be Mr. Chandler was still standing there… But that was impossible. Half a month ago, the guards had swept the entire mansion. There shouldn’t be any other person in the house other than Mr. Chandler himself.
“In my panic, I shouted at Mr. Chandler to return to his home, but the latter only told me kindly, ‘My friend, I have no need for a watcher. I am not sick.’
“To be fair, Mr. Chandler did not look like the picture of madness that the others had painted of a zombie. Yes, he looked rather abnormal, but he was still the perfect gentleman that I remembered. In fact, his demeanor made me feel at ease. Mr. Chandler continued, ‘As long as you have visited that place, you will understand what I mean.’
“As curious as I was and as much respect as I had for Mr. Chandler, I did not forget about my responsibility. Therefore, I advised him to return. I said, ‘Mr. Chandler, it is wonderful to know that you are in such a permissible state. I am glad. Hope will be arriving soon. The Carlot Doctors should be arriving in a few more days.’
“I remembered this very statement incredibly well because what happened next changed all of Warsong Village. ‘Even Carlot Doctors have their limitations.’ Mr. Chandler chuckled like he had heard a well-intentioned joke. ‘While I can access locales that they can never even imagine.’”
Gu Jun’s heart shivered when he reached this part of the diary because he had heard something of the same effect mentioned somewhere else. Yes, it was inside the cavern with Chen Defa.
‘You call us zombies, creatures of the dead, but only we can access the place that you living fools cannot even imagine…’
Gu Jun frowned, this Chandler was from the foreign civilization, and Chen Defa was from Earth. It was certain that they had not interacted before. The only possible link between them was that they were both zombies. It appeared like this thought of ‘their ability to venture to somewhere others could not’ was something shared by the zombie species. Gu Jun wondered why that was.
“The question was out of my mouth before I knew it. ‘What do you mean?’ The question had sucked me into a rabbit hole.
“‘Somewhere that speaks of a bigger truth,’ Mr. Chandler replied. ‘A place that you know was there but cannot find, much less enter’.”
Gu Jun was instantly reminded of the abandoned island that Phecda was searching for. They had the coordinates, but there was nothing there. Whether the island really existed had come into question at the headquarters…
Gu Jun turned to the setting sun and let out a light breath before he continued on with the reading.
At the time, Mr. Chandler did not provide any more exploration but invited the watcher into the manor to see for himself. However, the watcher rejected his offer firmly, and as a perfect gentleman, Mr. Chandler smiled and returned to his house. After some time, the sound of wailing appeared, and it became louder and louder. It sent the whole village into a state of panic. It was not a pack of wolves that descended upon them but a cluster of winged creatures that looked like giant bats. They swooped down on the townspeople and carried away any living things. About ninety percent of the watchers had disappeared that night. Before this sudden threat, the owner of the diary had no choice but to seek refuge inside Mr. Chandler’s mansion. It was from this entry onward that Gu Jun could sense the madness creeping in between the lines.
‘His mental state has been influenced,’ Gu Jun thought to himself. The diary was written later. It recorded what had happened to the watcher during that night. Gu Jun could read the state that the watcher was in—the panic, the curiosity, the confusion…
While the small town was flooded by horror and darkness, Mr. Chandler invited the watcher to join him for tea and implored him to go on a tour of his gallery.
“Mr. Chandler’s gallery was situated on the second floor. As the doors opened, I was assaulted by a very strange smell. I could not recognize it, but it was definitely not the smell of a dead body. As if hypnotized, I followed him into the gallery and saw things that could send a shiver down my spine just thinking about it.
“The gallery was filled with many different kinds of human anatomical specimens. They were all well-preserved bodies. There were young men in their prime, children and toddlers, seniors in their twilight years. It was clear that they were well taken care of. They wore beautiful clothes and had smiling faces, but I did notice that the smiles were stitched onto their faces. They stared at me as if alive. I swore I could even hear them whispering to me…
“I have no idea where Mr. Chandler found these bodies, and to be honest, I did not dare ask, afraid that I might end up with the same fate as them. ‘This is my beloved collection,’ Mr. Chandler said over the sip of flowery tea. ‘They are the ones who have helped me approach the greater truth.’
“I realized then how demented this perfect gentleman before me was. He had probably fallen for the calling of some strange cult, and he might well be responsible for the epidemic that had spread to this town.’
Gu Jun sharpened his focus. It was clear that this Mr. Chandler was not a normal zombie. Perhaps it was the same for Ol Uncle Dog.
Then the watcher continued the tour of the mansion with his heart in his throat. He did not encounter the figure that was standing on the second floor, and he had no idea how those bodies in the gallery were not discovered in the guards’ previous search. As dawn arrived, the watcher scrambled out of the manor in search of help, and the entries from then on became more erratic and difficult to comprehend.
A large number of watchers and villagers had gone missing, leaving the guards in a tough spot. To make things worse, without the watchers, all the infected patients rushed out of their confinement as if orchestrated. Even Mr. Chandler had been reported to have fled his manor.
It was then that some Carlot Doctors finally arrived at this small town, but the solution that they provided was still to capture and bury the patients. Instead of curing the victims, it was more like they just wanted to sweep the problem under the rug. This angered and disappointed the owner of the diary, and it pushed him further over the edge.
“So, these are the great and wonderful Carlot Doctors? Their solution is to keep a blind eye to everything? Could Mr. Chandler be right? Our minds are currently too dumb to see the truth?”
That night, the watcher had the same nightmare that marked the would-be zombies. As a watcher, he knew his eventual fate if he stayed back at the town, so early the next morning, he escaped toward the forest outside the village. But inside the dark and uninhabited forest, he lost his way. Hunger and pain crushed both his body and soul. Death then appeared like salvation.
“According to Mr. Chandler, a door has already been built here. I will attempt to use the method taught to me by Mr. Chandler to open that door and enter that place.”
Gu Jun’s eyebrows rose, this came as quite a surprise. The earlier entries did not mention anything like this. Mr. Chandler had imparted some knowledge to the watcher, something that would explain the way to enter the place that seemed like a dream, illusion, or twisted dimension. That was valuable information.
Gu Jun flipped through the diary. The last entry appeared to elaborate on this.
“I am ready to give it a try. I can only hope that I wake up in a good dream.”