Chapter 138: The Diary

After temporarily disposing of the bodies, Zuo Zhicheng looked back toward the pirate base. Besides the pink and purple dots he had seen earlier, he focused on the orange dots. There were four orange dots in total, all gathered inside a black tower.

‘Is that tower where the old ghoul was said to be? What are they all gathered there for at this late hour?’ Zuo Zhicheng wondered. ‘Did they find the entrance to the modern base there?’

After thinking for a moment, he leaped lightly down from the tree and turned into a shadow again, sneaking toward their base.

Originally, these pirates were very powerful, and he only wanted to escape with Jiang Qing, which would have been enough. But the appearance of the modern base, the unknown WHI organization, and all the strange phenomena made him deeply curious about everything here.

He had a vague feeling that this place hid a huge secret from the dark side of this world.

Of course, the most important thing was that he was under a blood curse, and if he didn’t find a way to remove it, he would surely die. His only hope for removing the blood curse now clearly lay with the leading ghouls and the old man.

The discovery of the pistol gave him confidence and courage. Those four ghouls with orange physique strength were about as strong as he was. With a gun in hand, and given his skills and marksmanship, he was confident he could take them all out at once.

Especially at this time, the pink ghouls were no threat, and the purple ghouls were staying elsewhere. In the black tower, there were only four ghouls with orange strength.

It was clear that they were hiding a secret there and didn’t want others to know. They were also extremely confident in their own strength. But this gave Zuo Zhicheng an opportunity to capture them all in one move, strike them down, and try to find a way to remove the blood curse.

Thinking of this, the shadow that was Zuo Zhicheng used his infrared vision to avoid the patrols, moving between light and shadow, gradually approaching the tower.

Along the way, a shadow hound looked in his direction, but after sniffing a bit, it lay down again. The scent of ghoul blood made them mistake Zuo Zhicheng for one of their own.

Moving past one building after another, Zuo Zhicheng’s shadow form reached the central black tower. Naturally, he didn’t go in through the front door. Instead, he went around to the back, placed his hands and feet on the wall, and climbed up toward a window.

His hands gripped the window frame, and he raised his head to look inside. After confirming no one was there, he flipped in through the window.

From a distance, one could see a black shadow flash briefly as it slipped inside the window.

Even though he had confirmed the room was empty before entering, after rolling in, he still held a knife at his side and pointed the gun forward, checking the entire space.

‘No one’s here…’

‘This place… seems to be a study…’

Zuo Zhicheng looked at the room’s furnishings. The most common things were books, all kinds of books on shelves. On a desk, he saw various notes and papers covering the entire surface.

He picked up a notebook at random and glanced through it, only to find that it was written in a language he didn’t understand. But from the charts and images inside, it seemed to be recording some kind of data.

After checking several more notebooks, he found nothing useful—all were written in unknown languages.

Zuo Zhicheng gave up on the files on the desk. He searched the desk drawers and found a few books and some documents in several languages, none of which he understood.

‘The desk… might have a hidden compartment?’ Remembering how he often found hidden compartments in target’s desks before, Zuo Zhicheng felt under the desk. Suddenly, a faint smile appeared on his lips.

‘Found it…’

The next moment, the whole desk shook slightly as Zuo Zhicheng pulled out something like a diary from a hidden second layer under a drawer. Seeing the lock on the diary, he smiled, took out something like a hairpin or a needle from his pocket, and began picking the lock while listening for any sounds.

After just over a minute, with a click, the lock opened, and Zuo Zhicheng started reading the diary.

Fortunately, this diary wasn’t written in an unknown language. It used Central Plains characters, but the writing style and grammar were slightly different from what people in the Great Qi Dynasty used now, making it seem a bit odd.

Zuo Zhicheng thought that if the old man came from the West, maybe the language in those files was his native tongue, while the characters in the diary were less commonly used, perhaps to hide the information.

Especially since the diary was hidden in a secret compartment, Zuo Zhicheng felt more certain of this. The diary read:

“I finally convinced Quinlin. This ghoul’s head is harder than a rock in a latrine. But now, with this clan’s inherited texts, I have a chance to find the legendary source of blood. They say that’s where all ghouls were born.”

“But I know that ghouls, or walking corpses, are man-made. Their birthplace must be in some Super Ancient Ruins, where I’ll find the method to create Artificial Acupoint Clusters.”

…

“We finally crossed the Central Plains. Though there are endless treasures buried here, I don’t have time to study them now. It’s laughable how these natives have sacred artifacts but keep them locked away, obsessed with ancestors, laws, and rules. Ridiculous, pitiable, and sad.”

…

“We searched on the sea for over two months. The ghouls couldn’t stand their hunger and ended up attacking the ship. These fools controlled by instinct—I hope this doesn’t attract the Great Qi court’s attention.”

“Finally… we found it. Who would have thought? Who could have thought? That someone could create such a miracle—this person’s cultivation reaches Tongtian.

If not for a coincidence, even ten thousand years wouldn’t have been enough to find this place. Everything here is a miracle—even the Northern Demon Sect…”

Just as Zuo Zhicheng was skimming through and wondering why the diary’s writer was so amazed at finding the island, footsteps sounded outside the door. Without hesitation, Zuo Zhicheng closed the diary, put it back in the hidden compartment, closed the compartment, and hid behind the bookshelf.