Chapter 13
In the basement, Jason and Caroline finally got to see what is in there: at the South side of it, there was an altar at the wall, on which there were some strangely shaped incense, three pieces of round and shiny metal plates and a crystal ball.
On each of the other 3 walls, hanged two drawings on two pieces of long cloth. Each drawing was a colorful and slightly asymmetrical depiction of various complex shapes and color combinations. At the center of these drawings were individual symbols or words, some of which looked like traditional Chinese characters but Jason could not make it out, some of which looked like multi-character words from some unknown language.
“What are these?” asked Jason, “Are those Mandarin characters in the middle? And what are the others?”
“No, but they are similar. These were characters that were derived from ‘True Words’.” Jianmen answered: “Or, ‘First Words’ if you prefer. They were the first written representation of things in intelligent form. And they were thus blessed with certain kinds of power by rule of the universe.”
“Huh? Say it again?” Caroline was looking at the altar but still could not help but turn around and ask.
“In plain English, these are magical words.” Jianmen walked around the basement, looking at each drawing and said: “Don’t worry, these are general and big words, I won’t tell you what they mean just yet. Once you have your two visualization objects, I will teach you about your own personal scriptures, for recitation during your meditation.”
“Ok, that is way too much information. What are visualization objects? And what personal scriptures?” Jason complained.
“You’ll see - in time.” Jianmen picked up two round shiny metal plates and gave them to Caroline and Jason, then he went and lit up the incense on the altar: “Now, use this as a mirror, you will need it when you are at the end of your first visualization session. What you need to do next, is to observe these drawings, try to read things from them, don’t overthink anything. And you’ll have them.”
“Okay… is that it?” Jason was more confused, “How do we know we found them?”
“You’ll know.” Jianmen left the basement with a mysterious smile, closing the basement door.
“So … what now?” Caroline took a quick look at the metal plate in her hand, asked Jason.
“Look at these drawings, I guess.” Jason walked toward a drawing with a traditional Chinese character looking symbol in the middle and started staring at it.
“Meh, what the heck.” Caroline also walked toward a drawing, with particularly dark and “Gothic” shapes that fit her taste better.
After unclear how long, Jason switched to a different drawing, since he felt like there was not much that he could read from the first drawing he chose. But he started feeling that the drawings from the first choice seemed to have burned into the back of his eyes and his head - even though he switched to the second drawing, he still kept seeing the patterns and colors of the first one.
This kind of visual dissonance caused Jason extreme dizziness, so he had to choose another one.
The next one he chose was way worse, the lines, the colors and patterns and even the word in the centre are causing the flare and jumpiness of the images to get even worse. It was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard while having a high fever and hangover.
The pain was so severe, that Jason could not control but groan in pain. Though it was for a very short time, Jason was longer able to endure the sensory overload and he fell down on the ground.
For some reason, Jason had the gut feeling that he needed the right drawing to quell his dizziness and pain, so he struggled up and tried to take a look at another drawing.
The fourth one did not help at all - the dizzy feeling, headache and burning sensation did not go away, and he could barely see anything. It was as if what he saw from the first drawing had formed a filter with constantly mutating colors and shapes stuck to his eyeballs. If not for the fact that he could still roughly recognize his surroundings and where the drawings were, he would have thought he’d turned blind.
Feeling like he was quickly losing his strength, Jason crawled to the basement wall that was opposite to the one he started with, opened his eyes as wide as possible toward the fifth drawing.
He still could barely see anything, however, the dizziness slowly started fading away, and the ever changing filters stuck to his eyes were slowly peeling away. The “shadows” left by the first drawing he observed slowly started to form into concrete and gentle shapes and patterns.
------------------------------------------------
As Jianmen closed the door to the basement and walked up to the reception’s desk, he heard painful screams and moans coming from behind. But utterly unconcerned, he still helped two groups of guests waiting to checkout at night for some reason with a warming and welcoming smile.
The guests were pleasant and clean, so he did not have much trouble cleaning their rooms. After a quick sweep, the sheets and pillow cases can just be thrown into the washing machine with normal detergent and disinfectant.
After cleaning the rooms, there were already some other guests waiting to check in.
And after that, two people walked into the lounge, and though Jianmen, per his personal preference, usually do not deal with them, but at this critical moment when Caroline and Jason just started with their visualization, he had no choice but to suck it up and greet them with the same hospitality as he would any other guests.
“Good evening Detectives. What can I help you with?”
“Hey, Mr. Yu. Is Caroline and Jason here?” Aimee asked.
“They are in a training session, I’m afraid they won’t be able to come out anytime soon.” Jianmen took out a pad of sticky notes, “Can I take a message?”
“Yeah, sure, it’s not urgent, we’re here because we are just in the neighborhood.” Thomas smiled and waved his right hand, “Don’t want to mess with their training, gotta keep up those moves - ”
“Do you remember Emilia Corin, the guest that stayed here for one night and had some brush with Caroline and Jason?” Aimee cut Thomas off and asked Jianmen directly.
“Yes, I remember. ” Jianmend answered while nodding, “What’s up with her?”
“She woke up and escaped hospital.” Aimee was obviously not pleased with Jianmen’s answer and lack of concern, “She is a crucial witness to a case we are investigating. It is about the notorious Corin crime family so anyone involved might be in danger. So we just want to warn Caroline and Jason.”
“Oh my god, that is horrible.” Jianmen appeared surprised, “Are you going to provide us with protection? We have some very troubling guests lately.”
“No, we are tight on resources right now.” Thomas sighed, “I am fully confident they can handle themselves in normal situations. But it is the Corin crime family we’re talking about. And she was also a key witness in some of the critical investigations that SJPD and the FBI are conducting. So can you tell them, if they know anything, if they see anything, or if Emilia showed up here again, please contact us immediately?”
“No problem. I will tell them when they are done.” Jianmen quickly wrote down the note on one sticky note, “Are you sure the SJPD cannot provide us with protection? What if the Corin family decide to target their places of employment? You don’t know what those gangsters will do.”
“I am pretty sure they won’t do that.” Aimee tried to maintain her patience but still got a bit frustrated, “But, if you see anything or hear anything, please call us, OK? Here’s our contact info.” Then she handed a card to Jianmen.
“Thank you very much detective. You are so kind.” Jianmen grinned as if he was just given a big red packet.
“Alright Mr. Yu. Have a good night. Please do pass on our message.” Thomas noticed Aimee was annoyed, so he decided to take over the conversation and say goodbye early.
“Of course. And the same to you.”
“I thought he does not speak English?” as they walked to their car, Aimee asked Thomas.