From the high ceiling, the old man let himself drop straight down to the ground, landing with a soft thud. Yashu, who was nearby, was startled and quickly shrunk behind a storage shelf to observe the situation.
The old man slowly advanced towards me, suddenly stretching out both of his hands to tightly grasp mine with an air of great care and reverence. His dry lips began to chant the bizarre poem. This time, at such a close distance, I could finally hear every single word clearly:
In Ye Yuan's night, the glorious soul decays,
Jiu Mu bears evil through the endless days.
Ling's sacred dream in long night brings bitter tears,
As pure devotion turns to song for years.
Yue binds the fading sky with broken thread,
Ten thousand feet of Xin Dao, a God Fan instead.
Four corners of the world mourn sins too late,
Birds gone, fish sink, no return for the Potentate!
While I was still stunned and frozen in place by those cryptic verses, he quickly slipped a necklace into the palm of my hand. It was exquisitely carved from a precious jade. The old man leaned close to my ear, repeatedly muttering:
-"Emperor, Emperor! When you reach the River of Destiny, use it! You must use it!"
I clenched the necklace tightly in my hand and asked lines of questions in rapid succession:
-"What do you mean by that? Why do you call me the Emperor? And this necklace, what on earth is it..."
However, the old man did not answer at all. He only let out strange, cackling laughs, turning his head to run towards the warehouse door. His limbs flailed continuously in bizarre gestures, and his mouth loudly shouted with utter excitement:
-"Hee hee hee! Hee hee hee! I have fulfilled my duty! I have fulfilled my duty!"
As he ran away, the madman's voice grew distant but still managed to echo back one final line of the song:
In Ye Yuan's night, the glorious soul decays,
Jiu Mu bears evil through the endless days.
...
Dragons fly, phoenixes dance, the King reclaims his state!
This time, the last line of the poem had completely changed. That left me dumbfounded with shock, leaving me no choice but to look down, staring fixedly at the jade necklace in my hand.
Yashu, her face now also filled with utter bewilderment, stepped out from behind the storage shelf. She slowly approached me, stammering as she asked:
-"What... what just happened to you?!"
-"I don't know either, everything is truly too strange." - I replied in a deep voice, my eyes still staring into the empty space where the crazy old man had just disappeared.
To satisfy my curiosity, I immediately pulled my phone out of my pants pocket and opened the Travel Together app. I tapped to switch to the "Shopping" section, then pressed the magnifying glass icon on the search bar to activate the item image scanning feature.
I raised the camera, adjusted the angle, and took a close-up shot of the exquisite jade necklace lying in the palm of my hand. The data loading circle on the screen began to spin, and I held my breath in anticipation. However, just a few seconds later, a notification box with a glaring, bright red color suddenly popped up:
[ ERROR WARNING! UNABLE TO IDENTIFY OR FIND THE ITEM YOU ARE LOOKING UP. ]