Chapter 7 Chapter Six

You see, my father said, Rosie gave me that bag of papers that night, and I left his office laughing.The moment I turned to leave, I suddenly felt that I should stop him, or I should go back and talk to him again.I knew this feeling was just the result of our strange conversation, the strangest thing in my life, so I dismissed it immediately.Two other graduate students from the department passed, chatting animatedly, and they greeted Rosie before he closed the door, and hurried toward the stairs behind me.Their eager conversation made me feel like our lives were business as usual, but I still felt uneasy.The Dragon Book in my bag was like a red-hot iron, and now Rosie has given me this bag of his own notes.But I'm so tired, no matter what they say, I can't face it.

I went out on the road and asked myself, how could I not trust my mentor and his academic point of view?In that case, wouldn't all the work we do together be called into question?I have already sorted out the first few chapters of the dissertation and put them neatly on the desk at home. Thinking of this, I can't help but tremble.If I don't trust Rossi, can we continue to work together?Am I going to take him for a lunatic? Maybe it's because I've been thinking about Rosie, and when I pass under his window, I'm absolutely sure that his desk lamp is still on.At any rate, I stepped into the patch of light cast from his window onto the street, and was about to walk in the direction of where I lived.Suddenly, the halo of light beneath my feet disappeared.In an instant, fear swept from head to toe.One second I was walking among the lights on the sidewalk, thinking, and the next second I was frozen in place, unable to move.I realized two strange things at the same time.

First, although I have walked this road a thousand times, I have never seen this light on this sidewalk between the Gothic school buildings.I've never seen this light before because there were street lights back then.It can be seen now because all the street lights are out.I stood there alone, and the sound of the last footsteps just now seemed to still echo.The street was dark, save for the fragmented light from Rosie's office.Ten minutes ago we were talking in his office. My second thought, if two thoughts come first and second, hit me and paralyzed me, stopping me in my tracks.I say hit because that's how it came into my vision, not into my mind or my instincts.

At that very moment, as I stood alone in the street, the warm light in my mentor's room went out.Maybe you think this is all too normal: closing time is early, and the last professor to leave turns off his lights to go, so the place where the street lights are not so bright goes dark.However, it is not.There's no way a normal desk lamp would go out like that.It was as if something had sprinted past me and extinguished the light source.Then, the street was completely dark. For a moment I stopped breathing and looked back in horror at the darkened window.But on the dark street, I couldn't see anything, and I ran impulsively.

The door I had just come out of was tightly shut, and no other lights could be seen on the front of the building.It's so late, it stands to reason that the door should be locked by someone who came out --- that's normal.I stood there hesitating, just wanting to run to the other door to have a look.However, the street lights were on again at this time, and I was restless.The two students who came out after me were gone, and I thought they must have gone in the other direction. Now, another group of students walked past smiling, and the street no longer seemed deserted.What if Rosie comes out and sees me waiting here?He had just turned off the lights and locked the office door, and he must be coming out.He said he didn't want to talk to me about the issues we've been discussing.How was I to explain my irrational fear to him on the gate steps?He'd said not to talk about it again—maybe it was all scary stuff?

Embarrassed, I hurried home before he could catch up to me.When I got home, I put the paper bag he had given me in my bag, and went straight to bed without opening it—even though I couldn't sleep well all night. I was too busy for the next two days to see the papers that Rosie gave me.In fact, I try not to think about those mysterious ancient books. Later the next afternoon, a colleague from the department stopped me in the library and asked, "Have you heard what happened to Rossi?" He grabbed my arm and turned me around before stopping me because I go fast. I was taken aback. "Paul, wait a minute!"

Yes, you guessed it, Massimo.He was a fat guy in graduate school, and he had a loud voice, maybe even louder than he is now.I grabbed his arm. "Rosie? What? What? What's the matter with him?" "He's missing, gone. The police are searching his office." I ran all the way to the office building.It looked normal there, a bit hazy in the evening sun, and the building was full of students coming out of classrooms. In Rosie's office on the second floor, a policeman from the city was speaking to the dean and several people I had never met.By the time I got there, two men in black jackets were closing Rosie's study tightly, heading for the stairs and classrooms.

I pushed over and asked the policeman, "Where is Professor Rossi? What's the matter with him?" "You know him?" The policeman looked up from his notebook. "He's my mentor. I was here two nights ago. Who says he's missing?" The head of the department came over and shook my hand. "What do you know about the matter? His housekeeper called at noon to say he didn't come home last night and the night before--nor to say he was coming home for dinner. She said he never did that before. He also missed a meeting in the department this afternoon and didn't call beforehand, which is also unprecedented. Also, a student came over and said he had an appointment with Rosie to meet him while he was at work , but as soon as I came, I found that the door was locked and no one was there. He was supposed to have class today, but he didn’t. In the end, I had to ask someone to open the door of his office.”

"Is he there?" I asked as calmly as possible. "Not here." I didn't care what to do, left them and rushed to Rosie's door, but a policeman's arm blocked my way. "Don't worry," he said. "You said you were here two nights ago?" "yes." "When was the last time you saw him?" "About half past eight." "Did you see anyone else there?" I thought about it. "Yes, only two students in the department—Bertrand and Eliza, I think. They left at the same time. I left when they left." "Okay, take this down," the policeman said to one of his men. "Did you notice anything unusual about Professor Rossi that day?"

What can I say?Yes, there were—he said vampires were real, and Count Dracula was among us.He also said that I might have inherited a curse from his research.Then I saw that the light in his room seemed to be covered by a huge— "No," I said. "We were talking about our thesis, sitting and talking, until about eight-thirty." "Did you leave together?" "No. I went first. He walked me to the door and then back to the office." "Did you see anything suspicious near the building as you were leaving? Did you hear anything?" I hesitated again. "No, it's nothing. It was all dark in the street at once. The street lights went out."

"Yes, I heard about that. But didn't you hear or see anything unusual?" "No." "So far, you are the last person to see Professor Rossi," said the policeman. "Be sure to think about it, what did he say or do weird things when you were together? Did he talk about depression, suicide, or anything like that? Did he mention going out, traveling or something like Say?" "No, no." I said honestly.The policeman gave me a hard look. "I need you to leave your name and address." He wrote them all down and turned to look at the head of the department. "Can you vouch for the young man?" "He never told a lie." "Okay," the policeman said to me. "Come in with me, please, and let me know if you see anything unusual in the house, especially something different than it was two days ago. Don't move anything. It turns out that most of these cases are usually It's predictable. There's an urgent matter at home, and the spirit suddenly feels a little off—he might be back in a day or two. I've seen that happen a lot. But we don't want to act rashly, considering the blood on the table." There is blood on the table?My legs were a little weak, but I followed the officer slowly through the door. The officer pointed me to the window and said, "Look up!" Above the desk, on the pristine white ceiling, was a five-inch smear that was rubbed sideways, as if pointing at something outside. "It also looks like blood. Don't worry. It may or may not be Professor Rossi's. Even with a stool, it's impossible for a man to easily touch the ceiling. We tested everything. Now, you Come to think of it, did Professor Rossi mention any birds came in that night?" It took me a few seconds to say the simple word dryly: "No." But I don't understand why he asked me this question.I finally saw the end of the smudge and saw from which direction it had been dragged. On the top shelf of Rosie's bookshelf, in the row of books he called "His Failures," one was missing.He put it back two nights ago, and now there is only a dark gap in the place. I have always liked to sit on that bench in the center of the school library, still bathed in the last rays of sunlight on a spring afternoon. I looked around the crowded hall, the fading sunset and the frequently opened doors at the entrance, then I picked up my old schoolbag, opened the zipper, and took out a big black thick paper bag with Rosie's Handwriting: To the next one. Next person?I hadn't looked closely the night before.Does he mean to save it for the next time he does this project, and then use it when he conquers this fortress?The next bit, or next time, makes sense.Or did he mean that I was the "next one"?Does this prove he's crazy? I opened the paper bag and found that inside was a large stack of papers of different sizes and qualities, many of which were old, and some were translucent thin paper with densely printed words on it.The material is really rich.I think I'm going to spread it out and have a look. I walked over to the nearest honey-colored desk, near where the library cards were kept.There were many people there, none of whom I knew. I still looked back suspiciously, then took out the documents and laid them on the table to read. As a historian, I know it's important to sequence archives.I got out my pencil and paper and started numbering Rosie's files. The earliest, the top ones, were those thin sheets of translucent paper, filled with things as neatly as possible, which looked more or less like writing.I put them together carefully without looking carefully. The second piece is a map, hand-drawn, and fairly clear.But it has begun to fade, and the marks and place names marked on it can hardly be seen clearly.The drawing paper is thicker, like foreign paper, obviously torn from a stack of old notebooks.Then there are two similar maps.Then there are three pages of draft paper, with ink handwriting, which can be seen clearly.I put these together too.The next one was an English travel brochure of "Romantic Romania". Looking at the cover and packaging, it looked like a product from the 1920s and 1930s.Then there are two hotel invoices and breakfast coupons in Istanbul.Then there was a big, old map of the Balkans, poorly printed, in two colours.Finally, a small ivory envelope, sealed and unmarked.I put it aside without opening the letter. That's all.I turned the brown paper bag over and shook it so that even if there was a dead fly nothing could escape my eyes. As I did so, suddenly (for the first time) I had a special feeling that would accompany all my subsequent actions: I felt the presence of Rosie, who was proud of my rigorous thinking, seemed His spirit lived and spoke to me through the deliberate methods he taught me.I know he is very efficient as a researcher.For any document, any file, he neither spoils nor neglects it—no matter how far away it is from home, and of course he will never let go of any idea, no matter how outdated that idea is among his colleagues.His disappearance—I thought frantically—he desperately needed my rescue suddenly made us almost equals.I also felt that he had been expecting this to happen all along, but waiting for the moment when I would win it. All these papers were spread out on the table in front of them, smelling of dryness.I started with those letters. The words on the letter were densely packed, written on translucent paper, without any trace of mistakes or corrections.There is only one copy of each, and they seem to have been put away in chronological order.Each letter is dated, all dated December 1930, and it has been more than 20 years now.Each letter was addressed to Trinity College, Oxford University, without a more detailed address. I read the first letter.It spoke of his discovery of the mysterious book, and of his preliminary research at Oxford.The letter was signed, "Your painful friend, Bartolomeo Rossi".The beginning of the letter—my hands began to tremble, but I still held the thin paper carefully—the same kind words: "My dear, unfortunate heir—" My father suddenly fell silent, and his trembling voice made me look away ahead of time, lest he force myself to say something more. In that kind of tacit understanding, we took our coats and walked through the famous small square, pretending to still want to see the front of the church.