Emma froze for half a minute before finally turning back to the sofa. Her trembling fingers opened the computer's calendar, eyes darting again and again over the date. Only after three long minutes did she release the mouse, her heart gradually regaining its rhythm.
If this was real, if the date was correct… then she had indeed returned to one year before the apocalypse began. She didn't know if this was some flaw in the heavens, or an unexpected chance to reshuffle the deck.
Either way, rebirth itself was a staggering gift.
Yet before the shock could settle, another thought jolted her upright. She leapt from the sofa and ran straight into the clutter room next door.
Though it was called a storage room, it held only old odds and ends no longer in use. Guided by hazy memory, she dug deep into a thick cardboard box tucked in a corner, and at last uncovered a statue of the Lingbao Tianzun.
The figure stood half a meter tall, heavy in her hands, carved from stone and painted with bronze lacquer. The crevices were packed with greasy dust, so grimy that if someone had discarded it on the roadside, no passerby would have spared it a glance.
Emma, however, could not contain her delight. She hefted the statue — surprisingly heavy. She had once thought it solid stone, until a later discovery revealed a hollow cavity inside, no larger than a hand. Unfortunately, when she had first unearthed it years ago, the cavity had already been smashed open. Most of what had been inside was destroyed, save for one walnut she had pried from an intact shard.
It was precisely that walnut that had kept her alive for several years.
Her father had often enshrined this statue during her childhood. According to him, the Lin family traced back to the ancient Lingbao sect, practitioners of talismanic arts. But with each passing generation the lineage had dwindled — until by her father's time, even the basics were half-forgotten, and by Emma's own time, utterly lost. The statue was all that remained of that legacy.
Steeling her breath, Emma placed the statue on the floor and searched it all over. Yet no sign of an opening could be found. If there was no aperture, then how had the relics been placed inside in the first place? She searched again — twice — still in vain.
Forcing it open risked destroying the contents. As for seeking help, the thought never crossed her mind.
Just as she was tracing the statue's hands and expression for clues, her eyes caught on several black dots along the base. At first they looked like chips from rough handling. But there were exactly seven, and on closer inspection, each had nearly identical edges.
In the past, she might have dismissed them. But ten years of survival had sharpened her instincts. Slowly she raised her left hand, staring at her palm. There, the cluster of seven small moles matched the pattern of dots on the base precisely.
After a brief hesitation, she pressed her palm against the statue. With a faint crack, the seven dots fractured in unison, revealing a hollow cavity within.
Emma's heart leapt. She rummaged for a flashlight and shone it inside.
The first thing she drew out was a folded piece of ancient silk, no bigger than a sugar cube. When she unfolded it, it spread to nearly five feet across, filled edge to edge with tiny script — talismanic instructions, at a glance.
Next came something the size of a duck egg. The instant it left the hollow, a stench filled the room, so foul and rancid it made rotten eggs smell fragrant. The object was soft, smeared black, and slickly unpleasant. Emma grimaced and quickly set it aside.
Finally, she lifted out a walnut.
When she had first found it years ago, the statue had been shattered, the walnut cracked with two jagged splits, its shell blackened from fire. Starving, she had eaten the kernel inside — and from that walnut had sprouted a tender sapling. For ten years, Emma had survived again and again by chewing the leaves it produced.
Now, here in her hands, the walnut was whole, its shell faintly glowing with a reddish sheen — worlds apart from the charred fragment she had once consumed.
She laid the three objects on the sunlit table by the balcony: the silk scroll, the rancid egg-shaped lump, and the walnut.
Unfolding the silk again, she studied it in detail. It described the method for crafting a "Seven-Star Talisman" — a painstaking process that began with cultivating breath and spirit until essence, energy, and soul brimmed with vitality, to be focused into the hand before drawing the sigils. The materials were exacting: seven sheets of paper, cinnabar ink, special brushes.
Emma frowned. Even with her father's teachings, she understood only fragments. Still, she recognized two symbols she had once been forced to learn as a child — talismans that had saved her life more than once. Without doubt, these were arts of preservation. She folded the silk reverently.
Turning back to the black, reeking lump, she held her breath and examined it, yet could make no sense of its nature. Defeated, she sealed it in a cup and screwed the lid shut.
At last, she lifted the walnut again, studying its warm, ruddy shell. She remembered clearly: the one she had eaten had been scorched, splintered, nearly lifeless. This one was whole, intact, and brimming with promise.
The Seven-Star Talismans would take time to master. The foul egg-like lump remained a mystery. But this walnut—this, she understood.
Emma immediately fetched a knife and a pointed awl, ready to pry open the shell and extract the kernel. Yet after struggling for half a day, she achieved nothing—the walnut's outer shell did not even bear a single mark, while sweat streamed down her forehead.
A chill of dread coursed through her. She had always known this walnut was no ordinary object, but to think that even smashing it with the force of a dumbbell couldn't crack it
What exactly was this thing?