Secret Notebooks

The next day, Li Ming Hao came to visit Su Xin Yu as promised. He had already dismissed Dr. Long as her doctor. The prescriptions were already with him, and so he did not need that doctor anymore, he could perfectly take care of her by himself.

"Here, there are eight notebooks," he handed over the small bag he had brought with him to the girl who was beyond excited. She finally got hands on someone's notes about this place. She might uncover something that she did not know about them.

She opened the vintage leather bag. It was actually size of a standard side bag, how could it contain eight notebooks? As soon as she opened the flap, she found eight small thin diaries in it, they were tattered indicating their age. They were not written recently, they looked ancient.

"These don't seem to be new, but I thought your mentor gave them when you were six seven years old?" she questioned him before opening the first notebook.

"Yeah, they were passed down to him as well. Can you read them?" he counter questioned.

She took the first notebook and ran her hand on the intricate carving on the leather cover. The notebooks were all bound by a different colored thread. It started with violet and progressed in rainbow colors. The last notebook was bound by a black colored thread.

"These carvings look like something from my tribe. I still can't believe someone would give them away to an 'outsider'," Su Xin Yu thought out loud and gasped when she realized Li Ming Hao was sitting there. She covered her mouth over her misspoken words.

"Hmm… I wonder the same to be honest," he shrugged his shoulders. He did not take any offense. Su Xin Yu looked at him apologetically.

"I… I will open the first one," she started unwinding the thread of the first notebook. But she wanted to make sure that no one was looking at them. She looked at the curtain that was surrounding her bed and then at Li Ming Hao.

He smiled, "Everything is locked, don't worry. Hurry and open up, I want to see what you can decode."

Decode? Did that mean it was written in a language other than their national language? She opened the notebook in a haste, still cautiously to not damage it. The first page was a replica of the carving outside, drawn very beautifully with a black pen. The pages were all yellow and it seemed like it had gone through quite some ordeal. There were water stains on the corner of the pages. Ancient indeed!

The second page startled Su Xin Yu heavily. She looked at the words, they were in her local tribe language!

"What… How is this possible? This is our ancient tongue. I thought it was lost long ago!" she exclaimed loudly.

"I thought so. Which is why I have not been able to decipher it all. This notebook I still did but the ones after this are all very confusing to me," he informed her. He had been working on these in his spare time since he left the country.

Before that, he was too afraid to take them out because of his dad. He did not want to part with them as this was his only souvenir from his mentor. He knew if he had made the existence of these notebooks known to anyone, he would never get them back.

"Do you know how to read it?" he asked her. This had been his most interesting work so far. Granted her tribe was an isolated one, their language was something not a lot of people studied. It was kind of an extinct language. So, he researched for months just to find some reliable source of a few words that he could use as a base for translating the notebooks. Now that he had found some native person, he was over the moon.

But this was something she did not know how to answer. She knew the basics of the language, she could probably read the notebooks too. But she had spent much more time at this school since childhood than her own tribe. They were not very welcoming of her either since they thought she had betrayed them. And there was no guarantee that even if she decoded the notebooks here, this guy won't keep the knowledge to himself or take unfair advantage of it.

She thought for a bit a replied, "I just know a few basic things. It would definitely take me less time than you to read them. How about this? We'll start with the first one and then see from there how to keep this a secret."

"Makes sense," Li Ming Hao nodded, "I know that each notebook is about one unique place in the mountains. We will decide on a time to explore the place and read the book together when we are about to set for it. That way, it won't be unfair to you or me."

That sounded reasonable. She could work with that.

"Fine, then let's start deciphering the first one. Since you have already done it, I could just cross-check if you are right or not?" she stated, finally relaxing over having finalized the deal.

"Okay, so tell me what it says," Li Ming Hao moved closer to her to see the notebook himself clearly. Too engrossed to notice, Su Xin Yu started reading slowly, decoding the text in her mind.

"It talks about the tunnel we discovered!" she suddenly screamed incredulously. What a coincidence!!