In the quiet town of Giridih, Professor Shonku is no stranger to the strange and unexplainable. But when an old acquaintance, the enigmatic magician Chi-Ching, unexpectedly visits his laboratory, Shonku finds himself thrust into a whirlwind of mystery. A harmless gecko, transformed by the professor’s dangerous experiments, mutates into something far more sinister—a dragon. With bottles of lethal acid mysteriously vanishing and Chi-Ching’s cryptic laughter echoing through the lab, Shonku must unravel whether it’s the work of science gone awry or Chi-Ching’s dark magic at play. Prepare for an electrifying tale where illusion and reality blur, leaving Shonku questioning everything he thought he knew. Can he unlock the truth before it’s too late?
October 18th
This morning, just as I woke up and freshened up to head to the laboratory, my servant, Prasad, came and said, “A gentleman has come to see you in the living room.”
Prasad added, “No sir, he speaks English, but he looks like a Nepali.”
When I went to the living room, I saw a gentleman dressed in a brown robe—perhaps someone from China. And if that's the case, then this is the first time a Chinese visitor has come to my house.
I asked him to sit down and inquired about the reason for his visit.
The gentleman, hearing my question, laughed like a child, shaking his head, and said, "Ha ha ha ha—you forget, you forget. Very bad!"
He took out a red wooden ball from his coat pocket, held it between two fingers of his right hand, and twirled it in front of my nose for three or four rounds. The ball turned white. Then, with another twirl, it turned black—and at that moment, I instantly recalled an incident from four years ago, one evening.
This is the magician Chi-Ching from the city of Hong Kong!
Of course, it was understandable why I didn’t recognize him at first. For one, the physical differences among the Chinese are minimal. On top of that, the environment was different—Hong Kong and Giridih are worlds apart! Moreover, the outfit he was wearing today bore no resemblance to what he had worn back then. That day on stage, Chi-Ching had worn a glittering silk robe, embroidered with green, red, and black patterns. He had a striped conical hat on his head as well.
Anyway, seeing this wooden ball trick reminded me of the entire incident from that day, flashing before my eyes like a bioscope film.
At that time, I was on my way to attend a physics conference in the city of Kobe, Japan. On the way, I stayed for two days in Hong Kong at the house of my American friend, Professor Benjamin Hodgkins.
Hodgkins was a scientist, and though he was over sixty, he was a very cheerful person. The evening I arrived, he insisted on taking me to see Chi-Ching's magic show. I enjoy magic because I get a childish pleasure out of figuring out the tricks behind it. Additionally, I was curious to see what kind of magic Chi-Ching, who was quite famous, would perform. So, I couldn't refuse Hodgkins' request.
Chi-Ching put on a good show. However, when he began performing hypnosis magic, things started feeling uncomfortable. The worst part was when he selected a few innocent, simple-minded spectators and called them up on stage to humiliate them in various ways. One man, for about five minutes, chewed on a woolen ball, thinking it was an apple. Another stroked the armrest of a chair, mistaking it for his pet dog. The state of their faces under the spell of hypnosis was truly pitiful.
I told Hodgkins, "I'm not enjoying this. Did these people come to watch a magic show just to be humiliated like this?"
Hodgkins replied, "What can be done? If they don’t object when called up on stage, how can the magician be blamed?"
I was just thinking of a way to respond when I suddenly noticed that Chi-Ching had turned his attention toward me. What was going on?
Chi-Ching said, “Would you care to come up on stage, if you have no objections?”
I realized that by looking at my appearance, Chi-Ching had assumed I was an easy target. The thought of teaching Chi-Ching a lesson came to me naturally, so I gladly went up on stage.
Chi-Ching tried all sorts of ways to hypnotize me for nearly half an hour. He waved a locket of light in front of my eyes, rubbed his fingers over my eyelids, dimmed the stage lights, and focused a spotlight on his own eyes while staring into mine. He whispered an odd, repetitive, and nonsensical chant, like a song, into my ears. Chi-Ching didn’t leave any trick out, but none of it had the slightest effect on me. I remained as alert as ever.
Finally, seeing that things were not going well, Chi-Ching moved forward to the front of the stage, still maintaining his hypnotic stance, and addressed the audience with a tone of subtle sarcasm, “The mistake was mine. To hypnotize someone, they need to have a brain! I didn’t realize that this gentleman is completely lacking one.”
Perhaps that day, Chi-Ching managed to save face with the audience, but not in my eyes.
The next day, I left Hong Kong for Japan.
On my return journey, when I landed in Hong Kong again, I heard that Chi-Ching had left for Australia to perform his magic shows.
And now, after four years, I meet him again in my home in Giridih!
But what is the purpose of his visit?
Before I could ask, Chi-Ching spoke up.
“You still practicing science?” he asked.
“That’s what it seems,” I replied.
“Science is magic, isn’t it?”
“Well, in a way, it is magic,” I said.
“And magic is science! Ha ha ha,” Chi-Ching kept laughing. Not wanting to seem rude, I joined in his laughter.
“Do you want to see my lab?” I asked.
I took Chi-Ching to show him my laboratory. While observing my inventions, medicines, equipment, and charts, Chi-Ching repeatedly said, “Wonderful! Wonderful!”
Looking at three large bottles filled with liquid, Chi-Ching asked, “Water?”
I laughed and replied, “No, not water. These are deadly acids.”
“Acid? Very nice, very nice.”
I couldn’t understand why acid would be “nice” to him!
After the tour, Chi-Ching sat down on a chair, pulled out a purple handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He said, “You are great.”
I didn’t protest or show false modesty because many eminent figures from several countries had already acknowledged that I was, indeed, “great.”
“Yes, I am great. But I am also greater than you!” Chi-Ching added.
What was he saying? A professional magician, who spent half his time deceiving people for money, was claiming to be greater than me? What great achievement did he possess that other professional magicians in the world didn’t?
Though this thought crossed my mind, I didn’t express it aloud.
Prasad had just served coffee a while ago. I noticed Chi-Ching holding the coffee cup and staring up at the ceiling.
When I followed his gaze upward, Chi-Ching exclaimed, “Lizard!”
Lizard... Oh, he meant the reptile!
When I told him the Bengali word for it, Chi-Ching burst into laughter again.
"Tiktiki! Ha ha! Very nice! Lizard!"
Chi-Ching finished his coffee in two sips and stood up. He mentioned that he had to perform a magic show in Kolkata that very night, so he needed to leave quickly. He claimed that he had come to Giridih only to meet me.
After Chi-Ching left, I thought about it for a long time but couldn’t figure out the reason for his visit.
October 19th
This afternoon, I was working in my laboratory when my cat, Newton, suddenly jumped onto my work table. Newton never does this. The table is always cluttered with various instruments and medicines for my research. When Newton first arrived at my house, he climbed onto the table once and I scolded him. Since then, he never needed a second warning. Seeing him disobey like this today left me quite puzzled.
Newton has seen plenty of lizards before and never reacted. But today, he raised his back, his fur stood up, and he stared at the lizard with intense focus. Why was he reacting this way?
I thought of lifting Newton off the table, but the moment I touched his back, he hissed so fiercely that I was startled.
Did he see something in the lizard that wasn’t visible to human eyes?
I opened the drawer, took out my binoculars, and looked at the lizard through it.
Was there a slight change? I felt like the red circular mark on its back wasn’t there before. And the yellowish glow in its eyes—had I ever noticed that before? Probably not. Then again, I had never needed to examine a lizard this closely with binoculars.
As soon as the lizard moved, I lowered the binoculars.
The lizard crawled along the ceiling, down the wall, and swiftly slipped into one of my bottles.
The moment it disappeared from sight, Newton’s excitement subsided. He jumped down from the table and, making a low purring sound, walked out to the veranda.
Prasad, who has been working for me for nearly thirty years, never interferes with my laboratory. Even when visitors occasionally come to my house, they are never allowed into the lab without my permission, nor does Prasad ever touch anything in there.
When I am not in the laboratory, the door is always locked, and the windows are bolted from the inside.
Last night, I checked, and all three bottles of my highly potent acids were almost filled to the brim.
But now, the bottle of diabolic acid is half-empty. There is no way the acid could have evaporated overnight, and there are no leaks through which it could have dripped and dried up.
If anyone had tampered with it, they would have certainly died.
I thought hard about this mystery, but couldn't find any explanation. Without that acid, my experiment cannot continue. While I was contemplating what to do, I heard a faint rustling sound. When I turned around, I saw a creature peeking from the top of my bottle shelf.
It was the same gecko that lived in my laboratory, but now, it no longer looked like a regular gecko. There were some changes in its appearance. The black parts of its eyes were completely gone, leaving them entirely yellow, and not the usual mild yellow, but with a glow that resembled the flames of a furnace.
I also noticed a difference in its nose. The nostrils were much larger than before. Its body, which was once a mix of light green and yellow, was now covered entirely with red spots.
If I hadn’t known about the gecko’s presence behind the shelf, I would have assumed it was a new species of reptile.
The gecko stared at me for a while, letting out a hiss-like breath. I say "hiss" because I could actually hear the sound it made.
I also hadn’t mentioned—the gecko appeared longer than before.
As I watched, it shifted its gaze from me toward the table.
Then, moving stealthily, it advanced to the edge of the shelf, crouched for a moment, and with a sudden, powerful leap, landed straight on the table. All my glass instruments clattered loudly.
The distance between the shelf and the table was around ten feet, so this massive leap was so unexpected that I stood there, stunned for a few moments.
Now that it was on the table, I could see it up close. Apart from the increased length of its tail, everything else had changed—its legs, head, eyes, nose, and skin color were all different. On top of its head, between the two eyes, I noticed a dark, deep line running down the middle.
The gecko was staring at my acid bottles.
Then, I saw it open its mouth and stick out a long, forked tongue, just like a snake's.
What happened next was so unbelievable that I could do nothing but stand there with my mouth open in shock.
The gecko swiftly crawled up the side of the bottle of diabolic acid, gripping the rim with its hind legs. It lowered its entire body into the bottle and, with a loud gulp, drank the remaining portion of that deadly acid.
As it drank, I noticed that its tail, which had been swaying outside the bottle, started to transform and match the appearance of the rest of its body. At that moment, I involuntarily exclaimed, “Dragon!”
A Chinese dragon!
My almost-pet gecko had transformed into a dragon, and this dragon’s favorite drink appeared to be my dangerous acid!
As a scientist, I suppose that witnessing such a strange, nearly miraculous event filled me with intense curiosity about what might happen next. And this is what happened…
After drinking the acid and turning into a dragon, the gecko doubled in size as it emerged from the bottle. I noticed that smoke was coming out of its nostrils with every breath.
Next, the gecko—or rather, the dragon—moved toward the second bottle, which contained nitro-aniline acid.
It used its front legs to climb onto the bottle, bit off the cap, and within seconds, gulped down all of the nitro-aniline acid.
As soon as it drank, the creature grew to nearly three feet in length.
After finishing the second bottle, it turned toward the third one. At that moment, I thought, "No more. It's time to stop this." No matter how much of an acid-drinker it is, surely a scientist like me could find a way to defeat it!
Wasting no time, I grabbed my “Brahmastra,” my electric gun, from the iron chest in the corner of the room. A shot from this gun, delivering 400 volts of electricity, would be enough to bring down even an elephant.
I aimed and fired a bolt of electricity straight at the creature.
But to my shock and deep terror, the electric charge, which should have knocked out an elephant, had no effect on the dragon, now three and a half feet tall and still growing. It barely flinched, then looked at me steadily with its glowing yellow eyes for about ten seconds.
I felt my arms and legs going numb. The intense, acrid, poisonous smoke was making my vision and consciousness fade. Just before I lost consciousness, I saw the dragon attacking...
Prasad’s voice brought me back to my senses.
“Babu, Babu!”
I jolted up and found myself sitting in the laboratory.
“What happened?”
“That gentleman, Babu, he dropped his stick and left!”
I glanced toward the door and saw Chi-Ching standing there with a smile on his face, holding that thin bamboo stick in his hand.
“This time, I forgot my stick. He he! Very sorry!”
All I could utter was, “But the dragon…”
“Dragon? You saw a dragon?”
I was embarrassed to say anything because everything on my table was exactly as it had been. But what about the acid?
All three bottles were empty.
I stared in astonishment at the empty bottles, and then I heard Chi-Ching’s laughter.
“He he he! A little magic—but great magic! That was your dragon.”
Chi-Ching pointed toward the ceiling.
I looked up and saw my familiar gecko sitting in its usual place.
“And your acid!”
As soon as I looked back at the table, I saw the three empty bottles instantly fill up to the brim with clear liquid!
Chi-Ching brought his palms together in a traditional Bengali gesture.
“Namaskar, Professor Shonku!”
And then Chi-Ching left.
I heard Prasad saying, “I thought the stick was quite special—maybe it could be useful. But, oh my! Babu came and left again, all within five minutes!”
Postscript: October 18th
When I sat down to write about the dragon incident in my diary, I found that it had already been written—in my own handwriting. Could this, too, be another example of Chi-Ching’s extraordinary magic?
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