p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Hi, there is Chapter 2, your Christmas gift, and thank you for comments! There might be some grammar mistakes, please forgive me and give me some advice. I'll correct it as the best as I can. By the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope you enjoy your gift!/p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"strongChapter 1: The Letters/strong (Dipper's story)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Hey kids! It's time for lunch!' shouted Grunkle Stan. I checked the time from my watch, it was in the afternoon. Mabel stopped playing with Waddles and ran to the dining room quickly. I was very disappointed to have a lunch without Soos. The lunch was quite simple, each of us had a plate of spaghetti, but Soos was not there since Melody returned and had a honeymoon with him./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'What are we gonna do today? Wanna go fishing, sing karaoke or swimming?' Mabel was very energetic. She had planned what to do this holiday./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Mabel, no more karaoke. I don't want to remember what happened in the last party. Again! How about having an adventure with Wendy in the forest?' I requested./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No kids. We neither have karaoke nor explore the forest today.' said Grunke Stan./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'But why?' Mabel looked upset. She always wanted to sing karaoke with her beloved great-uncle and brother, but Grunkle Stan did not allow her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No more reason. That time, remember? We sang a silly song to kill the zombies. Wanna meet zombies again? No, we'll get into trouble.' Grunkle Stan was a busy old man. He always led groups of tourists to visit the Mystery Shack and dreamt being rich. Of course, he would say that. But this day, he closed the Shack because he wanted to be with us in this poor weather. That was strange; Grunkle Stan used to care his business, but not today. Why? Was the money not important to him anymore?/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I've something for you, Dip,' said Grunkle Stan. I saw he had finished his spaghetti already./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I'm gonna discover an unknown place tomorrow. It may be your last day with me.' he whispered./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'What?' I asked./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I've to go. This is my duty. Who cares?'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'But you can't leave us! Who'll care the Shack? Soos is out, Wendy is hanging out with her friends, Mabel and I are too young to have a business. Grunkle Stan, the Mystery Shack is yours! You're Mr. Mystery!'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I know, I can handle it… Because I'M THE BOSS! But my mission is important! I need to go there! I'll be back as fast as possible after I finish my discovery!'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I had never seen the serious face of Grunkle Stan. He looked more serious than before. He only looked at me angrily and there was no smile on his face. Oh no, I thought. I had made him angry./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Dip, this letter is for you, and that's for Mabel. I'm afraid that I can't come back anymore. Maybe it's my last message. By the way, don't read them now! After I leave, only you can read yours first. Your sister needs to wait until there is a big problem in the Shack.' Hmmm, these letters looked mysterious. Grunkle Stan never wrote letters before. There must be some secrets in the letters!/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Soon, Grunkle Stan started to cry. I had never seen him cry before. He was always manly, but not this time. His tears had damaged his manly image. 'Dip, you and Mabel have grown up, but someday, maybe someday, I won't see you anymore. Do you understand?' I saw there were more tears and wrinkles from Grunkle Stan's face. He was old. He did not have many years left, and Gravity Falls was a dangerous place. Grunkle Stan was right. Maybe someday I would not see him anymore after he left. 'Un...under...understand.' I was depressed. I began to cry either, then we hugged./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Mabel noticed that Grunkle Stan and I were crying and shouted, 'Hey, what happens there? There are two silly guys crying and hugging each other! They're adorable, aren't they?' I was angry, but I needed to be calm and tell her Grunkle Stan's leave because it was not funny, so I did. 'Mabel, no more joking! Grunkle Stan's gonna leave tomorrow and we might never see him again!' Mabel did not believe and was surprised before. 'Is that real?' she asked. Grunkle Stan replied, 'It's true. I'll never see you again.' Mabel was disconsolate too, she did the same thing what I did./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Yes, we were crying and we hugged one another. We cried so hard, but what was the matter? Our great uncle was going to leave! How bad it was! We had fun in this summer vacation! Without him, everything would not become fun at all! It was not a matter to lose your money, success and comfort, expect your memories, friends and family. 'It's enough. I'm wanna go to the restroom and wash my face first.' Grunkle Stan said calmly, then he left the dining room. I found that something was wet. Oh my god! Those were the letters! How could I give it to Mabel? She would be mad! Therefore, I hid them in my pocket./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"At the next day, something unlucky happened, Mabel saw I hid the letters, at the time when we discovered the portal and met the author of the journals. Yea, I did not really trust Grunkle Stan at all, but that was not a key point. The key point was the letters. Grunkle Stan was with us at that moment. He told me to throw away the letters, but I did not. The letters were still mysterious. Besides, Stan was still not what he seemed. However, the good thing was, the author was always closed to us, he was the brother of Grunkle Stan./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Wow, what are you hiding? Are those letters from Wendy?' She was confused about the letters, but Grunkle Stan wanted her to read hers after 3 years, so I lied to her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Well, nothing.' I was reddened. Oh no, she knew I was lying./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Did Grunkle Stan give you? Let me see…Of course, I promise I won't open the letters.' Oh, she knew the truth, maybe she had heard what Grunkle Stan talked to me. I was nervous. I could not stop sweating. I really did not know what to do. Could I escape? Maybe it was a good idea to me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No way!' I shouted. Mabel was crazy. She was trying to steal the letters from my pocket. I was scared and escaped. Mabel chased me, like playing 'Hide-and-Seek', I ran as fast as I could. Soon, I ran to our bedroom and hid behind my quilt. I was tired, but there was no another way to stop Mabel. Mabel stopped chasing me and said, 'Oh well, I give up, but I'll try my best to get ya! Hahaha…' Mabel was still crazy, nothing could stop her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I got out of the quilt. I was still tired after the 'Hide-and-Seek', but the luckiest thing was… I was safe! And I could read the letters at that moment! I wondered which to read first. Wait a minute, why Grunkle Stan said Mabel should read her letter AFTER 3 YEARS? Was the letter important to her? Therefore, I decided to read Mabel's first, but something caught my eyes. It was my journal, Journal No. 3! I had put the journal before I hid under the quilt, and nothing was under it, but that moment, there was a notice on it! It was written by someone, but no one knows./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I was reading the notice after I put down the letters. The message of the notice was terrifying and I couldn't understand it. Could you help me to decode it, please? There was the message of the notice:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"KZXRURXZ SZH QLRMVW YROO'H GVZN./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"What did it mean? Was it related to the horrible nightmare; or somethingfont face="Nimbus Mono L, monospace"span lang="zh-CN"？/span/font/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"font face="Nimbus Mono L, monospace"span lang="zh-CN"ＴＨＥ ＥＮＤ ＯＦ ＣＨＡＰＴＥＲ /span/fontstrongONE/strong/p
hr style="margin: 5px 0px; border: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px; background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 100%, 100% 100%, from(#ffffff), color-stop(0.1, #cbcbcb), color-stop(0.9, #cbcbcb), to(#ffffff)) #cbcbcb;" noshade="noshade" size="1" /
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Plus, someone may not break the code easily, but it is quite important to the next chapter, even to the whole AU! There is a hint: Switch A and Z! Can you guess now? Chapter 3 will arrive after the New Year./p
hr style="margin: 5px 0px; border: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px; background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 100%, 100% 100%, from(#ffffff), color-stop(0.1, #cbcbcb), color-stop(0.9, #cbcbcb), to(#ffffff)) #cbcbcb;" noshade="noshade" size="1" /
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"strongChapter 1: The Letters/strong (Dipper's story)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Hey kids! It's time for lunch!' shouted Grunkle Stan. I checked the time from my watch, it was in the afternoon. Mabel stopped playing with Waddles and ran to the dining room quickly. I was very disappointed to have a lunch without Soos. The lunch was quite simple, each of us had a plate of spaghetti, but Soos was not there since Melody returned and had a honeymoon with him./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'What are we gonna do today? Wanna go fishing, sing karaoke or swimming?' Mabel was very energetic. She had planned what to do this holiday./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Mabel, no more karaoke. I don't want to remember what happened in the last party. Again! How about having an adventure with Wendy in the forest?' I requested./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No kids. We neither have karaoke nor explore the forest today.' said Grunke Stan./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'But why?' Mabel looked upset. She always wanted to sing karaoke with her beloved great-uncle and brother, but Grunkle Stan did not allow her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No more reason. That time, remember? We sang a silly song to kill the zombies. Wanna meet zombies again? No, we'll get into trouble.' Grunkle Stan was a busy old man. He always led groups of tourists to visit the Mystery Shack and dreamt being rich. Of course, he would say that. But this day, he closed the Shack because he wanted to be with us in this poor weather. That was strange; Grunkle Stan used to care his business, but not today. Why? Was the money not important to him anymore?/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I've something for you, Dip,' said Grunkle Stan. I saw he had finished his spaghetti already./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I'm gonna discover an unknown place tomorrow. It may be your last day with me.' he whispered./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'What?' I asked./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I've to go. This is my duty. Who cares?'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'But you can't leave us! Who'll care the Shack? Soos is out, Wendy is hanging out with her friends, Mabel and I are too young to have a business. Grunkle Stan, the Mystery Shack is yours! You're Mr. Mystery!'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'I know, I can handle it… Because I'M THE BOSS! But my mission is important! I need to go there! I'll be back as fast as possible after I finish my discovery!'/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I had never seen the serious face of Grunkle Stan. He looked more serious than before. He only looked at me angrily and there was no smile on his face. Oh no, I thought. I had made him angry./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Dip, this letter is for you, and that's for Mabel. I'm afraid that I can't come back anymore. Maybe it's my last message. By the way, don't read them now! After I leave, only you can read yours first. Your sister needs to wait until there is a big problem in the Shack.' Hmmm, these letters looked mysterious. Grunkle Stan never wrote letters before. There must be some secrets in the letters!/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Soon, Grunkle Stan started to cry. I had never seen him cry before. He was always manly, but not this time. His tears had damaged his manly image. 'Dip, you and Mabel have grown up, but someday, maybe someday, I won't see you anymore. Do you understand?' I saw there were more tears and wrinkles from Grunkle Stan's face. He was old. He did not have many years left, and Gravity Falls was a dangerous place. Grunkle Stan was right. Maybe someday I would not see him anymore after he left. 'Un...under...understand.' I was depressed. I began to cry either, then we hugged./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Mabel noticed that Grunkle Stan and I were crying and shouted, 'Hey, what happens there? There are two silly guys crying and hugging each other! They're adorable, aren't they?' I was angry, but I needed to be calm and tell her Grunkle Stan's leave because it was not funny, so I did. 'Mabel, no more joking! Grunkle Stan's gonna leave tomorrow and we might never see him again!' Mabel did not believe and was surprised before. 'Is that real?' she asked. Grunkle Stan replied, 'It's true. I'll never see you again.' Mabel was disconsolate too, she did the same thing what I did./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Yes, we were crying and we hugged one another. We cried so hard, but what was the matter? Our great uncle was going to leave! How bad it was! We had fun in this summer vacation! Without him, everything would not become fun at all! It was not a matter to lose your money, success and comfort, expect your memories, friends and family. 'It's enough. I'm wanna go to the restroom and wash my face first.' Grunkle Stan said calmly, then he left the dining room. I found that something was wet. Oh my god! Those were the letters! How could I give it to Mabel? She would be mad! Therefore, I hid them in my pocket./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"At the next day, something unlucky happened, Mabel saw I hid the letters, at the time when we discovered the portal and met the author of the journals. Yea, I did not really trust Grunkle Stan at all, but that was not a key point. The key point was the letters. Grunkle Stan was with us at that moment. He told me to throw away the letters, but I did not. The letters were still mysterious. Besides, Stan was still not what he seemed. However, the good thing was, the author was always closed to us, he was the brother of Grunkle Stan./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Wow, what are you hiding? Are those letters from Wendy?' She was confused about the letters, but Grunkle Stan wanted her to read hers after 3 years, so I lied to her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Well, nothing.' I was reddened. Oh no, she knew I was lying./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'Did Grunkle Stan give you? Let me see…Of course, I promise I won't open the letters.' Oh, she knew the truth, maybe she had heard what Grunkle Stan talked to me. I was nervous. I could not stop sweating. I really did not know what to do. Could I escape? Maybe it was a good idea to me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"'No way!' I shouted. Mabel was crazy. She was trying to steal the letters from my pocket. I was scared and escaped. Mabel chased me, like playing 'Hide-and-Seek', I ran as fast as I could. Soon, I ran to our bedroom and hid behind my quilt. I was tired, but there was no another way to stop Mabel. Mabel stopped chasing me and said, 'Oh well, I give up, but I'll try my best to get ya! Hahaha…' Mabel was still crazy, nothing could stop her./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I got out of the quilt. I was still tired after the 'Hide-and-Seek', but the luckiest thing was… I was safe! And I could read the letters at that moment! I wondered which to read first. Wait a minute, why Grunkle Stan said Mabel should read her letter AFTER 3 YEARS? Was the letter important to her? Therefore, I decided to read Mabel's first, but something caught my eyes. It was my journal, Journal No. 3! I had put the journal before I hid under the quilt, and nothing was under it, but that moment, there was a notice on it! It was written by someone, but no one knows./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I was reading the notice after I put down the letters. The message of the notice was terrifying and I couldn't understand it. Could you help me to decode it, please? There was the message of the notice:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"KZXRURXZ SZH QLRMVW YROO'H GVZN./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"What did it mean? Was it related to the horrible nightmare; or somethingfont face="Nimbus Mono L, monospace"span lang="zh-CN"？/span/font/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"font face="Nimbus Mono L, monospace"span lang="zh-CN"ＴＨＥ ＥＮＤ ＯＦ ＣＨＡＰＴＥＲ /span/fontstrongONE/strong/p
hr style="margin: 5px 0px; border: 0px; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px; background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 100%, 100% 100%, from(#ffffff), color-stop(0.1, #cbcbcb), color-stop(0.9, #cbcbcb), to(#ffffff)) #cbcbcb;" noshade="noshade" size="1" /
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Plus, someone may not break the code easily, but it is quite important to the next chapter, even to the whole AU! There is a hint: Switch A and Z! Can you guess now? Chapter 3 will arrive after the New Year./p