There are some meta-mana that is indeed true that cannot be achieved by spells constructed by wizards, and these real manas are the real world of magic, they have nothing to do with wizards, they have their own definite value, whether the wizard summons it or not.... Magic is artificially constructed, which means that no spell is invincible, and no spell is capable of beating all others. ----- Game of the Seven Gods

"Dead. The coroner said, "Do you have identification?"

"It's an anonymous person. The police said.

The coroner glanced at Ah Xiu. "You work at the Nasus and Azir funeral home?" he asked.

"Yes. Ah Xiu replied.

"Tell Nasus to leave a tooth mold and fingerprints to verify his identity, and to take a headshot. There is no need for autopsy, just draw blood for poison identification. Do you remember everything? Do you want me to write it down for you?"

"No," said Ashu, "that's fine, I remember." ”

The man frowned quickly, took out a business card from his wallet, scribbled a few strokes on it, handed it to Asho, and said, "Give this to Nasus." The coroner said "Merry Christmas" to everyone and left. The police took the empty bottles.

Ah Xiu signs to collect the body of Anonymous and puts him on a stretcher. The corpse was frozen to the ground, and Ah Xiu was unable to change him from a seated position to another position. He fiddled with the stretcher cart and found that he could raise one end of it to make a support. He strapped his belt to Anonymous, who was sitting on a stretcher, and stuffed him into the back of the hearse. Ah Xiu asked him to sit face forward, perhaps to make him sit more comfortably. He closed the trunk of the car and drove back to the funeral home.

The hearse stopped at a traffic light. Just then, Ah Xiu heard a hoarse voice. "I wanted a wake ceremony like this: everything had to be perfect—beautiful women weeping for me, tearing their clothes and grieving, and brave men weeping for me, telling stories of my best days. ”

"You're dead, madman Sweeney. Ashur reminded him, "Since you are dead, you have to accept it with or without a wake." ”

"Well, yes. The man sitting in the back of the hearse sighed. The whimpering of the addiction episode had faded from his voice, and it had become flat and monotonous, resigned to fate, and every word was like a radio wave from far, far away. This is the language of death coming from the channel of death.

The green light came on, and Ah Xiu gently stepped on the accelerator.

"Anyway, I'm going to have to do a wake anyway. The madman Sweeney demanded, "Put me on a platform for people to look at, and keep a drunken vigil." You killed me, Asho, you owe me. ”

"I've never killed you, madman Sweeney. Ah Xiu retorted. It was twenty dollars, he thought, for twenty dollars to buy a ticket to get out of here. "It's the drunkenness and the cold that kill you, not me. ”

The dead man did not answer. The rest of the way back to the funeral home was quiet in the car. Ah Xiu parked the car at the back door, pushed the stretcher cart out of the hearse, and pushed it all the way into the morgue. He carried the madman Sweeney onto the embalming workbench like half a beef.

He covered the madman Sweeney with a white sheet, leaving him alone and the papers with him. As he walked up the stairs to leave the morgue, he felt himself hear a voice, calm and faint, like the sound of a radio coming from a distant room. The voice said, "How could alcohol and cold kill me? Kill me with elf blood? No, you lost that little golden sun, and that's what killed me." Ah Xiu, you killed me. It's as true as the water is wet, the time is long, and your friends always let you down in the end. ”

Ashu wanted to tell the madman Sweeney that his views were too pessimistic. On second thought, after death, I am afraid that anyone will become pessimistic.

He went upstairs back to the main hall. In the main hall, a group of middle-aged women are busy putting plastic wrap over plates and plastic lunch boxes filled with cooled fried potatoes, macaroni and cheese.

Mr. Draculas, the husband of the deceased, pushed Mr. Azir against the wall and continued to tell him how he had known that none of his children would attend the funeral as a sign of their respect for their mother. The upper beam was not right and the lower beam was crooked, and the apple would not fall far from the apple tree, and he grabbed anyone who would listen to him and repeatedly complained that the apple would not fall far from the apple tree.

That evening, Ah Xiu put an extra cutlery on the table. He placed a glass in everyone's place and placed a bottle of Jameson Gold in the middle of the table. It was the most expensive Irish whiskey sold in the hotel. After supper, the women left them a large pile of unfinished meals, and Ashur filled each cup with spirits, his cup, Azir's, Nasus's, and Sweeney the madman's.

"He's sitting on a stretcher in the basement," Ashu said, as he poured his wine, "and he's about to embark on the road to the slum's cemetery." Tonight we toast him and give him a wake for the spirit. He wanted to have a wake ceremony. ”

Ah Xiu raised his glass to the vacant spot on the table. "I only saw Sweeney the madman twice when he was alive," he said, "and the first time we met, I thought he was a super weirdo, full of energy like the devil." The second time we met, I thought he was a complete broken piece of shit, and I gave him money to kill himself. He once taught me a coin trick, but I don't remember how it changed. He left a bruise on me as a memento and claimed to be a leprechaun. He took a sip of whiskey, and a smoky smell filled his mouth. The other two also drank and toasted to the vacated chairs.

Mr. Azir reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a notebook. He flipped through the book, found the right page, and read aloud a summary of the life of the madman Sweeney.

According to Mr. Azir's records, the madman Sweeney's life began as a guardian of a sacred rock in a small glade in Ireland, three thousand years ago.

Mr. Azir tells them about the love of the madman Sweeni, his enemies, and the madness that empowers him, "His story is still told today, but his divinity and his antiquity are not told in the stories that are circulating now. Those contents have long been forgotten. ”

He told them how much people used to adore and love him in Sweeney's hometown, but that worship and affection soon turned into a wary respect. In the end, he became the object of ridicule. He also tells them how a girl born in Berlin came to the new world of England and how she brought with her the dwarf fairy madman Sweeni.

She had seen him one night, and he smiled at her and called her name. Later, she became a refugee and boarded a ship to the New World, where people watched the potatoes she had grown rot in the fields and watched her friends and loved ones die of hunger.

She longed for a new world to fill her belly. The biggest dream of this girl from the ancient continent is to go to a city, and she alone can earn enough money to bring the whole family to this new world.

Many of the Old World immigrants who arrived in England were ignorant of catechism, but they identified themselves as Catholics. In fact, all they really know is Irish myths and legends.

They knew the story of the Banshee, and if they were to mourn by the wall of a house, death would soon befall someone in the house, and the story of the Holy Bride, and the legend of Svein, the Imperial Ruler, the Legend of Orn, the Flame of the Mountain, the legend of Conan the Barbarian, and the legend of the Dwarf Elves, which was probably the biggest joke in Ireland, because the Dwarf Goblins were actually the tallest in those days......

That night in the kitchen, Mr. Azir told them all these stories. His shadow was reflected on the wall, stretched out like a bird.

After Ah Xiu poured a few glasses of whiskey, he imagined that Ah Xiu had the head of a huge water fowl and a long, curved beak. After the second round of drinking, the madman Sweeney began to tell his story himself, some of the details of which were completely irrelevant to Azir's narrative

“…… How nice that girl is, with a cream-colored breast, dotted with freckles, and the top of the breast is the reddest pink ...... of the rising sun."

Sweeney began to wave his hands, trying to explain the history of change. They evolved one after another: gods from Gaul, gods from Spain and other ghost lands.

With each new group of gods arrives, the old ones are transformed into trolls, fairies, or some other goddamn monster. Finally, the Christian Church of Our Lady came, and then, before it was too late to say goodbye, all the demon gods of Ireland became elves, saints, dead kings, and so on......

Mr. Azir rubbed his gold-rimmed glasses and wagged his fingers to explain that he was an artist and that his stories were not a word-for-word retelling of facts, but a processing and re-creation of facts by the imagination, more real than the facts themselves.

His pronunciation was even clearer and more precise than usual, and Ashu knew that the man was drunk, and that the only sign of drunkenness was the beads of sweat on his forehead besides the tone of his speech—this room was cold.

The madman Sweeney said, "I'm going to show you what it means to process and recreate facts by imagination, first of all, I'm going to recreate your damn face with my imaginary fists." Mr. Nasus bared his teeth and barked at Sweeney, the growl of the largest dog.

That kind of dog never takes the initiative to provoke and provoke disputes, but can always bite the throat of the opponent and end the dispute. Sweeney understood the warning, sat down honestly, and poured himself another glass of whiskey.

"Remember how I made a coin trick?" he asked Ashu with a smile.

"I don't remember. ”

"If you can guess how I changed," said the madman Sweeney, his lips purple and his blue eyes cloudy. "I'll teach you how to do it. ”

"You hid it in the palm of your hand?" Ashu asked.

"It's not. ”

"Did you use some props? Have you got a stash pocket in your sleeve, or something to pop a coin out of your sleeve for you to catch?"

"Not really. Anyone else want to add some whiskey?"

"I read in a book that there is a technique called 'Scrooge's Dream', which is to cover your hand with latex and make a hidden pocket of the same color as your skin, and your coins are hidden inside. ”

"For the great Sweeney, this wake-up was not a good one. I once flew all over Ireland like a bird, and I went crazy to eat only paddy parsley to live. Now that I'm dead, no one comes to mourn me except a bird, a dog, and an idiot. No, there are no pockets. ”

"Well, that's all I can guess. "I think you must have conjured those gold coins out of nothingness." It would have been a sarcastic remark, but he saw the look on Sweeney's face. "That's what you did!" he said, "and you did make a coin out of nothingness!"

"Well, it's not accurate to say nothing," said the madman Sweeney, "but you're guessing pretty well. Gold coins are taken from The Rreasures of Requirement. ”

"The Rreasures of Requirement. Ashu said, and then he began to remember, "That's right!

"All you have to do is think about this treasure trove in your head, and you can take something out of it. Sun Treasures. When there is a rainbow, the treasure is in the rainbow, and when there is an eclipse and a storm, the treasure is in the eclipse and the storm. ”

Next, he taught Ah Xiu how to do it.

This time, Ah Xiu finally learned.

Axiu's head throbbed, and his tongue felt like sticky fly paper. He glanced at the sunlight outside. He actually fell asleep on the kitchen table, neatly dressed, only the black tie was untied.

He walked down the stairs to the morgue and saw Anonymous still lying on the embalming table. He breathed a sigh of relief, but wasn't surprised by the result. Ashur pried the empty bottle of Jameson's gold whiskey out of the corpse's already stiff fingers and threw it away. There was the sound of people moving upstairs.

When Ah Xiu went upstairs, he found Drinkward sitting at the kitchen table, eating a potato salad left over from a plastic lunch box with a plastic spoon. He wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a dark gray tie, and the early morning sun shone on the dark gray tie with the tree-shaped silver tie clip. Seeing Ashu come in, Drinkward smiled at him.

"Ah, Ah Xiu, my child, I'm glad to see you get up. I thought you'd go to sleep forever. ”

"The madman Sweeney is dead. Ah Xiu said.

"I've heard that. "It's unfortunate." Of course, at the end of the day, each of us will die. He drew an imaginary rope at the height of his ear, then pulled his neck to the side, sticking his tongue out and sticking out his eyes. This somewhat creepy pantomime show ended quickly. He let go of the rope that didn't exist, and returned to that familiar smile. "Want some potato salad?"

"I don't want to eat it. Ah Xiu glanced quickly at the kitchen, then looked at the hall outside. "Do you know where Azir and Nasus went?"

"Of course I do. They went out to bury Lila Draculas. They wanted you to help, but I told them not to wake you up. You still have to drive, drive a long distance. ”

"Shall we go?"

"Within an hour. ”

"I should say goodbye to them. ”

"No need to say goodbye. You'll see them again soon. I'm sure you'll see them before we're done with this. ”

From the first night she stayed here until now, for the first time, Ashu found the brown kitten sleeping in her cat basket. She opened her amber eyes and watched him leave with no interest.