Whether it's Craig or Qiao Feng, Qiao Wei's father's very unserious personality is indeed very pleasing, and he speaks Chinese, which also made me relax all of a sudden. After a few brief greetings in the entrance hall, Qiao Wei's father invited us to the second floor and arranged a room for Shu Xin and me to rest.

Strictly speaking, we didn't come to England to play, so we just sat in the room for a while to ease our fatigue, and then we went with Qiao Wei to the classroom on the third floor with the painting to meet his father.

The so-called classroom is the room where Qiao Wei learned exorcism from his father after returning to England last time, and it is also the library where the Harrington family keeps all the knowledge related to exorcism.

started to get down to business, Qiao Wei's father's expression suddenly became serious, but despite this, he still gave me a very unreliable feeling, perhaps this is why Qiao Wei was dismissive of things like exorcisms at first. But then again, when I first met Qiao Wei, I also thought he was very unreliable, which is probably family inheritance.

Along the way, Qiao Wei kept the painting in a water bag, and it was not until he reached the classroom that he opened the bag and took the painting out of it.

Qiao Wei's father spread the painting up and down on the table, studied it carefully, and then got up and went to the back row of bookshelves, and took out a palm-thick book from it. Back at the table, he quickly opened the book and pushed it in front of us, saying, "Here's a record of this kind of witchcraft. ”

The book is in English, and I can't understand all the strange words on it. On the left side of the page is an illustration of a young girl coiled around her body with hundreds of poisonous snakes with forked tongues, and at her feet a thick book.

"I feel like we're particularly involved with snakes, right? What kind of witchcraft is this? Snake curse? I urged Qiao Wei to translate quickly.

Qiao Wei said while carefully looking at the text content of the book: "The book says that during the witch hunt in medieval Europe, wizards used a special witch number to hide themselves, and they sacrificed through the blood of poisonous snakes and virgins, and sealed all their evil and magic in books or paper and other media, so that they would become an ordinary person. After avoiding the limelight, the wizard uses a spell to awaken the magic sealed in the book, allowing Liliang to return to their bodies. ”

"Didn't you say before that it was the evil spirit that sealed? How did you become a wizard's liliang again? I asked.

"It's mentioned here!" Qiao Wei pointed to the book and continued: "Wizards summon evil spirits through sacrifices, and then obtain liliang by reaching a soul contract with evil spirits, so the wizard's liliang itself can also be understood as the evil spirit itself. Also, a wizard can only make a contract with one evil spirit, and if the contract does not touch him, he can no longer obtain liliang from other evil spirits. In addition, evil spirits are not complete souls, but the embodiment of strong evil thoughts in the soul, and in order to dispel evil spirits, it is necessary to completely purify the soul that generates evil spirits. ”

"How?"

"With fire and holy oil. To put it simply, it is to burn the bones with holy oil. Qiao Wei paused for a moment and then returned to the witchcraft itself, saying, "So far, there is no way to destroy the medium that seals the wizard's magic, and the only way to get rid of this witchcraft is to find the source of the evil spirit in the medium and purify it. ”

"Then that's a problem! The sorcerer only used this painting as a medium to seal himself liliang, and anyone who came into contact with the painting could be a sorcerer, not necessarily the author of the painting. I analyzed.

"Well, that's true, but we're not clueless. As mentioned later, the medium that seals the wizard Liliang will periodically release the power of evil spirits to affect the people around them, and this cycle is about three to five years. If we trace back to when the painting first caused suicide, then we can hopefully find out who the wizard is. ”

Qiao Wei has a point, but he ignores another important fact!

Originally, the painting was in the hands of a farmer, and this painting caused the death of the farmer's family of four in 1927, which means that the shaman sealed Liliang on the painting between 1917 and 1927. Even if the wizard was only ten years old at the time, and it is estimated that he is over 100 years old by now, this painting still has an effect on people, which means that the evil spirit sealed inside has not been taken away, so I prefer to believe that the wizard was already dead before retrieving Liliang.

I told Qiao Wei about my analysis, which also made him ponder.

At this time, Qiao Wei's father finally spoke: "The witch hunt has not completely eliminated wizards, witchcraft still exists, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, wizards exist more as alchemists. Alchemy has a special definition of the process by which the soul moves from birth to destruction to resurrection. In addition, the ultimate goal of alchemy is two, one is to refine gold, and the other is to refine the elixir of eternal life, from these two points, it can also be seen that the human nature reflected in alchemy is greed. ”

"So you mean wizards may live longer than I think?"

"That's right!"

"It can't be long for no reason, right? Alchemy also needs raw materials, since it is to increase one's own lifespan, it means that someone's lifespan is taken away, just like borrowing life in Chinese Taoism, right? I continued to ask.

Qiao Wei's father nodded at me, then returned to the bookshelf to pick up another book and handed it to me: "This is a resource book about wizards and alchemy, which contains the sacrificial techniques of wizards to obtain immortality, and also mentions werewolves and vampires, all of whom are also related to wizards. ”

Craig seems to prefer me to learn about this knowledge through self-study rather than telling me the answer directly. It's a bit of a hassle, but it's definitely impressive, but the book is also in English, and it will take me some time to read it.

I asked Craig if I could take the book back to China and read it.

He nodded and said, "This is just an introduction to common sense knowledge, if you are interested, it will be a gift for you." ”

To be honest, I was more interested in witchcraft, werewolves, and vampires than in yin and yang feng shui, so I quickly thanked him and handed the book to Shu Xin for her to keep it for me for the time being.

According to Craig, it is very likely that the wizard who sealed the evil spirit in the painting is still alive, so our next course of action is to follow Qiao Wei's previous mention, starting with the family of four in the painting, hoping to really find the wizard, and then force the origin of the evil spirit from his mouth.

As for this painting, we decided to put it at Qiao Wei's father for the time being, and he will take care of it. After all, it is now in the active period of the evil spirit's power, and even if we don't use "black pepper" to stimulate it, it will affect the people around it from time to time, so having a professional in charge of preserving it is undoubtedly the best choice.

Later, until dinner, me, Shu Xin, and Qiao Wei stayed in the classroom. Qiao Wei continued to study the content about sealing the wizard Liliang, while Shu Xin helped me translate the book about the wizard werewolf vampire that Qiao Wei's father gave me.

The wizards introduced in the book are similar to those that appear in the movie, and they are also divided into white wizards and black wizards, and the so-called black and white can also be simply understood as the distinction between good and evil. In addition, shamans refer to men, and women who can do witchcraft are called witches or witches, and they are also white and black.

During the witch hunt, both black and white wizards are hunted by humans, and this act of killing both good and evil is not only due to people's fear of the wizard Liliang, but also because of a kind of jealousy that the wizard is immortal and has a powerful liliang.

There is a lot of mention in the books about the immortality of wizards, and the most high-ranking method used by many wizards is the heart of the heart, which is used by many wizards to obtain physical revival by digging out the heart of a young man with a strong body and eating it through a sacrificial ritual.

Other methods, while not as cruel as eating hearts, are also accompanied by the loss of life.

At the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, alchemy began to flourish in Europe.

According to the book, alchemy originated in ancient Egypt and was also known as the art of Egypt, and its goal was to make gold, but the Egyptians never succeeded. In the later stages of the witch hunt, wizards were more likely to be alchemists, which is why alchemy, which has been unsuccessful for more than a decade, but exploded after the Renaissance.

According to legend, in France there was a man named Nicholas who made something called the "Philosopher's Stone", which can also be translated as "Philosopher's Stone". Nicholas smelted mercury into silver and gold through the Philosopher's Stone, and he became rich overnight.

Some say that Nicholas destroyed the Philosopher's Stone before he died, and went to Hell with the recipe; There are also people who believe that Nicholas is a dark wizard at all, and he finally used the soul of a person to refine the Philosopher's Stone through continuous killing and sacrifice, and now he is still alive, but no one knows his current identity.

This book leans more towards the latter.

The introduction to witchcraft, witchcraft, and alchemy in the book is also very rich, and it is estimated that it may not take a few weeks to read it. I had only learned a little bit about the time for supper, and the three of us had finished our studies this afternoon, and after dinner we had put our energies into finding Spencer.