The exact cause of Spencer's death is not the focus of our attention, we just want to know who the family of four farmers he painted when he was 19 years old and where they used to live.

Gerald doesn't give us a clear answer to this question, but he tells us that his great-grandmother lived in the county seat of Surrey when she was younger, and only moved to London after she got married. Spencer was about the same age as Gerald's great-grandmother, and judging by the image of the girl in the painting, Spencer should have been eighteen or nineteen years old when he met Gerald's great-grandmother, which was also the period when he painted "Undercurrent".

Gerrard gave us a very good clue, and after thanking him, we immediately headed for Guildford, the county capital of Surrey.

It took less than an hour to get from London to Guildford, and as soon as we got there, we went to the library to look for some old newspapers. In 1927, four members of a farmer's family died, and I think this kind of thing should be considered a news event, and there may be some records in the old newspapers, and the only place where you can find the old newspapers of 86 years ago is probably the library.

The library staff were very welcoming, and they helped us find an old 1927 newspaper as soon as we asked to see it. But the rest was much more complicated, and that year's newspaper was filled with three large folders, each as thick as a palm.

The contents of the newspaper are not entered into the computer, and the people in the library cannot retrieve it quickly, so if we want to find the content we need, we have to flip through it one by one, and we have to handle it with care so as not to break the newspaper.

This workload is not ordinarily large, and the most terrible thing is that my English level is far behind, and in fact, the only people who can work are Shu Xin and Qiao Wei.

We stayed in the library until five o'clock in the afternoon, and we found a report in the newspaper on April 22, 1927 about the murder of the farmer Stephenson's family, and I was sure that the Stephensons were the farmer we were looking for, because the newspaper had a picture of Stephenson, who was exactly like the ghost of the foreigner farmer who ran out of "Dark Surge"!

But the newspaper coverage of the case surprised me.

I had heard before when I was at the Harbin auction house that the Stephenson family in "Undercurrent" died unexpectedly, and I thought that the family of four committed suicide at the time, but the case described in the old newspaper was another cruel, bloody and slightly terrifying process.

Stephenson was the only farmer in the family, Stephenson, who committed suicide, and his wife, son, and daughter were murdered, and the murderer was Stephenson himself. Newspapers said that Stephenson had been hospitalized for mental illness as a child, and that he had severe violent tendencies and had been in the police station several times.

In short, the newspaper wanted to convey that Stephenson would kill his entire family, and the police believed that Stephenson had decided to commit suicide after waking up from his violent hallucinations.

After learning about the tragedy of the Stephensons, I basically sorted out the whole story. At the same time, I suddenly realized something very important, which made me understand why Weishenme's father asked him to return to England with the paintings.

Stephenson's death was not caused by the evil spirit Liliang in the painting, as reported in the newspapers, he simply chose to commit suicide out of guilt. But instead of being purified, his soul became an evil spirit and was used by an evil wizard.

The evil spirit was granted Liliang through Stephenson's soul, but for some special reason he sealed Liliang in the painting Dark Surge. The reason for this may be very simple, since the witch hunt did not completely eliminate wizards, it proves that wizard hunters still exist today. Now, the wizard had sealed his liliang, presumably to avoid the approaching wizard hunters.

Later, the wizard secretly placed the painting in Spencer's work, because a painter would treat every painting with kindness.

But the accident still happened, and due to the leakage of the evil spirit Liliang, Spencer committed suicide at home!

The culprit who caused Spencer to commit suicide was the evil spirit of Stephenson sealed in the painting. His soul still retains his strong guilt for his family, which is the root of his evil spirit, and he also transmits this guilt to the people around him, arousing the deep guilt of the people around him and magnifying them infinitely, eventually leading to the death of those around him.

Because a wizard can only make a pact with one evil spirit at a time, he will never let the painting that keeps him away from him. Spencer's accidental death was definitely not in this wizard's Jihua, but when it happened, he could only deal with it urgently, that is, disguise Spencer's death as a robbery and murder.

In order to be more realistic, he deliberately maintained Spencer's suicide status, making the case even more confusing, and his goal was finally achieved.

For many years to come, he kept the painting with him, and he left England for Hong Kong to escape the witch hunters. Later, he gave the painting to Gu Feng's grandfather, so that the painting could be brought to China, a country where there was no wizarding culture at all.

In China, no one understands the wizard, and no one knows what the evil spirit is, so the wizard does not need to worry about his liliang being taken away by others, he only needs to hide and secretly pay attention to the dynamics of the painting, and appear around the painting at the right time to retrieve the liliang, use the power of the wizard to complete a heart-eating sacrifice to maintain immortality, and then seal the liliang back.

Originally, his jihua went well, and no one in China associated it with the sorcerer, even if it caused suicide. Even if you have a physiognomy to see it, you can only give some advice that is not very useful, and most importantly, you can't threaten the painting without finding the right way.

But once again, the situation changed, and Qiao Wei and I intervened to make the painting no longer safe. Especially now that we are getting closer to the mystery, if the wizard has been watching the painting in the shadows, he must also be watching our every move.

Craig told Qiao Wei to keep us informed of our course of action, apparently aware that the danger was all around us. Thinking of this, he gave me a reference book on wizards and alchemy, and asked Qiao Wei to study the wizard Liliang sealing technique in the classroom for half an afternoon, all so that we could know each other and know each other.

I told Qiao Wei and Shu Xin all these speculations, and Shu Xin immediately asked: "Since we are a threat to that wizard, then Weishenme He has not appeared to stop us?" ”

Her question was not difficult to answer, and I said: "First of all, he is just an ordinary person without retrieving Liliang, and he does not dare to be too presumptuous as a foreigner in China's territory. ”

"This is true! I've learned the most! Qiao Wei nodded from the side.

"And next?" Shu Xin asked.

"The second is that he may have always felt the need to stop it, because we are still far from the root of the evil spirit."

"And now? Do you think we're still far from the roots? Shu Xin asked again.

"I don't think it's far off. If we find the graves of the Stephensons and burn their bones with holy oil, then the wizard will be completely ruined with his evil spirit. ”

"Then there is no need for him to show up, isn't this evil spirit just in time to find a new evil spirit to conclude a contract?" Shu Xin asked.

"It can't be!" Qiao Wei replied: "After a wizard makes a contract with the necromancy, he will leave a mark on his soul, and this mark will not disappear because the evil spirit that made the contract disappears, it will always remain on the soul of the wizard. If he still wants to be a wizard, he must retrieve Liliang before we can cleanse the evil spirits, and then break the contract. ”

"So, if we go to the Stephensons' grave next, then the wizard will come out against us, right?" Shu Xin frowned and asked.

Qiao Wei and I glanced at each other, and then nodded to Shu Xin together.

"So what are we waiting for? Go find the grave! What do you think a wizard would look like? Is it Dumbledore? Or is it the same as Gandalf? Shu Xin's tone was obviously excited, and he didn't seem to realize the danger yet.

Dumbledore and Gandalf are completely carved out of the same mold, I don't want to complain about Shu Xin anymore, I just think that the person who can make the sacrifice of eating heart to gain immortality is absolutely abnormal, even if he is just an ordinary person before Liliang, but he can still use weapons such as guns or knives against us, not to mention that this guy has lived for hundreds of years, and has to hide from wizard hunters every day, I have a thousand reasons to believe that he has much more combat experience than Qiao Wei or even Qiao Wei's father.

So, I don't care if I will sweep Shu Xin's happiness or not, but the next thing I have to do is to hurry back to Qiao Wei's house, and then ask Qiao Wei's father to find someone to help.