At half past eleven o'clock in the afternoon, Agnes and her mother walked out of the church.

"Little Angnes, remember to ask your mother to give you some medicine to relieve muscle pain or give you a massage, after all, your mother is a professional doctor."

Ms. Jones said with a smile as she looked at Agnes' somewhat stiff walking posture.

"Alright, Olivia, I will. We're going back. Mother reluctantly rubbed Agnes' hair and said to Ms. Jones.

"Good. Mariana, hope to see you at church next month. Ms. Jones said, curling a smile on her face.

"Definitely." Mother said seriously.

......

In the afternoon, her mother prepared a special potion for Agnes to take a bath. After her mother's massage, Agnes finally felt like she was alive again.

"Once you're used to it, it won't be so painful." Mother said with a smile as she helped Agnes massage.

"How long will it take to get used to—" Agnes lamented by burying her face in her pillow.

Mother couldn't help but laugh.

"Mom, you're still laughing at me." Agnes couldn't help but roll over and look at her mother complaining.

"Actually, it's just because you haven't exercised much before, so I feel unbearable."

"It's not like you don't know, Mom—" Agnes paused, not continuing. The mother was also silent, and the joyful atmosphere just now was gone.

"Mr. Conte told me that the Prisoner's Potion would allow me to master many criminal techniques, such as picking locks with wire, digging tunnels with a soup spoon, and even killing people with whatever I could get my hands on, and he would gradually master these skills over the course of my training." Agnes said with a different subject.

"It's necessary training." Mother said calmly.

"I understand, Mom." Agnes said sullenly.

"What's wrong? My Agnes. Mother asked softly.

"I'm just, I just don't feel like I'm used to it." Agnes sat up and buried her head in her mother's arms. Girls are a little more petite than their peers because of their perennial illness.

Mother touched Agnes's head and gently soothed her. After a long time, Agnes's voice came:

"I know that my mother doesn't want me to be extraordinary if she doesn't have a way."

Mother sighed and hugged Agnes tightly.

......

Agnes sat at her desk and spread out the black notebook with a pressed rose-like pattern on the cover. The sunlight outside the window has gradually dimmed, but a red glow is reflected in the sky. Agnes lit the oil lamp on the table.

January 22, 1328

"Took the 'prisoner' potion today. Physical fitness has been greatly enhanced. But the meditation taught by Mr. Conte was unsuccessful and may have something to do with a lack of spirituality. Agnes flipped to a new page and wrote. The tip of the pen cut through the paper, and Agnes turned the page, looking at the ink on the next page and sighing.

Agnes then wrote a sentence on the next line.

"The mind is a prisoner of the body, and the body is a prisoner of the world. Therefore, use your mind, body, and even the world to bind your own spiritual desires and madness, and don't indulge them at non-critical moments. This is the motto that Mr. Conte told me, and he asked me to never forget it. ”

Agnes thought for a moment, tore off the back page, folded the paper perpendicular to the horizontal line, and wrote in a large part:

"It's not mastery, it's digestion."

"It's not excavation, it's acting."

"The name of the potion is not only a symbol, but also an image, but also the key to 'digestion'."

This phrase had come to Angnes' mind when Mr. Conte told her the aphorism, and it seemed to have existed in her brain, but Agnes still couldn't remember where she had learned it. She vaguely remembered that this should be called "playing", which could help her digest potions. And there is no doubt that the motto that Mr. Conte told himself is the key to playing the "prisoner".

Agnes looked at the admonishing words of Mr. Conte that had been written earlier, and circled the word "desire".

What is desire? According to Agnes, desire is the demand of human nature to achieve a certain end. For now, Agnes thinks that her most prominent desire is to live well, but this desire Agnes doesn't know how to restrain herself. Add some qualifiers, such as living in harmony and happiness with your family? Or should you choose a slightly simpler one, for example, Mr. Conte's martial arts training is so tiring that I can't think about it. This desire is very well restrained, and it is okay to stick to it all the time. But this is not a long-term solution, after all, martial arts classes should end after reaching the standard, and maybe even after the rejection of martial arts classes disappears, this desire will disappear, or you still need to find the desire that has always existed and needs to be restrained.

As for bondage spirits, that's what Agnes was doing with the prisoner's potion.

"To some extent, it may be more helpful for me to actually go to prison for a period of time to summarize the rules of the role, but my father and mother will definitely not agree.

"Actually, if I show the church directly that I know that there is nothing bad about the acting, just tell them that it comes from my dreams. However, Mr. Conte, as a former temperator, should also know the trick, but he didn't tell me directly about the trick, indicating that this method of digesting potions should be considered a secret in the church that cannot be directly spoken? You can't ask him directly, you can ask him sideways.

"The most important thing is to ask Mr. Conte how he digests the prisoner's potion. However, the rules of playing still have to be summarized by themselves, maybe it would be better to ask him about his experience after taking the potion? ”

Agnes looked at it for a moment, tore the paper into small pieces, stuffed it into her mouth, and swallowed it.

Agnes stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror, taking a closer look at herself in the mirror. The girl was still emaciated and weak, and her face was pale, and she didn't seem to have changed in any way from before.

She shook her hands, which were small and thin enough to see the obvious joints, the blue veins on the back of the hands were clearly visible, some of them even protruded slightly when they lifted their fingers, and the nails were bloodless and unhealthyly pale. But the hands used the strength of an adult man in today's test.

"What is the strength and endurance that Mr. Conte asks me to meet in terms of strength and endurance as a 'prisoner'? Remember that the maximum strength of an adult male can reach more than 440 pounds, is this the number? Agnes thought to herself, a little confused.

"In addition to that, I seem to have heard some strange roars after taking the potion today, and in my memory, this sound is generally made by the same path as the higher sequencer, and there seems to be some problem with the existence of the top of the prisoner sequence? Unfortunately, I still can't remember the specific situation. But it feels like those roars are affecting me slightly, is it because of my current low sequence? ”

"Alas, there are more and more problems."

"Forget it, sleep." Agnes left the mirror.