On May 18, 1804, at half past two o'clock in the afternoon, Mill Edward was awakened in his sleep when he heard a shuddering sound outside the door, as terrible as the knock in his dream, like an angry bull banging frantically.

He felt the whole house tremble, like an earthquake. The glass, the bed, the floor, the table, and the plates and glasses on the table were almost fighting with each other, and even the dust on the beams was falling like a large snowflake, but it was black—black was the color he hated the most.

Mir jumped out of bed so quickly that he didn't have time to put on his shoes, so he ran downstairs barefoot.

He was worried that the house would collapse in a few moments, and he wasn't sure if there was a knock on the door on the first floor, or if there was really a cow that he had to stop.

He grabbed the old large-caliber flintlock pistol hanging from the doorway, opened the safe, and aimed at the dark brown iron door, he was ready to punch a few holes in the guy outside the door.

He immediately pulled out his left hand, leaned forward, opened the deadbolt, and opened the door carefully.

He was stunned when he saw a tall and mighty black man standing in the doorway.

As the black man repeated the knocking motion, the huge fist accidentally touched the barrel of the gun, so that the flintlock pistol in Mir's hand suddenly fell to the ground.

"Hey dude, I haven't seen you in three years, and you've become braver than before." He laughed and said, "I'm so sorry I touched your gun." ”

Mill looked palely at the black man's fist like a boulder and said, "Mr. Stoddard, it's not funny at all. ”

"If you smash them, I'll make you pay me a palace!" Mir briefly straightened his white half-sleeved shirt, tilted his head, and pointed to everything in the room with a frown.

Ian Stoddard resembles a temperamental black bear in the wild, with a huge body, even half a head taller than Mill's Iron Gate.

He bared his white teeth, ignoring Mir's pretentious gestures, and was about to say something when Mir was so annoyed that he motioned for him to wipe the mud off his boots and enter the room.

Mill has a cleanliness fetish, which has a lot to do with his zodiac sign, and he has lived in New Orleans for ten years.

His identity is known only to his girlfriend Alina Massena and his friend Ian Stoddard, and he has never revealed anything about anyone in the French district.

For them, Mir is a future person of the empire on which the sun never sets, they don't know what a future person is, they get along extremely well on weekdays, and occasionally, when Mir will talk about something they don't understand, they will treat him as a kind of person with mental illness.

In order to find the family's secret - the curse, Mill signed a contract with the devil in the library of Cambridge University in the empire where the sun never sets, and after the devil sent him to New Orleans, he lived for only a year, and found that it was completely in conflict with the time he wanted to go, and he was sure that he was tricked by the devil.

During his ten years in New Orleans, Mill was looking for the devil's trail, and it seemed to have disappeared.

Mill stooped down to pick up the flintlock pistol and put it back in its place, he never worried about misfiring because there were no bullets in the gun at all - he forgot to reload.

Ian walked to the living room, took off his navy blue beaver hat, then took out a thick newspaper from his brown briefcase, put them together on the wooden table, and said, "How are you doing?" Man. ”

Mir went back to the second floor to put on his new custom-made cloth shoes, and he heard Ian's loud voice reply, "Very well, just moved to a new house, how about you?" ”

"It's not good at all, I hate them, I hate my father even more, why should I be a councillor." Ian said.

"Them?" Mill asked, standing in the stairwell.

"Yes, it's them, the so-called federal politicians."

Mir never cared about Ian's politicians, he was concerned about what kind of news Ian would bring to him when he returned, and if he didn't bring any news, he would catch up with his old friends.

When he first came to New Orleans, he hated it and was often discriminated against and treated unfairly.

However, the Great Fire in New Orleans in 1794 saved many people, including Ian and Alina, and as a result, changed Mill's fate and changed the perception of most of New Orleans' residents.

Ever since the moment he and Alina fell in love, he preferred to stay here.

"In fact, you have to thank your father, if he hadn't been the governor of Louisiana, you'd be doing the cheapest labor right now, just like their gangsters."

Mir tried his best to enlighten Ian, he hoped that Ian would one day become one of the federal politicians, so that Ian could bring him more news, on the other hand, from Ian's father, Mir, as Ian's only friend, hoped that Mil would help Ian grow up so that his heart would not be hurt in any way - Ian was the child of his father and mistress, and his father's only male.

Mill turned his head and asked, "What would you like to drink?" ”

"Brandy."

Ian removed his hat and spread the thick newspaper with creases on the table, and while Mir was pouring the wine, he took out a thin newspaper from the inside pocket of his suit, and after quickly opening it, he placed it on the bottom of the thick newspaper.

At this time, Mir happened to sit opposite Ian with two wine glasses, and the other was handed to Ian.

Ian took the glass with one hand expressionlessly, and with the other hand immediately pushed the newspaper in front of Mir.

"Dude, the newspaper you provide is getting thicker." Mill said excitedly.

Ian took a sip of brandy and said, "Hurry up and see, after reading it, you can find a time to deal with them, I don't want to be arrested as a spy!" ”

Mir didn't drink, he began to flip through the newspapers one by one, he only looked at the big headlines and some big things.

Ian knew what he was looking for in the newspapers, and several of them were about the federal side, and the newspapers of other countries were bought by him at great expense, and those who were engaged in intelligence seemed to think that Ian was some kind of freak.

As Mill was about to flip through the last paper, Ian suddenly spoke: "Say a little off-topic, you can keep the last one, it will kill you in the evening." ”

"What do you want to ask?" Mir put down the newspapers in his hand, folded them up, and glanced at Ian with a puzzled look.

Ian drank the wine from the glass in one gulp and said, "You pour me another glass first." ”

When Ian saw Mill get up and go to the kitchen to get a drink, he put the last newspaper back in the first place.

Ian knew very well that the information in that newspaper must not be seen by Mir, at least not today, and he was worried that Mir would go crazy if he read it, so he had to find a way to test Mir's attitude.

Mir filled Ian's glass and returned to his seat.

"Dude, are you cured?" Ian asked with concern.

"After being with Alina, my condition has improved, and she is simply my medicine."

Ian was so calm that he couldn't let Mir notice the flaw, and he asked, "What would happen to you if, I mean, if she left you?" ”

What Mir didn't expect was that Ian would jump to Alina, something he couldn't understand.

"I never imagined that I couldn't lose her, that's undeniable."

"Birth, old age, sickness and death are the most common things, and I need to give you a preventive shot now." "Also, or, if she doesn't love you anymore one day and goes with another man, what will you do?"

"I should bless her."

Ian learned some potential information from a few words of conversation with Mir, and Mir would be much more enlightened with Alina than he thought, and he could have no peace of mind letting Mir read the newspaper.

"I'm going back, man." Ian said as he drank the last drop.

"Where are you going? I have room for you here. ”

Ian stood up, tucked his beaver hat under his arm, and said with a wicked smile, "New Orleans Inn, you know what I want tonight." ”

"It's raining outside, I'll give you an umbrella, you bring it."

Mill didn't keep him, he was sure he knew Ian better than anyone else, and he would go to New Orleans at least once every time he came to New Orleans.

"No, I like the rain, and I don't like umbrellas, it makes me cool and sober."

Before Ian left, he had told Mir to wait until he had thought about it tonight before opening the newspaper.