The dark iron gates opened on either side, and in the middle of the silent courtyard stood an old tree, its branches oblique, and the canopy overhead gloomily obscured half of the courtyard on one side. The courtyard is very neatly tied, much more elegant than the ordinary countryman's yard, there are traces of the garden under the residual snow, the area is very large, although it is decayed and desolate at the moment, but it must have been full of flowers in the summer.

Luo Qi carefully looked at everything in the courtyard, Du Zhengyi had already walked in, his purpose was stronger, although his goals were all invisible to the naked eye. To outsiders, Du Zhengyi looks like he is checking something empty, but he really looks like a ghost hunter.

In the half of the courtyard covered by the canopy, there is a lamp holder carved in stone, which is so ancient that it does not fit in with the layout of the farmhouse. There was a circle of half-human-high stones around the stone lamp seat, Luo Qi stepped forward slowly, walked closer and stared at those stones carefully, and then remembered the strange story that Guan Xinyue said, his stomach churned a little.

After all, the residence of an eccentric old man, next to the church to the west and the temple to the east, is a bit inexplicable in itself, and there is a large stone array in the courtyard, and there is a good chance that the residents here are a little evil. Roach pondered, searching his half-understood knowledge base, gloomily remembering the Black Mass in Christendom. Could it be that someone prayed to the devil here? Is it Guan Xinyue's stepfather? Could it be that he performed Black Mass after the death of his daughter, and received the coming of the devil to curse and kill his son-in-law? If human faith is really powerful, this explains the mysterious behavior of the old man after he was drunk from another angle.

He didn't know if there was any truth to this explanation, maybe God and the devil both exist and don't exist. Humans have observed some anomalous behavior and explained it in a way that they can explain it, which is relatively true.

He pondered endlessly, and Du Zhengyi walked back to him at some point and pushed him.

"How?" He said warily.

"You can get distracted at this time? There's not even a figure here, and no one here can interfere with you, no matter how developed the synapses in your brain are, right? Du Zhengyi said, his tone was a little frustrated, "There is no one here!" No energy! There is no trace of a mage's existence! You must have your luck value reduced, so hurry up and put a big move to add me a status. Otherwise, I'll just tell you that there are ghosts here. ”

"I'm thinking about history and philosophy." Old man Roach said generally. I felt that Du Zhengyi was a little irritable, probably because of the disadvantage of the teacher.

"Don't talk nonsense, if you eat hot pot at noon, just say it. I'm not going to laugh at you for not having enough brains just because your blood is in your stomach and you're busy digesting it. ”

"I've found you to be particularly impatient with me." Roach patiently pointed out to him, "It's not good that you're disrespectful to me, after all, we still have to work together for a long time as far as we can see." ”

"There's no such thing." Du Zhengyi decisively denied it, and then said, "I am disrespectful and impatient with everyone equally. ”

Luo Qi was blocked back and looked at Du Zhengyi in surprise, "Are you a cat man?" ”

Du Zhengyi squinted his eyes and looked at him, "If you want to scold me, can you use allusions that I can understand?" ”

Roach glanced at him, put his hands in his pockets, and turned his gaze back to the black stones scattered among the remnants of the snow, standing among them as if they were a group of ominous Malagasy lemurs.

"Okay," seeing that Luo Qi ignored him, Du Zhengyi strategically gave in for the time being, "Then you tell me about the history and philosophy you think about." Is it related to these strangely standing stones? ”

"You think these stones are strange too?" Roach was interested, he was still a little unconfident in his doubts.

Du Zheng nodded, as if he wanted to say something, but he stopped talking.

Luo Qi felt that he had to share his knowledge with Du Zhengyi, and whatever the truth behind the matter, the details here must support some of their ideas. He briefly told Du Zhengyi about the Christian beliefs and the Black Mass of human beings, and he actually knew little about the belief and culture of human beings, but he still knew more than Du Zhengyi, and he knew about "curses" - a common phenomenon that runs through various human cultures, but it was completely unfamiliar to the mage. Whether it's a black mass, a Gu raiser, or a villain, they don't exist in the culture of magicians, and they have a certain degree of insensitivity to imagination. After all, if you're particularly fond of fantasy horror stories, then in the old war years, you had a huge handle and a shortcoming, and if you met a mage who was good at mind control, you would really be mentally bullied to death.

However, Roach couldn't help but think that mind control itself is very much like a curse in the mouth of a human. Human culture has been disturbed by mages at various levels, and even controlled for a short time. Maybe it's hard to explain the origin of this kind of thing in the first place.

In the process of Luo Qi's narration, Du Zhengyi listened very carefully and did not laugh at his various unbelievable speculations. As soon as Roach explained, he entered the mode of a diligent and studious honor student, and after listening to it, he also asked the question smartly, "Is God the supreme God of Christianity?" ”

Although Roach didn't expect him to ask, he immediately answered the simple question, "Of course. ”

"The devil is against God?"

"Yes." Rocky was a little cautious.

"Isn't it another god who the supreme god can't kill? It can be seen that Christianity has two supreme gods. Since God cannot protect believers from poison, but the devil can help believers curse each other, it is more cost-effective for a wise person to convert to the devil? Du Zhengyi said eloquently.

Roach froze and said instinctively, "That's not the case. The devil is ......," Roach thought gut-wrenching, "the devil is not supreme, it is a fallen archangel, originally to serve God." I can't explain, but what you're talking about is called Christian duality or something. ”

Du Zhengyi interrupted him, "God can't kill his little brother, it sounds like the goldfish I raised will turn around and me one day." Will you me Roach? Forget it, don't listen to it, don't explain it, anyway, human beings are good at quibbles, and they must use a lot of clouds and mountains to cover up the fundamental paradox in their beliefs. ”

"you. If you don't listen, you won't listen, I'm going to keep talking. Roach said with a sad face.

"Shut up." Du Zhengyi said unceremoniously, "Have you ever seen a calculation?" ”

"Straw sticks that can be used for toilet and arithmetic?"

"That's the man's calculations. When we use some complex magic, we often need to calculate some complex parameters in detail, such as changes in light. Du Zhengyi sighed, and he walked between the stone pillars with slightly different heights, "Seriously, are you really a magician?" ”

Luo Qi didn't bother to answer, Du Zhengyi slowly walked to the center of the stone henge, suddenly raised his head, raised his arms, and waved down like a conductor of a symphony orchestra. His tall, slender figure and his neurotic temperament did make him very much like a musician. But when the storm roared over his head, when his trench coat flew up handsomely, when the snow on the ground was swept up by the storm, and the snowflakes flew around them, and where he was was like the eye of the storm. Luo Qi sincerely felt that Du Zhengyi was indeed very handsome, not only handsome, but also literally interpreted the word "pulling the wind".

Roach looked up at the snowflies, barely controlling his facial muscles from laughing. But let's be honest, controlling the weather is not a trivial matter, and even if they all call themselves magicians, few of them can do it. Du Zhengyi had suggested several times that he should be killed with thunder, and now he should seriously consider the true extent of Du Zhengyi's threat.

The wind blew the snow off the ground, revealing the gravel floor. The dark red stone was mixed with gray gravel, and it formed a complex arc on the ground, as if blood had spilled over it, and finally dried up in the intricate and delicate small ditches. Roach stared at the ground in amazement, and suddenly took a few steps back, standing in a position where he could get a rough view of the ground. Sure enough, the red gravel embedded in the ground gathered around the stone pillars and lampstands in a complex circle of tracks. If it was accompanied by an ancient inscription, he must have seen this orbital chart in a textbook, and the fact slapped him in the face, this is not the cursed court of mankind, and it can be regarded as a mage laboratory.

Roach slowly stepped on the blood-colored figure, muttering with a sour face, "This is our facility, not human." ”

"Of course." Du Zheng responded, as if he didn't have time to laugh at him, he kept looking down to check the dark red trail under his feet, "But the use of arithmetic chips is very cold knowledge, these stones contain some rare crystal components, and only archmages can control the magic that requires such a large arithmetic chip to assist in calculations." So ......"

Roach shivered subconsciously.

Du Zhengyi turned his head to look at the old house not far away, the window of the black hole was silent in the north wind of the winter evening, "This must be the residence of an archmage." ”

"How is that possible?" Roach called.

Du Zheng thought for a while and said, "He and Guan Xinyue's grandmother have no children, which is also in line with the situation that it is difficult for mages and humans to have children. ”

Luo Qi couldn't accept this, "If that's the case, then the daughter he had with his ex-wife must also be a mage, and his son-in-law Bacheng is also a mage, and three mages died in this family?" There's also an archmage among them? Didn't the Supreme Council receive an urgent report? If we had received a report, we wouldn't have sent students like us, would we? In this case, a team of senior execution mages should be sent directly. ”

"Didn't you hear Guan Xinyue say that their relatives all died naturally? One died of illness, one died of fire caused by a gas explosion, and one died of alcohol poisoning. If all three mages died of natural causes, then what else is there to investigate. Having said that, if it's true that these three bitter masters are all mages, don't you think Guan Xinyue's words are very interesting? - All those who were not related to her suddenly disappeared, like a passing breeze in the summer. Perhaps she had sensed the unusualness of these three men in some way. Du Zhengyi pointed to the complex trajectory on the ground, the degree of sophistication and complexity that anyone knows cannot be just a simple courtyard landscape.

Luo Qi suddenly realized an important question, "Can you be sure that Guan Xinyue is a human?" ”

As soon as the thought ran through his mind, his heart panicked. If Guan Xinyue is not human, then not only have they been deceived, but the situation may have just reversed - Guan Xinyue and her father and grandmother are both mages, and the identities of the murderer and the victim have just changed.

"She's definitely human." Du Zhengyi said firmly.

Roach breathed a sigh of relief.

Du Zhengyi stood up, "Although I don't think there will be anything to be found in the house, let's go in and have a look." ”

Roach hurriedly followed.