"If only the fat man hadn't been called away by the crane. ”

The black cat squatted behind Jingdong Ear, and couldn't help but sigh as he watched the clothed mouse in front of him gently and skillfully open a hole in the catalpa wood.

Xiao Xiao stood aside and nodded approvingly.

Just when Zheng Qing and the others were called by Lin Guo to Xiaolin to mediate the 'cat and fox dispute', a paper crane in the school newspaper editorial office found Xin Fatzi and asked him to go to the office for a meeting. Because of this, the fat man missed what he was thinking about.

Fat Xin has been talking about finding a certain clothed mouse again these days and doing an interview - according to him, this interview is related to whether he can participate in this year's selection of 'Golden Quill' - if the fat man knows that Zheng Qing and Xiao Xiao met the second clothed mouse in today's mediation work, he still doesn't know how he will beat his chest and regret it.

While the black cat and the doctor were sighing, Tinker Bell had already carved a circle of strange patterns with his paws on the left and right of the hole he had just 'punched', and at the same time dragged several dry branches from the bushes not far away, leaning against the trunk to cover the hollow.

In this way, if someone passes by in front of this catalpa tree and does not pay special attention, they will not notice that there is a black black cave in this big tree.

"These are runes, right? They look a little different from the runes used by wizards. The black cat approached the hole in the tree, and the tip of its paw touched the nicks in the rough bark, and could not help but mutter.

As a young wizard who has studied talismans quite well, Zheng Qing is very familiar with the more than 1,000 runes used by wizards. However, when he saw the symbols carved by Jingle Bell's ears around the tree hole, he still had a feeling that his eyes were smeared with dust, and he couldn't figure out his mind at all—from the order of writing, to the way of word formation, to the basic sentence structure, none of them were completely consistent with Zheng Qing's known rules for the use of runes in the contemporary wizarding world.

"Of course!" Jingle Ear explained in a proud tone, "This is the 'rat script' invented by our ancestors, and only we rat people can use it...... Don't you wizards have your own runes? Just like I can't read your runes, it's normal that you can't read rat scripts, a reason. ”

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. The black cat shook its ears, stared at the traces carved by the Mouse King with a little obsession, and muttered, "I'm just saying that your rune usage is very novel, and I don't say that you can't understand it at all—because the connection between the 'signifier' and the 'signified' is common between different conformity systems. ”

"Hah?!" Jingle Ears looked at the black cat with a confused expression, then looked back at the short wizard holding a notebook beside him, and subconsciously stretched out his paws and plucked out his ears.

It felt that it could understand every word that the black cat had just said, but after connecting it into a sentence, it couldn't understand it at all.

Is this the legendary 'knowledge barrier'?

Unlike the stunned Mouse King, Dr. Xiao was thoughtful about the Black Cat's statement: "If I remember correctly, I have the impression that a master of the Demon Script once expressed a similar meaning—regarding linguistic symbols, they have two most important characteristics: first, the symbols are arbitrary, and second, the 'signifier' has a linear form—according to this inference, do you mean that the ancestor of the rat clan only adjusted the form of the symbols, and did not change the deeper connotation?"

The black cat didn't speak, just nodded silently.

"Which gentleman will explain to me what is 'signifying' and 'signifying' and what is 'linear'?!" Jingle Ear listened to the conversation between wizards beside him, and felt like he was listening to a book from heaven, and he couldn't help but feel a little manic.

Xiao Xiao glanced at Mouse Jun, hesitated for a few seconds, and finally patiently explained:

"Speaking of these concepts, it is impossible to mention the famous Swiss rune master of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, Ferdinand de Saussure, who is recognized as the founder of 'structuralism' in the modern wizarding world and one of the founders of modern rune theory. His "Course of General Runic Literature" is still listed as a textbook for the elective course of runes in senior students at Daiichi University. ”

"Master Saussure believed that any linguistic sign is composed of the 'signified' and the 'signified'. 'signifier' refers to the sound and image of language, and 'signified' refers to the concept of things reflected in language. ”

"The arbitrariness of the sign, that is, the connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, and there is no intrinsic, natural connection between the two......"

Speaking of this, Xiao Xiao paused and pointed to Jingdong Ear to give an example: "For example, wizards use the word 'rat' to refer to creatures similar to your image, but if from now on, we stipulate that the word 'human' refers to creatures similar to your image, then the 'signifier' has changed, but the 'signified' has not changed." ”

"I have absolutely no objection to your idea. Jingle Ear interjected at the right time to express his opinion.

Xiao Xiao ignored him, but continued to explain: "Of course, this statement of Master Saussure is completely contrary to the traditional 'magic scripts have natural attributes', but this does not affect the theory he put forward to open up a new way for the study of magic scripts and runes......

"Don't talk about all these vain things," Jingle Ear finally got a little impatient, and cried out in a shrill voice, "you say you understand, but what do I mean by what I write around the hollow?"

"Those words weren't just a fool's errand, but the essence of real magic. The black cat glanced back at the Mouse King and said calmly: "The subtlety of the rune lies in its arbitrariness, which requires the wizard to have a strong ability to think abstractly...... Like the symbols you carved around the tree holes, although I can't read them, and I can't taste the subtle changes in them, I can tell from the basic structure of the upper and lower levels that they are some runes that expel attributes. ”

Hearing this, Jingdong Ear's eyes suddenly widened, revealing an incredible expression.

At this moment, Lin Guo's shouting voice suddenly came from in the distance.

"Oh oh oh, yes, yes, yes!" the little wizard ran back from the edge of the woods, holding Poseidon's top flower skin with his left hand and wrapping his right hand around the body of the little ragdoll.

The black cat man stood up and looked at the little wizard with displeasure: "Don't shout, panic, what do you look like...... What's right, what's going on?"

Lin Guo immediately stopped, dropped the small things left and right, patted the dust on his body, cleared his throat, and then explained unhurriedly: "I just remembered that when the elder met me in the afternoon, he said to me, let me tell you when I see you, he has already got the seed you are looking for...... If you're not in a hurry, he'll bring it to you tomorrow when class comes ......"

Before the words fell, the black cat had turned into a black lightning bolt and ran out of the forest with a 'whoosh'.

In the cold wind, his intermittent cat meow was heard:

"That's it for today! I'm in a hurry, let's go first!"

"The cats and foxes disband quietly, don't do anything!"

"And those rats, remember to clean up according to the old rules...... Be careful not to let that ear slip down one or two!"

"I'm still here! I can hear what you're saying!" cried out to the black cat's distant back.

"He actually wants you to hear it. Lin Guo persuaded him comfortingly, and then took care of the group of loot and went to collect it.