"...There is no one in that old house. It looks like it has been abandoned for a long time."
"The walls are covered with climbing roses and wisteria, and the cracks in the stone can accommodate the claws of the ancient giant... The yard is overgrown with weeds and insects are rampant. As long as there are people living in the house, it should not be abandoned to that point.
"
"But I remember there was a wooden barrel thrown next to the well. Is that barrel wet?"
"Maybe it was wet with dew."
Zhang Jixin and Fatty Xin were describing the appearance of the ancient house while discussing the impressions deep in their minds - the details may be slightly different, but their unified understanding is that the house has been abandoned and the owner may have been away for a long time.
.
These discussions came to an abrupt end at the end of the path.
Because at the end of the night, Engla's old house had been surrounded by Jiang Yu's luminous mushrooms. However, unlike the descriptions of Zhang Jixin and others, the house did not look so remote.
In front of the house is a soft lawn, which is trimmed very smoothly. There is a circle of bushes around the lawn, which are uniformly trimmed into spherical shapes. Each one is round and looks particularly pleasant.
The entire house is located in the howling night wind of the Kara Valley, with its back facing the silent mountains. The rugged rocks are lined up along the twisted ridges, like beasts on the roof of the old house; facing the house, there are some shadows under the mushroom light.
A small patch of red grass, and a dense ink-colored forest surrounding this grassland.
Black wall tiles are piled at the end of the lawn, neat and clean. The white marble gatekeeper is lying on the steps paved with bluestones, yawning lazily. Even if he sees uninvited visitors late at night, he just shakes them off.
He flicked his tail and snorted.
Zheng Qing looked at the lion-like stone beast in silence.
After a while, he turned around and glanced at the fat man: "The elder's family has a big business. I can understand why I think this kind of house is abandoned... When did your family become so wealthy?"
The fat man looked like he had seen a ghost.
"Isn't this... I mean... it wasn't like this when I came here before?" He waved his arms and looked at Zhang Jixin in confusion, as if he wanted to find an anchor line: "Didn't we go the wrong way?
"
"There is only one road in the forest, and there is not even a fork in the road until you reach that sign. How could you go the wrong way?" Zhang Jixin tightened the gloves on his hands and looked at the old house with a gloomy look: "Although I
I don’t quite remember what the outside of the house looks like...but there must be no such beast, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get out so easily before.”
"So for the sake of safety, let's go back first." Nikita raised her hand very kindly and put forward her own suggestion, looking at Zheng Qing expectantly.
I have to say that for a moment, Zheng Qing was a little tempted by this proposal.
But his eyes passed over Ju Si and the slightly glowing black string on her wrist. Thinking of Old Atal's last instructions, he immediately gave up the idea.
"As the doctor guessed before, maybe this house can only reveal its true appearance at night." The young public-funded student held the rune gun in his arm and shook it steadily at the banshee, and asked politely:
"You've come here, you can't go back empty-handed... Just knock on the door and ask if you can stay overnight."
The banshee opened her eyes wide in surprise.
"Let a lady take risks? Where's your demeanor?" She pointed to her nose, speechless.
Zheng Qing was a little impatient and waved the muzzle of his gun again: "You are not a lady because you are a monster... Monsters have no human rights... If the dark wizard in the house gets angry because you knock on the door, he will arrest you.
Stew, we will pray for you.”
"What's the use of praying after a person is dead?!" Nikita cursed and walked toward the gate of the old house. Zhu Zhu grabbed her clothes and followed behind her.
Fatty Xin leaned close to Zheng Qing's ear and whispered: "By the way, she is our prisoner...why does it feel like she has a bigger temper than me?"
"The banshee has a bad temper." Zheng Qing thought of the experience on the admission plane and shook his head: "Besides, she already knew that we would send her to the black prison, so it's good that she didn't resist hysterically..."
"I think the main reason is that you are too kind," Zhang Jixin also approached and commented in a low voice: "If you had cut off her limbs in advance, put her in an urn and sealed her, you wouldn't have had this trouble...
…Don’t you have the heart to do it? My brother said that it’s difficult to kill lichs for the first time because they are so similar to us.”
Zheng Qing hesitated for a few seconds.
"No," he finally denied the red-faced wizard's guess: "I can kill her without hesitation."
"But you won't kill, right." Xiao Xiao stood behind him, pushed Zheng Qing, and reminded: "Don't chat, learn to be like the squad leader, and be more alert...Nikita is about to knock on the door."
Jiang Yu silently glanced at the boy who was chatting. The arm holding the Dharma book remained motionless. A few slender rays of light dripped down from the pages of the book and dappled behind the glowing mushrooms.
Zhu Si stood beside the witch, his head moving slightly, and his eyes were already a little confused.
Zheng Qing blushed a little. For a moment, he felt that the identities of the witches and wizards had been reversed - the witches were vigilantly maintaining the lighting spell, while the wizards were gossiping about whether to turn the banshee into a human being.
swine.
He coughed lightly, cheered up, and looked at Nikita seriously.
The banshee had already walked up the steps and was carefully passing by the lion-like gate beast. The stone beast lay lazily on the bluestone from beginning to end, not even looking at the visitors.
"Excuse me, we are here to visit the owner of Engla's old house." The banshee bowed slightly to the stone beast, clearly explaining her purpose.
The stone beast flicked its tail, glanced sideways at the banshee, snorted, and said nothing.
The banshee stood in front of the stone beast and paused for a moment.
Then a harsh sound broke the tranquility of the night and the invisible pressure in the air.
"You want to come in and ask me!" The knocker beast on the door of the old house screamed at the top of his lungs: "That guy has a stone brain. If the owner doesn't speak, he won't move... and he can't speak either."
Nikita glanced at the stone beast and saw that it really had no reaction, so he stood on tiptoes and carefully slipped past it and walked to the door knocker beast.
"Hello, we are here to visit the owner of the house." She politely repeated her question.
"Knock on the door if you want to come in!" The Knocker Beast continued to shout with its harsh voice: "What's the point of asking me! I'm just a doorkeeper!"
The smile on the banshee's face froze for a few seconds.
After a moment, she raised her arm, grabbed the copper ring in the door knocker beast's mouth, and smashed it on its face:
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The knocker beast screamed in pain and joy: "Knock on the door! Someone is knocking on the door! Come and open the door!"