The Great Cold has just passed for about a week, and it is less than ten days since the beginning of spring. These are the coldest days of the year. However, as the Spring Festival is approaching, Yunhua Community is immersed in an artificially heated atmosphere.
, which makes the evergreen shrubs and pines and cypresses in the community garden look much greener than usual.
At this moment, Zheng Qing was conducting a welcoming ceremony with his family in a remote corner of the community.
From the open window of a residential building a little further away, the music of the second half of the 'Spring Festival Overture' could be faintly heard, as well as the cheerful voice of the host. Although it was the middle of winter, the collective heating was very powerful, so during the day
It is not unusual for residents to open windows for ventilation.
In general, everything was so normal that Zheng Qing had a vague illusion that life at home would always be so ordinary and stable.
"The paper money I bought this year is a bit trendy... did you bake it last night?" When Professor Zheng lit the paper money, he asked Zheng Qing's father with a slightly unhappy tone, "Why does it take so much effort to light it?"
Zheng Qing's eyes followed his grandfather's question and landed on the string of paper money.
The orange flame of the lighter licked the colorful paper money, rolling up light blue flames and wisps of bluish-white smoke. Indeed, the smoke when these paper money burned seemed to be a little more than usual.
"Toasted," Zheng Qing's father defended. He also took out a wad of paper money and tried to light it. "Put it together with the firecrackers on the cabinet above the radiator and bake it all night..."
The cabinet my father was talking about was actually a dado that wrapped the radiator - a very popular style in the decoration of old-style community rooms. Wooden dados were used to protect the walls of the home, and around the radiator, there were also
Leave some grilles for ventilation and heat dissipation.
"Is it just the radiator by the window in the living room?" Professor Zheng's tone became more and more unhappy. "I wonder if there is dew in the morning and it will react with moisture? How old are you, but you are still so careless in doing things..."
Zheng Qing suppressed his laughter and watched his father shivering in front of his grandfather. He shrank quietly and tried to reduce his sense of presence - this was very important, especially in this situation, speaking out rashly would be very dangerous.
Easily angered.
For this reason, he tried to shift his attention elsewhere.
In the distant window, accompanied by the background music of the Spring Festival Overture, the host recited the program words of "Year After Year" normally and skillfully; further away, a few stray cats seemed to have been driven away by dogs, and a gust of wind seemed to
, running across the wall with his tail between his legs.
Zheng Qing stared at the retreating figures of the cats, and couldn't help but think of the subordinates in the school's grove - he wondered how they were doing during the winter vacation, whether they were hanging hair balls on the trees as usual.
When he came back to his senses, there was already a thick layer of paper ash accumulated in the copper basin, as well as more and more paper money burning. Also more and more, it was the bluish-white smoke that was coming from the copper basin.
The basin gushes out violently, almost completely submerging the figures of grandfather and father.
Zheng Qing put his hand on the gray cloth bag at his waist, wondering whether to take out the Dharma book and use a small spell to disperse the smoke. It was not that he was hesitating whether to do this, but that he wanted to do it in front of the two elders.
It is not an easy task to clean up and do it quietly and quietly.
The smell of burning paper became stronger and stronger, irritating Zheng Qing's nasal cavity and giving him a slight suffocation feeling.
"Turn over the paper money below, so that it can be burned more fully..." From the front, Professor Zheng's command to Father Zheng came out. Through the lingering smoke, it seemed a little blurry and faintly distant. It seemed as if they were with the same person.
There was a layer of frosted glass between Zheng and Qing.
This is a very weird feeling.
The gray-white sky is getting grayer and darker, and the whistling cold wind has quietly stopped - the trembling branches, the falling dead leaves, the tinkling glass windows, and the road outside the community.
The whistling and honking of vehicles passing by - all disappeared without a trace as the sound of the wind passed away.
For a moment, Zheng Qing thought that he had used the wrong magic, and had mistakenly used the spell to clean up the smoke as a silencing spell.
But soon, he realized that he had not yet taken out the Dharma book from the gray cloth bag, and he had not yet started to perform any magic.
A thorn-like feeling came one after another.
The young wizard turned his head back hard, so fast and powerful that he felt intense dizziness, and vaguely heard an ominous creaking sound from the friction between his cervical vertebrae and his skull.
But all this became irrelevant after Zheng Qing saw those bright red eyes.
…
This was not the first time Zheng Qing faced a demon.
On the first day he learned about First University, he encountered a pig demon in Damingfang; then a banshee on the admission plane; then a kappa demon by the Linzhong Lake; and later, there was the school hunting club freshman competition
Go up to those wild monsters that fight the hunters in groups.
It can be said that Zheng Qing can be considered a veteran when it comes to facing demons.
But it was the first time for Zheng Qing for a wizard to face a demon alone, especially in front of his family.
He stood quietly, not daring to move. The biting cold of mid-winter and the chill brought by the demon opposite were like the difference between being bitten by a mosquito and being bitten.
Zheng Qing felt that his soul was soaked in ice water for an instant, and he was suffocated in despair.
This is impossible - he roared in his heart - how could they appear here - the Wizards Alliance has a strict and standardized protection system for any wizard born in Baiding World, which includes staying close to the corresponding wizard's original family
Set up anti-demon and expel spells.
Because of this, Zheng Qing still had the confidence to walk out of that university and go home after knowing about the demons and the risks. Therefore, Zheng Qing could go to school with peace of mind, without having to worry about his family encountering unspeakable threats.
The demon opposite is not big, about one meter tall. It looks like it was infected by a stray dog - of course, it could also be a lone wolf - it has angled ears and a grinning mouth, revealing two rows of pale tips.
Teeth, and gums that are drooling and horrible.
Whoops, whoops, whoops.
The demon was breathing greedily and rapidly.
Zheng Qing put his fingers on the gray cloth bag and his mind was spinning crazily. Dozens of different plans flashed through his mind instantly, as well as more follow-up solutions - after all, the demon opposite didn't look particularly difficult to deal with.
But Zheng Qing didn't know what impact the 'observer effect' would have under the current situation, and after dealing with the demon, it was very troublesome how to deal with his family and how to appeal to the Wizards Alliance.
At this moment, a cat's meow broke the almost solid atmosphere in the venue.
"Meow."
.
This chapter has been completed!