Zheng Qing reacted for a while before realizing that the little girl's name was Zhu Si.
Immediately, he realized what the little girl had just said.
"Can they eat people?" The young public-funded student looked around nervously: "Who...are they?"
"Mirror elves," the little girl whispered, "but I prefer to call them mirror demons, mirror elves. They like to pretend to be other people, use other people's voices, and talk about other people's things... There is no such thing in the world.
There's nothing more fake than that! More fake than a wizard saying 'I love you' to a fish-woman!"
These are not words that a seven or eight-year-old girl would say.
"Why do they do that?"
"In order to replace others." Zhu Si's little face tightened, looking very serious: "As long as it is fake enough, the fake can be confused with the real, and the civet cat can be exchanged for the prince, and the beam can be exchanged for the pillar!"
There are also sets of little idioms.
The wizard showed a look of interest on his face and continued to ask:
"How can they eat people in the mirror?"
A look of disdain appeared on Zhu Si's face: "Why are you so stupid! Can you only eat people with your mouth? What is the most important thing about a person? It's the spirit! It's the soul! They can pollute your spirit unknowingly! Suck it away.
Your soul!"
"It's so scary." Zheng Qing sighed, looking past the girl's head and looking at the covered mirrors behind her.
"I always feel that your gaze is very rude." The little girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, raised her head, and looked dissatisfied at the big boy in front of her.
Zheng Qing was a little dumbfounded.
"I think... I just thought you were the elf in the mirror world." He spread his hands and explained.
"Me? The elves in the mirror world?!" The little girl had a look on her face that said, "You're blind." She pointed around and drew a big circle: "Those guys are the elves in the mirror world... There are people in the mirror.
Am I such a beautiful, cute, smart, and well-spoken elf? No!"
The corners of Zheng Qing's mouth twitched.
This is a talkative, narcissistic and kind-hearted little girl, he commented in his heart - of course, she may also be a real goblin who is insidious, cunning and vicious.
Zheng Qing is not sure which one it is. But he is more inclined to the first one, because neither his intuition as a wizard nor the screening magic he just quietly used did not detect that the little girl had any ill intentions towards him.
.
On the contrary, under the little girl's cheerful and serious tone, he felt a strong sadness that lingered around her and did not dissipate for a long time.
"How old are you?"
"This question is very rude!" Zhu Si opened his eyes wide: "Mom said you can't just tell a boy his age unless you agree to marry me."
This is indeed not what a seven or eight-year-old girl would say.
Zheng Qing immediately skipped this topic.
He still had trouble with a tree, a cat, and a fox, and he didn't want to mess with another mirror.
"I mean, you don't look very old." The wizard asked in a different way.
"I can change my own diapers at the age of three!" The little girl glared at him unconvinced: "What does age have to do with ability?! Gan Luo became a great wizard at the age of twelve, and Kong Rong discovered it at the age of eight."
The nine uses of Jiaoli... Compared with them, I am not young at all."
Zheng Qing couldn't help but smile.
"Wow, that's awesome." He praised sincerely, rubbed the Dharma book in his hand, and asked thoughtfully: "Does this mean... you are a wizard?"
"Guaranteed replacement if it's fake!" Zhu Si pulled on the old robe on his body and said with great air, "The wizard robe specially made by the Traditional Magic Tools Research Institute of the First University is warm in winter and cool in summer. It also repels insects and mosquitoes and wards off evil spirits!"
Zheng Qing was not sure whether there were differences between spring, summer, autumn and winter in the mirror, or whether there were mosquitoes.
But he was very sure that Zhu Si should stay in this world for a long time.
Because the ‘Daiichi University Institute of Traditional Magic Tools’ is the predecessor of the ‘Daiichi University Institute of Applied Magic’, that name has been abandoned for more than fifty years.
The wizard's expression became slightly more serious:
"Since you are a wizard, why are you here?"
"It's always you asking and me answering. I want to ask you this question too." Zhu Si folded his arms, looking like a little adult, and snorted: "Why are you here? Are you looking for someone too?"
Oh, she came to the mirror world to find someone.
Zheng Qing was thinking silently in his heart, and he very much suspected that Zhu Si was a child who got lost while playing hide and seek in the mirror world when the "Wizard Code" was not perfect.
"I'm here to learn." He told the truth honestly: "The teacher seems to want me to understand the true meaning of this world."
The little witch gave him a sympathetic look.
"You must be the kind of apprentice who is abused by the master." She stood on tiptoes and patted the wizard's arm comfortingly: "I heard my mother say...I heard that you all sleep on the floor of the wizard tower at night and eat all your food.
If you are not full, you will be thrown into dangerous places by the master to do magic experiments."
Zheng Qing couldn't help but laugh or cry.
The situations Zhu Si mentioned did happen in history. Before the First University and the Wizards Alliance were established, the old-school wizards were passed down from family to apprentice, and it was very common to exploit apprentices.
Even now, many children from wizarding families have heard frightening words from their elders when they were young, such as, 'If you don't obey, I will give you to Gellert as his apprentice'.
Gellert was a famous dark wizard in the early 20th century. It is said that his favorite thing was to turn his apprentices into slippery snakes or limp slugs - no one likes to be a slug.
"How long have you been here?" Zheng Qing touched his forehead and stuffed the barrel of the Colt Python into his mind - Zhu Si had been staring at it since just now, with an expression of eagerness to try. Zheng Qing
I was worried that she would jump up and grab the barrel of the gun to swing.
There was an obvious look of disappointment on the little witch's face.
"It's been two or three months." She muttered, the disappointment on her face dissipated, and she became a little more troubled: "I came in quietly... I remember the book said that the world in the mirror can lead to anywhere...
…I planned to give my parents a surprise. But I got a little lost when I came in.”
At this point, she carefully looked around, signaled Zheng Qing to bend down, and then leaned into the wizard's ear: "They are doing very important magic experiments in a very secret institution! Normally, they can only communicate through a double-sided mirror..."
Then she left the wizard's ear, clasped her hands behind her back, walked to the side, sighed heavily, and looked back at the young wizard, her eyes full of pity.
"My escape skills are very good," she seemed to be encouraging herself, and seemed to be comforting Zheng Qing: "You don't have to worry about me... I think you are the one who needs to be worried. I have never seen you like this.
The daredevils... came in and just broke a mirror. Don't you know the worst thing in the world is to break a mirror?"