magician in town

Chapter 3 Space and Time

Chapter 2 Space and Time

The information was laid out on Roach's desk in the dormitory. From the photos to the brief introduction, everything looked ordinary, and Roach quickly lost interest.He calculated that the social investigation could not be said to be difficult, but trivial at best, not to mention that the main attack was that young and seasoned Du Zhengyi, all he had to do was to serve as a second hand, to put it bluntly, he was just a follower, and he just obeyed orders.

Liu Xing was very interested, and kept flipping through the materials he brought back by his desk, arranging the photos back and forth.There was never any secret between Luo Qi and Liu Xing. As soon as he came back from the teacher's office, he couldn't wait to tell Liu Xing the ins and outs of the matter.Liu Xing was more interested than Luo Qi, and asked him over and over again, asking him to tell the story many times, until Luo Qi couldn't come up with anything new before stopping. Liu Xing has been studying these materials since then.

He looked at Liu Xing with a lack of interest and rearranged the information again like an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and finally turned around to talk to him, but he just opened his mouth - "This is not right!"

"Boss, if you can see what's wrong if you sit in the dormitory, can I just write the report without going to the field for investigation?" Roach replied without energy.

"No, I can understand the target event of this investigation. From time to time, some people have witnessed some people using their second-to-five eyes, and then there are some so-called supernatural sighting reports, but human beings always like to lie and add Because of the limelight, such eyewitness reports are always true and false. From the perspective of a mage, studying the reaction of human society to this kind of thing must be a boring thing some academics are willing to do." Liu Xing said with a thoughtful expression, looking a bit like he usually does strategic analysis for games, "But why did you two choose to participate in this research project?"

Roach was startled and hesitated.He didn't tell Liu Xing the reason why he was selected, which is really hard to say.He hesitated for a moment, hesitantly looked around and said to him, "Because I am the only student in the third grade who may not be promoted to the fourth grade, and I urgently need credits?"

Liu Xing shook his head, "Of course I know that you have the motivation to participate in this social investigation practice. I mean, why does Du Zhengyi want to get involved at this time? He is a well-known good student and doesn't need extra credits at all. Besides, he will graduate soon and participate in a Mao social practice?"

It turned out that he was not asked why he was selected, Roach was relieved.But then he understood what Liu Xing meant. He was too nervous and only thought about his own problems. Now that Liu Xing mentioned it, he thought of Du Zhengyi again.Indeed, given Du Zhengyi's grades and resume, he must have many choices after graduation, and there are even some very promising choices. There is no need for him to talk about this at this time.

Liu Xing ignored his hindsight and pondered and said, "I think there must be something going on here, maybe it's a good thing, otherwise he would definitely not go. Tomorrow is the last day of the exam, right? The day after tomorrow at the earliest, you I'm going to follow him to the other side."

Luo Qi's attention was distracted again, he wanted to laugh every time he heard Liu Xing say the word "the other side", this is quite an old-fashioned way of saying, Liu Xing was raised by his grandparents, and from time to time he would inadvertently Say something old.

In the old saying, Bifang refers to the world of ordinary human beings.They also live in the other world, but they don't exist for human beings. Perhaps they only float by in the distant legends of human beings or children's stories.

There are always some mages who call on their own people to maintain their dignity, reject the suicidal hedonism of human beings, and criticize human beings for destroying natural ecology.These views are very popular among the less strongly assimilated elders, who always insist on calling the human world by the other side.

Roach scoffed at the idea, believing in human evolution.Mage is nothing more than a branch of primates on the evolutionary tree. Their ancestors are likely to be the same female monkey as the ancestors of humans. Perhaps it is more appropriate for them to use the name given to them by modern humans-supernatural beings.

Roach told Liu Xing the theory about evolution and supernatural beings, as well as Marvel Dafa.Liu Xing raised his eyebrows and looked at him until he gradually shut up, "Is it your mage talent to distract your mind?"

"..."

"Do you think this girl is pretty?" Liu Xing flicked through the photos, and carefully checked the photos.

Luo Qi sighed and took the photo that Liu Xing handed him. Others were always not interested in his theory, but he thought it was good.He has seen this photo several times, the girl looks good, the feeling between her eyebrows and eyes is very light, she is indeed the type that Liu Xing likes.But when he looked at it just now, he felt that something was not pleasing to the eye. Now that he looked at it again, he finally realized the source of the sense of disobedience. The end of her hair was pink, which didn't match her appearance.

Liu Xing's guess also dug a hole in his heart to some extent, and when Du Zhengyi asked him to meet, he became more and more uneasy.He was always worried that good things would come too suddenly, but he sincerely hoped that everything would go well, whether he could graduate, and whether he could get a mage's license was almost a matter of one fell swoop.

The place where Du Zhengyi asked him to meet was a tea house run by a mage, located in the center of the old city of the human city.Even though Roach often spends time in human communities, he is not familiar with such places.He walked around several times in a dilapidated residential building, which was an open community and the territory of a group of stray cats. He went around and met them for the third time before he suddenly found the teahouse.A huge signboard of the e-sports internet cafe almost completely blocked the small signboard of the teahouse. If you don’t look carefully, you can’t see that the teahouse is located above the internet cafe.

Luo Qi hurried into the unit door, Du Zhengyi gave him the first impression that he was a very difficult person to deal with.It is said that he has many talents, but tolerating others' lateness is certainly not one of his talents.

When going upstairs, Roach had other worries. Recently, it is popular for businesses to show their individuality on the front of the storefront. It takes a little effort to figure out the way.There's a famous ice cream shop that only the sad can open, and an awesome kebab shop that only the happy can open—Roach is a regular at this place, and he's always been through.Roach speculates that these two door locks are medical magic, which can detect the hormones secreted by the body to infer the mood of the diners.It is of course a gimmick for merchants to install such door locks deliberately, in order to attract customers.But there is a jewelry store in Xi’an, it’s too nonsense. To find the gate, you first have to unlock a nine-link ring, which is simply nonsense!If you were allowed to enter the store after an IQ check, no wonder the store closed down.

Luo Qi was sweating, afraid that Du Zhengyi would find a strange flower shop to make things difficult for him, but as soon as he stepped on the stairs at the turning, he looked up and saw the door of the teahouse suddenly opened, with two printed words hanging on the door. Lucky Cat's half-worn curtains, even after being tacky to the end, still bring a little warmth.

Luo Qi tremblingly approached the curtain of the lucky cat, guarding against the door lock appearing at the last moment.Sometimes the scene will be completely different before and after the door is unlocked. Although what you see now is the Lucky Cat Teahouse, after the door is actually unlocked, there may be an exquisite Zen garden.

Roach did enough mental construction and stepped forward slowly.

Then, nothing happened.Through the open door, he saw two tables of old mages playing mahjong—speaking of which, this is the only thing that can cross the two worlds of illegal human beings, and even isolationist old men can't refuse mahjong.

More importantly, Du Zhengyi was not difficult to find, he was very conspicuous among a group of old men drinking tea and playing cards and chatting.He was leaning back against the window and sitting obliquely beside a broken table in the innermost part, writing hard on a pile of papers.The background BGM is still the old tune of the teahouse tape recorder, "The beautiful night is so quiet, only the sound of my piano is left on the grassland, I want to write a letter to a girl far away, yay~~, but unfortunately there is no postman to deliver it Eh, love."

As soon as Roach covered his face, this person was either too careless, or he was just too capable.He thought that Du Zhengyi, a legendary "child from other people's family", would stay in an unusual place, but this teahouse was quite the same.

He walked over, threw his schoolbag on the chair, and pulled away the chair opposite Du Zheng to sit down and talk.Without raising his head, Du Zheng raised his left index finger and made a gesture of waiting, "One minute."

Roach sat down, entertained himself, picked up Du Zhengyi's teapot and poured himself a cup of tea.While drinking tea, he kept his eyes on what Du Zhengyi was writing. There were 1 curiosity in his throat waiting to jump out to figure out what Du Zhengyi was writing.

A minute has passed, almost 1 minutes, but before Du Zhengyi finished writing, Luo Qi quietly reached out and turned to the bottom page in the pile of manuscripts, took it out and looked at the cover. With a few big characters - non-linear loop multi-dimensional space transformation.

He pondered, this must be Du Zhengyi's graduation thesis.

"Drop tea and I'll kill you."

Surprised, Luo Qi raised his head and looked at Du Zhengyi, who was still hurrying to write, with an impatient look on his face.However, Roach has never been someone who can hold back his words. He finally broke his head. He hit the iron while the iron was hot and asked cheekily, "What does this mean? Can you tell me about it?"

The pen in Du Zhengyi's hand paused for a moment, he raised his head and glanced at Roach, "Don't you usually read?"

Roach shrugged and took a sip from his teacup.

Du Zhengyi looked at him again, as if evaluating whether he was playing stupid.Luo Qi wanted to help him, smart people always think too much, but he couldn't say directly, "Brother, I'm so stupid, so can you be more direct when doing things with me?"

Du Zhengyi seemed to have guessed his thoughts, took a deep breath as if giving up, and prepared to answer him.

Luo Qi suddenly remembered how good the academic school was at chattering, so he hurriedly interrupted him, "Brother, put it simply, I can understand it."

The expression on Du Zhengyi's face suddenly became very exciting. He seemed to be smiling, but he still opened his mouth to explain, "When traveling through the subspace, the position of the beacon needs to be calculated first. What I am researching is a new calculation method. .”

Roach understood, "Are you good at teleportation?" This is the biggest advantage in a mage duel.

Du Zheng glanced at him, "You can't?"

"Theoretically yes, but I haven't taken the experimental class yet." Roach blushed and forcefully argued.

Du Zheng nodded, and said while writing, "The improvement of the beacon algorithm can allow the mover to see the destination faster. To use...in a more popular way of explaining it is to reduce the singing time of the mage. But in actual operation The mage's sense of direction is the most important factor in completing space travel. In 1851, when a large household in Gansu demolished the courtyard wall, a mummy was removed from it, which alarmed the government at that time. Scared the owner who lost his soul The family couldn't explain what was going on. They got into a lawsuit for nothing and spent countless money to barely save their lives. The family couldn't live in the local area anymore. After a few years, they decided to move the family. Who knows When crossing the Yellow River, the Yellow River flooded, and the whole family drowned. Ah, of course, this is a postscript, so far away.”

Luo Qi felt a chill out of thin air, and shivered, "The mummy is a mage?"

"Yes, the mage who committed the crime has been missing for several years. The Supreme Council of Mage at that time got the news of this ghost, and sent people to investigate, and finally confirmed the deceased and the cause of death." Du Zhengyi said Yun Danfeng Light, "The reason is that the deceased's sense of space is not good. When teleporting, he got stuck in the wall and died just like that."

Luo Qi was silent, this method of death was really aggrieved, maybe the person was still alive when he penetrated into the wall, and then slowly suffocated to death in the compacted rammed earth wall. "Why would he..." He asked half a sentence inarticulately.

Du Zhengyi understood what he was asking, and nodded very cleverly, "He wants to enter the inner house of that rich family, and wants to date their lady. You know that there are many mages who like this, pretending to be a fox fairy or something, Seduce a human girl." After speaking, he raised his head and glanced at him meaningfully.

Luo Qi came back to his senses, thinking about what it meant to scold Du Zhengyi, did he look like a frivolous mage, coquettish?But looking back, his mother has seriously warned him several times that his sense of space is very poor, and he must never think about traveling through space in the future.But in this world, apart from space, only time is the coolest research field.

"So... do you know about time science?" Roach thought for a while and said hesitantly, "How about the major of forecasting?" "The future is unpredictable." Du Zhengyi whispered, but his tone was not usually tough .

"Have you heard of Master Chu Jin?" Luo Qi asked carefully.

"Of course." Du Zhengyi said, this time he stopped writing, looked up at Luo Qi, and said slowly, "Chu Jin is a famous calculator, of course I have heard her lectures."

"She is my mother's youngest sister." Roach said, "My aunt has always believed that the future can be predicted, as long as she can complete massive calculations, she can predict the accurate future. She is very interested in human computer science, She thinks how computers work is a good idea. But I don’t know if she succeeded, she hasn’t been home for a few years, and we don’t know what she’s doing.”

Du Zhengyi looked at Roach, who was still holding a pen in his right hand, pressing the bottom of the manuscript paper.Luo Qi suddenly realized that Du Zhengyi's expression was serious at the moment, and he couldn't help being a little flattered. Du Zhengyi's attitude towards him had always been a bit like teasing a pet.He hasn't resisted yet. After all, there is a gap between the two of them due to age, experience, ability and knowledge. He is not so overconfident.But who would have thought that he could force Du Zhengyi to be serious inadvertently, which made him tremble a little, "I also like computers very much. I think technically speaking, predictions will be achievable one day sooner or later."

"I didn't say it couldn't be realized technically," Du Zhengyi said, "I just think the prediction is meaningless."

This is a bit like arrogance, Luo Qi secretly thought that Du Zhengyi had such a moment of secondary school.

Du Zhengyi seemed to see his thoughts again, and shook his head, "Unless your aunt decides to be a bystander of the world all her life, only staring at the results for her own entertainment, then I have nothing to say. The future will always be It’s dynamic—you know the predicted results, you make changes, the predicted results are invalid, all observation points are invalidated, and the outcome is still unknown.”

Roach froze.

Du Zhengyi continued to return to the starting point of the topic, "There are only two branches of time science. In addition to the future-oriented prediction science, there is also the past-oriented observation science. Time is a non-circular path. The past time point It can be observed, but the past cannot be changed, so it doesn’t make much sense. Just like forecasting, not many people are willing to learn it. These are the reasons why time science is an unpopular subject for mages. Having said so much, don’t you Could it be that you are about to go to the fourth grade and need to choose a major, and the result is confusing, right?"

Roach did not deny that he now has some real admiration for Du Zhengyi, just like a little boy facing a big boy who is cooler than himself whether he is playing games or playing truant, he began to be willing to do it for Du Zhengyi little brother.

He was about to say something more, but Du Zhengyi's eyes drifted behind him. He turned his head quickly, and happened to see the half curtain of the beckoning cat hanging on the door frame of the teahouse being lifted, and an old man in pajamas came in.The man seemed to be awake, his eyes were dull when he walked in, one hand was still in the pocket of his pajamas, and he was dragging a pair of half-worn cotton slippers on his feet.If it weren't for the tattoo on his face that looks like a small piece of face mask, and his hairstyle is as cool as a lion's mane, Roach would really think he is a dementia wandering around the community.

The old man saw Du Zhengyi and nodded to him.Du Zhengyi nodded rudely to the elder as a greeting, then ignored Roach, and immersed himself in his thesis for another burst of frantic writing.

The old man walked over slowly, sat down on the empty chair next to Roach and looked out the window silently.Roach was overwhelmed by his formation, a little at a loss, and then looked at the window. In the middle of the window glass, there was a poster of Santa Claus pasted like a human.But the shopkeeper seemed to think it wasn't enough to pretend, so he put up five blessing characters around it, and hung a carp banner above it.Through the glass window, you can see the hot pot restaurant on the second floor across the street. There are many diners inside, and the steam from the hot pot blurs the window.

Luo Qi didn't see anything to see from the window, so he took an empty cup, pulled the teapot, filled the cup with water, and brought it to the old mage, "Please."

The old man seemed to have suddenly noticed that there was a big living person beside him, and turned his head to look at Luo Qi.Luo Qi didn't expect the old man to wake up from his sluggish contemplation, his eyes were as sharp as a falcon's. He felt a little uncomfortable being stared at, so he smiled dryly.He also thought of Du Zhengyi coming, lying on the table and stretching his arms to the longest, finally touched the teacup in Du Zheng's hand, pulled it over and diligently refilled the tea.

Du Zhengyi scolded casually, "If you're too lazy, can't you stand up and get a teacup? Why can't your butt leave the wheelchair?"

"Yes, Mom." Roach pushed back his teacup, turned his head to look at the old man again without pain, and gave the old man a smirk.

"Who are you?" the old man asked, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time, his voice was a bit dry.

"Oh - he -" Du Zhengyi said lazily with a long voice, raised his eyes and glanced at Roach, showing a smirk, "He is my mascot."

Oh your mother!Roach greeted sincerely in his heart.

"Master Liu Li asked me to take him with me this time." Du Zhengyi explained, "He said that as long as I take him with me, I can turn bad luck into good fortune, and bring good fortune to death..."

"... Immortal longevity and eternal prosperity." Luo Qi answered teasingly.

Du Zheng glanced at him.

There was a slight smile on the serious face of the old man, and he asked Du Zhengyi, "Don't you know the source of his words?"

Du Zhengyi's face was a bit smelly, Roach laughed out loud, he could see that Du Zhengyi was not used to ignorance.He turned his face and smiled and introduced himself to the old man, "My name is Luo Qi, and I am in the third year of university this year."

The old man nodded, stretched out his hands thoughtfully, palms up, as if holding a handful of invisible water, Roach immediately noticed that he was wearing a ring, and the palm lines on his palms were messy.He knew that he had focused on the wrong focus, but he also thought of the old man's unusually long fingers with obvious joints, hey, this is suitable for being the legendary swordsman, the golden-haired lion king.When he came back to his senses again, he finally felt that the old man was summoning some kind of power. The radiated magnetic field was so strong that even a dull person like him could feel the slight static pain.

Something was forming in the hands of the Golden Retriever Lion King. Luo Qi couldn't see it clearly. It seemed that light and shadow were flowing rapidly. His eyes followed it in vain. In the end, he still couldn't recognize a shape, and everything fell into place in those hands. die.He looked at Du Zhengyi in confusion. The latter seemed to turn a blind eye to all of this, and was concentrating on drawing an awesome and exaggerated signature at the end of the paper.As if sensing the question mark on Roach's head, he glanced up and said casually, "Information extraction based on infinite data."

Luo Qi felt that these words were very familiar. After thinking for a while, he suddenly remembered that it was the topic of the academic report tomorrow night.He didn't hold back, and said more, "Humans use the Internet to connect to data resources, and information search can be done through search engines."

Du Zhengyi ignored him, and Luo Qi didn't expect to explain to him the Golden Retriever Lion King.The old man put down his hands, as if he had finished what he had to do, and said to him gently, "Even human beings understand that the brain extracts data from chaos very fast, even their most advanced computer There is no comparison. We are a little bit luckier than humans in this regard, and our brains are very good at processing information, which is our advantage."

Roach nodded in awe. The old man had an indescribable power, hidden behind a barrier of modesty, unfathomable.But Du Zhengyi seemed to be immune to all authority. He piled up his papers on the opposite side, put them on the table "pingping" and threw them in front of the old man, "Hand in the papers."

Luo Qi couldn't help admiring Du Zhengyi even more, no matter how big or small, he was not afraid of being struck by lightning.

The old man picked up the thesis, carefully took out a rolled-up page from a stack of manuscript paper, and slowly flattened it.Roach watched him slowly rubbing the paper, and then carefully coded the students' papers more neatly, and somehow lost his focus again, remembering that when he was a child, his grandfather took back the toys he threw everywhere, and he did the same thing slowly. Little by little, the broken places were repaired.When the old man spoke to him, he didn't hear him at all.

Du Zheng unceremoniously stretched out his long legs and kicked him on the chair, startling him.

"The teacher asked you something." Du Zhengyi said freely, as if he wasn't the one who kicked his chair, and after thinking about it, he added, "Wandering King."

The Lion King was much more patient than his students. Seeing that he didn't understand, he repeated what he had just said, "You know human culture very well?"

"Know it very well? Culture?" Roach scratched his head, not knowing what to say, "Are you talking about me?"

There was a gentle smile on the old man's face again, "Your homework paper quoted a lot of classic works of human beings, and your experimental environment description part also has movie scenes. Your tutor doesn't like your cumbersome descriptions. I think your thinking ability is average and your reasoning is not strong, so I don’t give you high marks. But I think it’s just because your thinking is more like a human being than a mage, you are familiar with human society, maybe you still have some human friends, You spend a lot of time in human society. You may often sneakily use human tools instead of brain-intensive wizard skills, so the wizard part of the brain has not been developed properly."

Luo Qi stiffened in embarrassment, blushing, thinking that he was actually criticized by an old man in sloppy pajamas in an old teahouse, and he became a little angry from embarrassment.Indeed, the mage would never make up stories and waste his energy. Like him, he indulged in the world of human novels from time to time, probably like a human child addicted to Internet addiction, and he was going to be beaten.

"I'm not criticizing you." The old man said gently, sighing, "Most mages have too narrow a vision, we all need a broader mind."

After the Lion King said this, he fell silent, staring at the teacup on the table, Roach found that he had fallen into the trance state when he first entered the room, as if his soul had wandered out of his body.The lion king's nose was very flat, Roach thought of the statue of the Sphinx again, almost laughed, and quickly turned to look at Du Zhengyi.Du Zhengyi seemed to be familiar with the situation of the Lion King. He held a teacup in his left hand and drank tea contentedly. The slender fingers of his right hand smoothly guided a bamboo spoon on the table to circle around his fingers , To pass the time waiting for the old man to come back to his senses.Luo Qi watched enviously. Some people use their abilities as naturally as a mountain spring overflowing the spring, but he himself is like a dry well, and it takes a lot of effort to squeeze out a spoonful of water.

The Sphinx finally woke up, and he was able to receive the last sentence, "Zheng knows little about the human world, and you can just make up for his lack of this part."

The two glanced at each other.Roach saw that none of them took the old man's advice to heart, and he couldn't help laughing.Fortunately, Du Zhengyi was not a bookworm without a sense of humor, and there was also a flash of a smile in his eyes.

The tape of the teahouse was put on the head, the old singing stopped, and the room was suddenly quiet. The sound from the hot pot restaurant opposite took over the top, and a particularly artificial male singing came through the window, "Little sister gave me my man, sent it to me. Damen Nan, I just took out two big silver coins from my waist, one dollar can buy my husband a train ticket, and this one dollar can buy my husband a Chinese cigarette."

Du Zhengyi's face darkened, and the old man was taken aback for a moment, only Luo Qi laughed.He got up and turned over the tape in the recorder, and the old song Jin Dian sang again, suppressing Yue Yunpeng's new song opposite.

The atmosphere became a little casual, anyway, Roach thought so, the old man didn't blame him very much, so he felt that he could chat casually with the old man.

"You must be an archmage, but I don't remember any archmage as cool as you, who not only has long hair but also tattoos on his face." He said casually.

As if a bomb had been dropped on the tea table, the two of them glared at Roach at the same time.Luo Qi was stunned and looked at the old man at a loss. The old man's gaze seemed to want to pierce his soul, which made him very uncomfortable.He looked at Du Zhengyi as if asking for help. Du Zhengyi's expression was softer, but his gaze was calculating, as if he was frantically collecting parameters from his face and performing calculations.

Luo Qi sat awkwardly, feeling like an idiot, he must have said something taboo for the elderly, he didn't know how to ask questions, and Du Zhengyi didn't mention him.He smiled dryly, bit the bullet and chattered, "Can the students be lucky enough to know the teacher's name?"

"My name is Pei Shu." The old man answered him generously.

He was taken aback, it was such a recognizable name, even a mage apprentice like him would know it, now he finally became nervous, his palms were sweating, he didn't know what to say, and almost started to shake his legs.

It was Du Zheng who helped him out of his panic, and asked him across the table, "Can you see the teacher's hair and the tattoo on his face?"

Roach didn't know what he meant, swallowed his saliva, and nodded.Could he see something that no one else could see?According to the ghost story, it should also be seeing spirits or elves, right?Seeing scars in hair and skin is nothing to be proud of.

Du Zheng glanced at Pei Shu, "I guess the teacher isn't well dressed yet?"

Roach nodded and said weakly, "Pajamas and slippers."

Du Zhengyi nodded in satisfaction, "I guess so."

"What's wrong?" Roach asked him weakly, hoping that he would be kind and answer the question well.

Du Zhengyi sized him up again, and smiled maliciously, "I won't tell you."

(End of this chapter)