Chapter 161 The Death of the Mage

"...Liuwei, what are you looking at?"

Gu Dingbang squatted down nervously and imitated Liu Wei's movements to look at the wall, but after looking left and right, he didn't feel that there was anything worth seeing.

Liuwei: “…”

He stood up, sat back down, and looked at Gu Dingbang who had followed him back happily. He had the illusion that he had suddenly become a mother hen.

He held his chin with his hand and asked, "Is there anything going on in the village recently?"

It would have been better if Liuwei didn't ask. As soon as he asked, he saw Gu Dingbang's expression brighten visibly.

"Then I have to tell you about the chicken in Uncle Shen's yard!" Gu Dingbang beamed with joy.

I don't know where Gu Dingbang got so much to say, from flying in the sky to swimming in the water to walking on the ground, and he even mixed in some embarrassing things about other people's families.

All kinds of weird things could come out of his mouth. In the middle of the night, Gu Dingbang just told himself that he was energetic.

It wasn't really the middle of the night outside, but the people in the village seemed to be active after late at night. Their daytime was night to Liuwei, and their night was day to Liuwei.

In the end, Gu Dingbang even told Liuwei that his pants had a hole in them. If Liuwei had not sternly rejected his display, he would have taken off his pants to show him on the spot.

It was the first time that Liuwei had seen this kind of Gu Dingbang. He was as active as a child. Although he lived in a village deep in the mountains and forests, his daily life was full of interesting little things. He was lazy but did not starve himself. The people in the village disliked him on the surface, but they still liked him in essence. When they ran out of rice and food, he would do odd jobs for the villagers. Gu Dingbang grew up eating at many people's homes and could be considered a naughty and lovely child.

This is completely different from the character of the roguish knight he would later roam the world, but their similarities can be subtly seen in their actions.

"Ask me? What's the world like outside the village? Do you want to go out and become a hero?" Liuwei curled his lips slightly.

"The village is so nice! I won't go out!" Gu Dingbang shook his head, and then his eyes lit up and stared at Liu Wei: "What is a hero?"

He left the village, and no one would still treat him as a child.

"Ah... hero." Liuwei sighed, hero, he was very good at being a hero in one of his lives.

It’s a long “night” and I can’t go out, so it’s okay to talk.

Brother Wang got up very early today. When he was chopping firewood in the yard, he suddenly remembered what Gu Dingbang said yesterday.

What is this kid up to?

But before he could figure out what was going on, he was surprised to hear the neighbor's door open.

Gu Dingbang walked out from inside.

Brother Wang asked in surprise, "Why did you get up so early today?"

Gu Dingbang opened his mouth and yawned for a long time, tears flowing from the corners of his eyes. He said, "I didn't sleep much."

"Hey, you're still awake..." Brother Wang was teasing while holding his axe, but he was caught off guard by the figure coming out from behind Gu Dingbang. He paused, with a dazed look on his face: "You...what's behind you..."

Gu Dingbang was a little proud: "Brother, do you still remember what I told you yesterday?"

Brother Wang nodded: "Spying on you using the toilet..."

"Aaaaaahhhh - this is the traveler who got lost in the mountains! He stayed at my house yesterday! I'll ask him to see the wizard!" Gu Dingbang interrupted loudly.

Liuwei: “…”

Before he was pulled away by Gu Dingbang, he looked at Brother Wang deeply.

Yesterday, he was so absorbed in Gu Dingbang's face that he failed to notice for a moment that this neighbor's face also looked somewhat familiar. If he remembered correctly, he had seen this face among the Jinyiwei who had followed him all the way here.

Brother Wang started chopping wood again. He used the axe very smoothly and his movements were clean and neat. Perhaps he would be just as clean and neat when chopping off a person's head.

In his memory of his first life, "he" spent most of his time staring at the wall in a daze. His parents in that life rarely took him out. This was the first time he saw this mountain village from such a new perspective.

Most of the buildings in the village are similar, which is also the characteristic of this village. It is a square house with no windows on any side. Even the door is hidden under the wall. There is a fence outside the house to serve as a yard. Outside the moonlight, there is a feeling of being cramped and suffocated.

It was not until people in the houses gradually came out and chopped wood, carried water, planted vegetables and fed chickens in the cold wind that the stiff atmosphere gradually softened and the smell of life rose from this mountain village, bringing the village to life.

Gu Dingbang hasn't been hanging around in the village much recently. The weather is too cold, and he would rather stay in the kitchen by the fire, or take a nap in bed, or go to the mountains to get something to eat for a living. It was this rare outing today that brought him surprised and delighted greetings from the villagers.

"Xiao Gu! You're out! Where are you going?"

"Brother Gu! Brother Gu! Play with me!"

"Where are you planning to eat today? How about coming to Aunt Ning's place?"

Gu Dingbang could almost be said to be able to handle the situation with ease and felt like a fish in water.

After the greetings, he started to introduce the stranger around him. The stranger Liuwei was also good at talking. Not to mention that the people in the village trusted Gu Dingbang and had no guard against Liuwei. They didn't even think there was anything wrong with Liuwei's white hair and heterochromatic eyes. Their eyes were full of admiration.

As Liuwei was talking, he glanced at the man who was smoking a pipe in the yard. If some people's faces were just familiar, it would be difficult for him to mistake this person. After all, in Zhongzhou, it was this Tianshi who served him many times. Now he was sitting lazily in the yard with his legs crossed, and there was no trace of his previous efficiency-oriented demeanor.

Liuwei actually had a subtle taste of salted fish in it.

Gu Dingbang spoke and laughed as he took the things that his aunts and uncles begged him to bring to the wizard, and he also comforted the children who wanted to play with him.

The boy's face showed a carefree and uninhibited expression, which was the happiness that only came from being pampered.

This was something he rarely saw on the young Gu Dingbang's face.

The six flavors of the mind.

Did their memories get blocked, so they thought they were living in this mountain village? Whether it was Chen Yu or the Tianjiansi people who looked familiar to him, they seemed to have forgotten everything about the capital of Zhongzhou. They believed from the bottom of their hearts that they were born and raised in this mountain village, and they almost merged with the villagers into one.

However, after searching carefully, he did not see Shi Yuan and Octopus' faces among the villagers, and he did not know where they had gone.

Liu Wei’s eyes darkened.

He carefully sketched Gu Dingbang's face.

Was Gu Dingbang's memory also erased? Is that why he believes from the bottom of his heart that he is a member of the mountain village?

Liuwei felt something was wrong, but he couldn't find the answer for a while, so he had to suppress this question in his heart and planned to go find the mage with Gu Dingbang first.

As for him... Liuwei touched the cloth bag on his chest. Could it be the cause of the heavenly rank fragment?

The people in this village are so welcoming and the village appears so peaceful on the surface, it can almost be called a paradise. But this is just a cursory glance. When you look more closely, you will find that there are weird things inside that are hard to fathom.

No wonder the villagers asked Gu Dingbang to help bring things to the wizard.

This wizard does not live in the village, but on a mountain around the village. Although the road to the top has been repaired and is flat and comfortable, people in the village generally won't go there if there is nothing else to do, and the population is gradually sparse.

"In winter, the wizard is unwilling to come down the mountain. Classes in the academy are also suspended. He has to live on the mountain all day long. He basically won't come down unless there is something important. If you come in the spring, you can still listen to the wizard's lectures!"

"My name was chosen by the wizard. It was very particular. But I don't remember it! When I was a child, I played with cats and dogs and didn't study hard." He touched his head guiltily.

No wonder he could occasionally come up with some cultured words, Liuwei thought, did Gu Dingbang really go to school when he was a child?

"The wizard is great! The wizard can do everything and knows everything!" Gu Dingbang assured again.

He had already talked too much about the wizard yesterday, whether it was good or bad, even the time when he played a prank on the wizard as a child, and the wizard returned it to him intact.

That wizard didn't seem like the feudal and superstitious person in "his" memory.

But "his" life in the past was completely different from what Gu Dingbang described.

There are more and more mysteries in this mountain village.

Liuwei raised his head and took a look at the wooden house, a corner of which was already visible.

If the entire mountain village is a dungeon, there are two possibilities for the existence of the mage. Either he is a small BOSS in the dungeon, or he is a guiding NPC in the dungeon, or both.

It's not a disadvantage to meet this wizard.

After all, from what Gu Dingbang said, he could tell that the mage had put a lot of effort into this habitual routine in the mountain village.

"Sir! I'm here to see you!" As soon as he saw the house, Gu Dingbang started shouting, almost unable to hold back any words, his face full of intimacy.

The wizard's wooden house is completely different from other houses in the village. Unlike the square houses in the village, the wizard's wooden house looks very... normal. It is almost like every wooden house in the normal world, with doors, windows, and chimneys. But this normality carries a bit of weirdness.

In the middle of winter, various flowers in the master's yard are vying to bloom, gorgeous and fragrant.

Liuwei touched the raised hairs on the back of his neck, only to see that Gu Dingbang didn't get a response, and rushed towards the wooden house like a happy puppy. He knocked on the door cautiously at first, but then became more and more wild.

Even after all this, no one responded.

"Not at home?" Liu Wei couldn't help but stop Gu Dingbang's actions.

"Hey! Maybe he hasn't woken up yet! Mages also like to sleep in!" Gu Dingbang looked helpless against the mage: "Let's go in through the back door! Follow me!"

He didn't wait for Liuwei to respond, and rushed away like a tornado, running past the window of the wooden house without noticing that something in the wooden house was shaking gently.

"Let's wait a moment! Stop!" Liuwei chased after him with a frown.

When Liuwei caught up, Gu Dingbang had already opened the back door: "It's okay! I'm very close to the adults!"

"You can't be too familiar with it—"

Gu Dingbang enthusiastically led Liuwei inside, not worrying at all: "Who are you and me, Master?"

They walked through the corridor at the back door and entered the living room. Liu Wei paused and stood still with his pupils constricted. No matter how Gu Dingbang pulled him, he refused to move.

Gu Dingbang was still proud: "My Lord, she won't mind! Let's go! Let's go... Liuwei, what are you looking at!"

He turned his head curiously.

A pair of cloth shoes was dangling in front of him.

The expression on Gu Dingbang's face suddenly disappeared.

He looked up blankly.

I saw a red rope passing through the beam and then tied around the neck of the person being hung.

The dead person had thick and long hair. Her entire head hung down, and the fluffy hair almost covered her face and half of her body.

She was wearing a colorful dress; the colors were complex but not gaudy, like a flower in full bloom, and this blooming flower was just hanging there, as if it was dead.

"Sir?" Gu Dingbang asked in bewilderment. He subconsciously held the mage's feet, raised his head and said incoherently, "Are you, are you practicing magic?"

The wizard is dead.

Liuwei thought calmly.

This is really bad, a development he had not considered at all, how can it make sense?

Liuwei took a few steps back, as if trying to take in the entire "crime scene", but also as if trying to escape.