I loaded the Mysticism panel.

On July 24, a rough piece of paper was sent from the Apollo Theatre to the doorman of Ashford House.

It was still the playbill, the back of which was covered with those flamboyant characters written in pencil.

"Your summer vacation is almost over, right? Let's get together again on Saturday afternoon at four o'clock."

If the doorman has changed, just say you're looking for actor F.

If he tries to stop you, raise your voice a little; he has hearing problems.

I reserved the tickets for the third row. No need to bring alcohol this time; I have better options.

St. Martin Lane was even more stuffy than in June.

The walls on both sides of the alley trap the heat that has been baking in the sun all day, making it so hot that it's hard to breathe.

The young man on the recruitment poster is still standing tall with his chest out. Next to him, a new poster has been put up, depicting a girl with a headscarf standing in front of a cannonball. The title reads: They are also serving the country.

Next up is today's play: "The Miser".

A comedic scene.

Screenwriter: Anonymous.

Starring: Actor F.

Today Phillips is performing a comedy, and the two roles are played by the same actor who just changes hats.

Richard recognized him as Barnaby, a veteran of the theater, who was said to be worth half the entire theater company.

The first one was a tax collector wearing a top hat and carrying an outrageously thick ledger.

He asked: Are there any extra income items this year?

The miser shook his head; he was sitting on a jar.

The tax collector slammed his hand on the table, making a clanging sound from the jar, and the miser immediately coughed loudly.

The tax collector slapped and made a loud noise, while the miser changed it to sneezing.

The tax collector slapped the jar three times in a row for the third time, and the jar made three sounds.

The miser simply stood up and began to sing a hymn that everyone knew.

The tax collector had no choice but to remove his hat and stand at attention.

The two of them just stood there on the stage, one singing and the other standing at attention, until the very last line.

The whole audience was laughing so hard they were stomping their feet.

The second person is a doctor, wearing a brimless soft cap.

He took out his pocket watch and pinched the miser's wrist to count his pulse.

The miser's eyes immediately fell on the watch chain; it was gold.

When the clock moves to the left, the eyes move to the left; when the clock moves to the right, the eyes move to the right.

The doctor said: "It's 120! What are you so nervous about?"

Shake head.

The doctor took out his stethoscope and pressed it against his chest. He listened for two seconds, moved the stethoscope to a different spot, listened for two seconds again, moved it again, and listened again.

The doctor said: Why is your heartbeat still loud?

Shaking his head, the miser pressed his other hand even harder down under his buttocks.

The doctor bent his knuckles and tapped his chest three times: thud, thud, thud, as empty as a well.

The whole audience burst into laughter.

The doctor raised a small hammer to tap his knee, and his shin sprang back and hit the jar.

The jar rolled half a foot away, and the miser pounced on it, pressing his face to the ground as he hugged the jar tightly to his chest.

The doctor said: "The reflex is good. Open your mouth, let me see your tongue."

He opened his mouth, and the doctor used a tongue depressor to probe inside, pulling a gold coin out of his mouth.

The whole place burst into laughter.

The doctor held the gold coin up to the light, took a bite, put it in his pocket, quickly wrote a prescription, and left.

The miser chased after him to get the jar, but halfway there he remembered he hadn't grabbed it, so he rushed back to grab it.

She picked up the jar and chased after it, but after a couple of steps she remembered that she couldn't run fast enough, so she came back and put it down... She went back and forth three times, and finally knelt down next to the jar and burst into tears.

When the curtain fell, applause and laughter erupted simultaneously.

Richard remained seated and did not move.

He laughed too, laughing from beginning to end, until his cheeks ached.

But after the applause subsided, he felt terribly empty inside.

This play is very clean; there's not a single moment from beginning to end where you have to ask anyone a question.

The play "Going Downstairs" in June started with that one-way ticket at the ticket window... The person on stage turned that line into a play for a whole audience of strangers, but in reality, it was a play for Richard alone.

Tonight's performance was pure comedy.

It makes people laugh, but once the laughter is over, it's gone.

Moreover, everything is meticulously planned out: when to laugh, when to hold your breath, when someone should laugh first and then lead the others to laugh, and so on.

This is a very mature play.

Moreover, for a full half hour on stage, Phillips ran, jumped, crawled to the place where the jars were hidden, was buried in wood and then crawled out, and spun around on the stage, landing almost silently.

During the performance in June, he started sweating during the second act, and the white makeup was washed away by the sweat, requiring on-the-spot touch-ups.

He didn't break a sweat tonight.

Richard sat in the third row looking at the empty stage and suddenly wanted to ask: Aren't you tired?

After everyone had left, he went to the backstage corridor, where the door to the second room on the right was ajar.

Richard pushed open the door, and Phillips was removing his makeup in front of the mirror. The guy had lost even more weight than he had two months ago.

"Sit down." He glanced at himself in the mirror. "How was your day?"

The whole audience laughed.

Phillips was satisfied: "That's right, that's exactly what I wanted."

"That last match..."

"I already asked last time."

Phillips threw the towel into the basin.

"Since no one answered my question, I stopped asking."

He turned around, the paint on his face still not completely wiped off, and his smile was crooked.

"From now on, I'll only play this kind of role."

Phillips took the old pot out of the prop box and placed it on the table.

"Let's drink this today."

When the spout is tilted, the contents poured out are light amber in color and steaming hot.

Richard glanced at it before picking it up and taking a sip.

First, there was a sweet taste in my throat, followed by a very faint coolness.

He put the cup down and frowned: "This isn't tea."

"No," Phillips said, referring to the new changes to the teapot.

"It was first released last month, and I showed it to our alchemy mentor."

The old man sniffed it and said he had never seen this before.

Richard laughed. This drink tastes like mint water, but it's much more refreshing than mint.

It even subtly improved the flow of ether within him, but that was all.

The direction of the ether on the other person's pot also changed... that profound feeling was similar to the eyeball in his pocket.

The owner of the pot also underwent some changes that he couldn't understand.

"Don't look at me like that," Phillips suddenly said.

Richard took the still water.

"Feel sorry."

"It's nothing." Phillips downed his glass in one gulp.

"If I had your eyes, I couldn't resist either."

Just as the atmosphere was becoming increasingly awkward, the sound of high heels came from the corridor.

Constance arrived at the door, carrying a wicker basket in her hand.

Mr. Williams.

"Miss Constance." Richard stood up.

"Please sit down." She placed the basket on the dressing table and lifted the corner of the cloth. "I've come to bring Phillips lunch."

The basket contained sandwiches, with all the crusts trimmed off.

Constance divided it into three portions: one for Phillips, one for Richard, and the last one for herself, which she took a bite of deftly.

Richard then noticed that she wasn't wearing her usual elegant dress today; the sleeves were rolled up to her forearms, and there was a scar on her right arm.

Have you been on any fieldwork recently?

"Yes, field staff from the branch office." Constance swallowed her sandwich.

"It's a routine cleaning task, once a week."

There have been more incidents in the northern part of the city this year than in previous years, and we're short-handed; we even have to use someone like me who's retired from the military.

"Oh, by the way," Phillips turned around at this moment, "we're planning to get married in December."

Richard held up his teacup, unsure how to respond.

The main problem is that this news came as quite a surprise...

"I know it's a bit sudden; it was originally scheduled for next spring."

Phillips said nonchalantly, "But last month my mother called the Earl and moved the date forward."

Why?

"Because no one can say for sure what next spring will be like."

Phillips put down his cup and raised an eyebrow.

"Richard, would you like to be my best man?"

Constance added from the side, "He's been talking about it all month."

"Constance!"

"I'm telling the truth."

Richard opened his mouth: "It's possible... but I might not be able to at that time..."

In December, one of the three nights of the Four Seasons' Fast is in mid-December, and the Twelfth Night of Yul starts on the 24th. I wonder if I will participate in the Wild Hunt then.

There's also the gathering at the Divine Salon; he's unsure if there will be any more team battles.

It's even uncertain whether his name will be on the field work list after school starts in September.

He himself didn't even know where he was in December.

"You're a very busy man, I can tell." Phillips picked up the old pot again and refilled his cup.

"If you agree right now, I'll be worried."

Why?

"The faster you answer, the less seriously you take it," he said, putting the pot down.

Richard held the cup.

"Then I probably won't be able to reply to you until the end of November."

"Take your time, I'll wait." Phillips smiled.

"But let me make this clear from the start: if you don't show up that morning after you agree, I'll have Constance drag you over."

"I will go!" Constance said without hesitation.

"...You wore a wedding dress that day."

"The wedding dress is fine."

Phillips laughed so hard he leaned back, but choked halfway down and coughed for a while.

Constance reached out and patted him on the back.

When I came out of the alley, it was still stuffy and hot, and there wasn't a breath of wind.

The theater's side door closed behind him, and Phillips was still rehearsing his lines with someone.

The passage I'm reciting is from King Lear's Journey to the Wilderness: "Blow, wind, blow your cheeks!"

………………

It hasn't rained in the capital, and the hottest time of day is from 3 to 5 pm.

During those two hours, carriages on the road all took the shady side, and the drivers draped wet linen over the horses' backs, stopping every two blocks to water the cloths again.

The ice vendor on the street corner raised the price from one penny to one and a half pennies, but the line actually got longer after that.

Despite the sweltering heat, Richard was busy with farm work.

Although he chose to do it at six in the morning, he still broke out in a sweat after just a couple of flips with the shovel.

"Young Master," the butler trotted over from the porch, wiping his hands on his apron, "let us handle this kind of thing."

"Need not."

"Holding the spatula like that will hurt your back."

"I know how to hold it." Richard turned the soil over and broke it up.

"My father taught me."

The housekeeper stood there for a while, feeling really uncomfortable, so he turned around and brought a bucket of water to place next to him.

Gerrard came out at seven o'clock and watched from the side for a long time.

He had no idea what kind of trouble his grandson was up to again. What scholar goes to the fields?

"What do you want to plant?"

"vanilla."

"Is it related to the mystical side?"

"I'd say it's somewhat related." Richard untied the bag and poured a seed into his palm.

The seeds are irregularly shaped and feel warm when held between your fingers.

"A friend gave it to me, saying that I can plant whatever I want."

The old man didn't ask any more questions. He had learned not to ask after that wild hunt, but not asking didn't stop him from staying by his side.

Richard dug a hole in the ground, put the seeds in, covered them with soil, and tamped them down.

A wisp of ether flowed down the inside of his right arm into the soil, and he began to wish for the crops he desired:

I want more expensive vanilla pods, the kind that will make my sister happy.

After the ether had finished seeping in, he pulled his hands out of the soil and wiped them clean on his trousers.

"Is that all?" Gerald asked.

"It's over."

"How long will it take you to come out?"

"I don't know, it wasn't written in the letter."

The old man chuckled and stuck the small shovel into the ground.

"Then you'll have to come and water it yourself every day; I don't care."

That night, Richard cast his shadow on the shallows behind the curtain.

The Sphinx lamp's first transformation gave it wide-area detection capabilities, allowing it to see ambient noise more clearly.

At this time last year, the capital was relatively stable, like an old, layered cake, orderly and disciplined for hundreds of years.

If there is any unusual movement, someone will go and put it back the next day.

Now, things are gradually changing.

The old churches and cemeteries inside the city remained peaceful, but things changed outside the city.

Something was increasingly wrong with the area outside the eastern dock and the northern railway shunting yard. To the west... Richard moved his shadow far to the west, but there was nothing there yet on that large open space.

The factory was only half-built, but they didn't stop working at night, and the sound of rivet guns was as dense as rain.

That open space was very empty, but something about it felt off.

Other vacant lots are barren, but barrenness has its own content.

The soil hadn't been turned over for decades, the grass roots inside were rotting, and a fox had frozen to death here the winter before last.

This empty space seems to be waiting for someone to put pen to paper.

Richard retracted the shadow and recalled his earlier discussion with the professor: "The new foundation has been poured."

The war is far from over, and it brings both disaster and opportunity.

Professor McFee returned to the capital before August and immediately contacted Richard through Isabella, asking him to come to the school.

When Richard arrived at the place, two old professors were waiting for him inside.

McFee went out and got a really good tan.

He doesn't look like a professor teaching in the capital at all; he looks more like someone who just unloaded two months' worth of herring at the docks.

"They're here."

"professor."

"sit."

Richard sat down at the corner of the table.

"I brought back a lot of new developments from the north; you should be interested."

McFee picked up the old leather bag that was at his feet.

He first took out the rubbing, and when he spread it out, Richard's relaxed mood, which had arisen because of the heat, vanished instantly.

The rubbing features a pair of deer antler symbols, which Richard is very familiar with.

"Clara cleared it from the seabed in Scapa Flow in January."

McFee looked at him: "I went down and checked this time. The symbol is still there, and the marks are deeper than before."

McFee took out a nautical chart and spread it out next to the rubbing.

"It's not just in this one place; there are these symbols in three different locations in that bay."

Richard looked down at the nautical chart; three dots connected together enclosed the entire bay.

"Professor," Richard looked up, "when do hunters mark their prey?"

McFee was pleased with his understanding: "Of course, when the hunting grounds are too big."

He turned the nautical chart over and drew three dots on the back with his finger.

"When someone goes into the woods, they make trail markers wherever they can, afraid they won't be able to find their way back."

"Once a team enters the woods, they need to divide the area; this side is mine, and that side is yours."

"It's different up there." He pressed his finger on the paper.

"When dozens of dogs and hundreds of people need to surround the entire valley, someone first needs to ride a horse and drive in the stakes."

"Are you done nailing it?"

"Once it's nailed, just wait." McFee folded the chart back.

"Once the wind is right and it gets dark, the prey inside will all go into the enclosure."

"Then the hunt begins."

The wind outside lifted a corner of the curtains, and the warm air squeezed in, dissipating the slight coolness in the room.

"There's something else you might be familiar with."

McFaye pulled a small tin can from the bottom of his bag; the opening was sealed with wax.

"I scraped it off from that scratch on the third one."

He pushed the jar towards him: "Open it and smell it."

Richard's fingers paused on the lid of the jar before he pried off the wax.

Frozen soil, horse sweat, and grass trampled by tens of thousands of hooves.

The smell of the mudflats that night, across an entire summer and two hundred miles of sea, filled his nose again.

Richard put the lid back on, and the two old professors exchanged a glance, understanding each other without saying a word.

Professor Mortimer spoke up from across the room.

"Old Mike, what are you doing bringing this can back?"

"Hand it over." McFee stuffed the jar into the back of his briefcase. "I'll deliver it to the Navy this afternoon."

Will they admit it?

The white-haired giant was very unhappy: "Of course not. Last time I submitted Orkney's report, they wrote back a line: 'The defense of this area is under the jurisdiction of the Navy Department, and the Academy system has no right to interfere.'"

Mortimer pushed his reading glasses up his nose.

"So what are you going to write this time?"

"I'm not going to write a single word." McFee fastened his purse.

"I put the jar on the table and let them open it and smell it themselves."

"They can't smell it."

McFaye stood up:

"It's better if you can't smell it. People who can't smell it won't have trouble sleeping because of it in the future."

He walked to the door and turned around.

"Richard, there might be fieldwork in a few days, so please prepare in advance."

"Not far, it's in a factory on the outskirts of the capital."

The door closed behind him.

Mortimer picked up the scissors again, cut off a small strip of newspaper, and tucked it into the book.

"There's a big news story in today's newspaper: nationwide registration starts on the 15th of this month."

"No one should be left out, from fifteen to sixty-five years old. Name, address, occupation, and whether they have any skills."

What do we do after registering?

"Make a roster."

Outside the window, the factory chimneys were still spewing ash into the sky.

"Hand out the cards when you're done." The old professor picked up his teacup, which was already empty.

"One for each person, carry it with you at all times."

Richard understood what the other person meant: "Professor, the more times a person's name is written down..."

That's enough. You know what's going on in your heart.

Mortimer waved his hand, stopping him from continuing.

Richard nodded, pushed open the door, and went out.

The corridor was empty. Richard reached into his inner pocket and touched the hunter's token.

The tip of the horn is actually pointing north.

………………

Briston was hot that year too.

Rogers didn't get home until 10 p.m., after the brick walls in the slag heap had been drying in the sun all day.

The factory has scheduled six workdays this week, plus two night shifts.

My wife and children are all in the capital, there's no one in the house, and the stove is cold.

He first took off his coat and hung it up, then scooped a ladle of water from the edge of the water tank and poured it over his head.

Rogers sighed after taking a shower; the water was lukewarm.

After taking a shower, he sat on a chair in the kitchen, took off his shirt and draped it over his knees, resting his hands on the edge of the table.

A design drawing was spread out on the table; it was a reinforcement plan for the section of railway bridge to the north.

The factory asked him to submit it by the end of July, but he was not satisfied with any of the three drafts he made.

Last week, the foreman told him this: "There's not enough steel right now. The military has taken all the good steel. You need to find a way to use as little as possible."

As for how to make the bridge stand up and even support heavy trucks while using less steel, that's not something the foreman should worry about.

In any case, all the pressure is on Rogers.

He drew for half an hour without any results, and ended up pulling out a lot of hair.

There's no other way, let's think about something happy.

Rogers pulled out a letter from his daughter, saying that she had received her acceptance letter, her grandfather had given her a gold coin, and she had bought seven piping nozzles and even extorted a scraper.

The last sentence of the letter was: Dad, don't work overtime.

Rogers read the letter from beginning to end, then folded it up and put it back in the drawer.

Then he started drawing again with renewed enthusiasm.

Mrs. Welsh's big orange cat jumped in through the window, circled around his feet twice, then jumped onto the table and lay down next to the blueprints.

"Can't you see I'm busy? Get down!" Rogers said deliberately, trying to be aggressive.

The cat didn't move.

Rogers picked it up and put it on the ground, and the cat jumped up and lay down in the same spot again.

He looked at the cat for a while, then had no choice but to move the blueprints aside to make room for it.

Meanwhile, on the last afternoon of July, Richard went to the sanatorium again.

As soon as the door to Duncan's room was opened, a wave of heat rushed out, and the ice in the iron basin at the foot of the bed had melted by more than half.

"It's you again."

"It's me again."

"Where's the girl?"

"She was settling accounts with someone downstairs."

Duncan scoffed, "All she knows how to do now is calculate."

Richard sat down by the bed and began his routine care by placing his right palm on the area of ​​Richard's right rib.

Duncan closed his eyes.

About ten minutes later, he suddenly spoke.

"Young man."

"What's wrong?"

"You're...cold."

Richard paused for a moment.

"cold?"

Duncan was organizing his thoughts: "It's like... the cool feeling of walking half a day in the summer and suddenly walking into a stone house."

"For the past ten years or so, my house has been hot both inside and out, hot in summer and hot in winter, because the internal circuits have been burning all the time."

"I've been burning it for over ten years, I'm used to it."

"It suddenly got cold today."

It was past five o'clock when I came out of the sanatorium.

The sun was still hanging over the row of rooftops in the west, showing no sign of setting.

Richard walked about a hundred yards along a treeless road, his shirt completely soaked through on the back.

He stopped at the street corner.

The clouds loomed over completely, and everyone on the street looked up.

The ice vendor pushed his cart under the eaves, and the driver led his horse to the base of the wall.

A woman leaned half her body out of a second-floor window and shouted down, asking someone to bring in the clothes that were hanging outside.

After waiting for a minute, the raindrops finally fell.

The first drop landed on Richard's shoulder, leaving a wet stain the size of a coin, while the second drop landed right on the bridge of his nose.

...After the third drop, I lost count.

Raindrops pounded on the tin roof, making a sound that echoed throughout the street.

The softened asphalt was poured over the surface, releasing a complex, indescribable smell.

A barefoot child ran out of the alley and into the street, refusing to go back even after being scolded by his mother.

Then the ice-selling rickshaw driver also took off his hat and stood in the rain with his head tilted back.

Catherine stood by the window and stretched her hand out.

The rain was cool in her palms, and she kept her hands outside for a long time.

That night, people could finally sit in the backyard of Ashford Manor.

It rained for an hour, soaking the entire yard.

Water still clung to the holly leaves, and geese on the other side of the pond flapped their wings on the grass, sending blades of grass flying everywhere.

The butler brought out two rattan chairs and placed them under the eaves.

Richard sat on one of the chairs, his legs stretched out straight.

Evelyn sat on the other chair, her notebook spread out on her lap.

"Brother, why is it so hot this year?"

Richard thought about it.

"Hot is hot."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"Then why do you think so?"

Evelyn closed her notebook and sat up straight.

She cleared her throat.

Richard knew that gesture all too well; the little girl would always clear her throat before showing off.

"Sister Sofia told me."

"What did he say?"

Evelyn slapped her hands on her knees: "She talked a lot, and she said it's related to air pressure."

"Oh, you even know about air pressure?"

Richard had a half-smile on his face, while his sister seemed to still be bothered by the previous time when people looked down on her education.

"Yes." Evelyn held her hand horizontally and pressed it down in mid-air. "Air has weight, you know?"

"I know."

"You don't know." She ignored her brother.

"Air has weight, pressing down on us, about fifteen pounds per square inch."

"14.7"

"...How do you know?!"

"My dad is an engineer."

Evelyn glared at him and continued speaking.

"Anyway, it's fifteen pounds, and then... some parts are pressed harder, and some parts are pressed lighter."

In areas of high pressure, air sinks, and sinking air becomes warmer.

Why does it get warmer as it sinks?

"Because..." she hesitated, then paused for a moment before realizing, "Because it got squeezed!"

She put her hands together and squeezed them hard.

"Think about it: if you squeeze something tightly, it gets hot."

When you pump an air pump to inflate a bicycle tire, is the pump itself hot afterward?

Richard raised an eyebrow; this example was surprisingly accurate.

"really."

"Right!" Evelyn said smugly.

"So that's how it is. This year, there's a huge mass of air sitting on our heads, pressing down on us, and as it presses down, it gets hot."

"When will it get up?"

"...Sophia didn't mention this."

"So all you've said is nothing at all."

"I've explained the principles!" Evelyn slammed her notebook onto her lap.

"Principles are the most important thing; aren't you academics supposed to be the most principled?"

Richard suppressed a laugh.

"Okay, well said."

"real?"

"real."

Evelyn was smug for a while, but then she lost her spirit.

"Actually, I still don't understand." She rested her chin on her knees.

"I kept nodding as Sofia was talking, and then I started counting how many times she said 'so'."

"How many did you mention?"

"Eleven."

Richard laughed out loud.

"However," Evelyn suddenly sat up straight, "I'll understand this and it will be useful later."

"Where is it useful?"

"The oven."

"There is air in the oven, and hot air rises, so the top layer always cooks faster than the bottom layer."

I used to always have dishes that were burnt on top but still raw on the bottom; I always thought it was because I was putting too much heat on them.

She spread her hands: "So it turns out the air just rises on its own."

After saying that, she paused for a moment.

"...So from now on, I'll turn it over halfway through baking."

She reopened the notebook and quickly wrote a line on it.

After finishing writing, he looked up and his eyes were frighteningly bright.

"Brother, I've learned something."

In the backyard, water was still dripping from the holly leaves.

"It's so nice that it's raining."

"Um."

"I hope it rains again tomorrow."

"It won't rain tomorrow."

"How did you know!"

"That huge mass of air is still sitting on our heads."

Evelyn turned her face towards him and glared at him for two seconds.

Then she laughed.

"...Did you understand?"