I loaded the Mysticism panel.

A copper bell jingled behind them, and the door of the secondhand shop closed behind them.

Vincent walked on the stone path and glanced back at the tightly closed wooden door.

"Uncle Donald has always been like this, don't mind him."

"I don't mind. If he doesn't care at all, then I'll be the one who's unhappy."

Vincent laughed heartily at this and put his hands back into his coat pockets.

"By the way," he turned to look at Richard, "what do you plan to do with these two strange items?"

"To aid in cultivation."

"Yes, pure ether filtered through artifacts is indeed much easier to digest than ether absorbed from the atmosphere."

Vincent took a few steps, his tone becoming slightly more serious.

"However, there's something I need to remind you of."

He raised his right hand and made a fist and then released it.

"The pure ether in the artifacts is a good thing, but there is a limit to how much ether each person's body can absorb."

Having two or three unusual items to rotate is enough; trying to have too many will only lead to failure.

"If too much pure ether is poured in at once, the internal circulation can't process it, and it will actually damage the system."

He gestured with his hand to indicate that the swelling was going out: "Mild cases involve headaches and vomiting, while severe cases involve internal circulation disorders, requiring a long period of rest to recover."

"I understand," Richard nodded in agreement.

On the surface, he humbly accepted his cousin's advice.

However, his real purpose in searching for rare items had little to do with accelerating his cultivation; what he wanted were the available points on the panel.

………………

Going through that wall was a little easier in the opposite direction than when we came in.

As you move outwards, the intensity of the interference field decreases significantly.

Back on the main street of Huayue Street, the overwhelming noise made one feel somewhat disoriented.

Smoke, copper bells, hawkers' cries, the smell of incense and candles... all the noise that had been blocked outside by the wall rushed into my senses.

Compared to the quiet, almost solemn stone path inside the walls, the outside world was a completely different place.

While waiting for the bus, Vincent went to the stall across the street and bought a bag of roasted chestnuts, which he peeled and crunched away.

Richard stood beside him, but his gaze was fixed on the street diagonally opposite.

Number 17 Huayue Street is right on the main street outside, and the number is clearly nailed to the side of the door frame.

The shop looks no different from the other psychic shops around it that sell atmosphere.

The curtains were drawn tightly, the facade was painted dark red, and a bronze plaque reading "Mrs. Mary, the Medium" hung on the door.

A black cat was lying on the steps at the entrance.

The cat was curled up in a ball, its tail wrapped around its paws, basking in the sun with its eyes half-closed.

Everything seemed normal.

But just as his gaze fell on the cat, he suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck.

The black cat opened its eyes; its pupils were pure gold, without any color gradient, just like liquid gold.

The black cat stared at him for a while.

The distance was so far, with pedestrians and vendors coming and going in between.

But Richard was certain it was watching him.

After watching for a while, the black cat seemed to get bored, closed its eyelids, put its head back on its paws, and continued to sunbathe.

The chill on the back of my neck quickly subsided.

Richard withdrew his gaze and turned away.

"What's wrong?" Vincent threw the chestnut shell into the trash can next to him.

"It's nothing."

He quickened his pace and walked alongside Vincent toward the carriage that had reached the street corner.

That cat might be a sensory probe.

Lady Mary or someone else inside number seventeen is watching everything that happens on Flower Moon Street through its eyes.

People who can achieve this level of skill are probably not just practitioners.

Richard sat in the carriage and placed the leather bag containing copper coins and an incense burner on his lap.

Vincent leaned back in the opposite seat, peeling the last few chestnuts, the wheels making a rhythmic clattering sound on the cobblestone street.

"cousin."

"What's wrong?"

"Have you been to number 17?"

"Never been there." Vincent popped a chestnut kernel into his mouth and chewed it.

"The old man said that the shop is not under the jurisdiction of any party."

"Not belonging to either party?"

"The official system can't control her, the academic system can't control her, and the unofficial guilds certainly won't bother with her."

He crumpled the chestnut shells into a ball in his hand and put them in a paper bag.

"There are a few places like this in the capital."

He turned to look at Richard: "You wouldn't be thinking of going in to take a look, would you?"

"No." Richard patted the leather bag to make sure the two items inside weren't damaged. "I was just asking."

Vincent put the trash bag he was holding aside and rested his elbows on his knees.

"You scholars have a problem."

"What?"

"Too much curiosity."

He didn't smile when he said this; the usual relaxed smile on his face was completely gone.

"We hunters are on the front lines, knife against claws, fist against flesh, and we can smell the stench from the mouths of those monsters when they pounce. Sounds dangerous, right?"

He turned his hands over and placed them on his knees with his palms facing up.

My palms are covered in calluses, and there are several old, whitish scars at the base of my fingers.

"But we knew what we were facing. When the evil creatures rushed at us, we ran away because we couldn't beat them."

Even if you can't escape, the way you die will be simple: your head will be twisted off, your chest pierced, and you'll bleed to death and fall to the ground... Painful, but swift.

He pulled his hand back and put it in his coat pocket.

"Scholars are different."

"The things you face... often don't even have a physical form."

The carriage lurched as it rolled over a section of gravel road.

Vincent and the others continued speaking only after the bumpy ride had passed.

"There is a booklet in the old man's study that records the causes of death of members of the Ashford family throughout the ages."

Most hunters die from external injuries, combat, or mission accidents; it can be summed up in a single sentence.

"The section on academics only has one or two pages; I've flipped through it once."

He frowned, as if trying to recall.

"There was a manuscript that took more than a decade to decipher from the Path of the Abyss."

When they deciphered the last page, his butler found him sitting at his desk, eyes open, pupils completely dilated.

The person inside is still alive, with a normal heartbeat and breathing, but the person inside is no longer there.

"Has your brain been emptied?"

"It wasn't hollowed out," Vincent shook his head. "It was replaced."

"He was able to speak, eat, and recognize people afterward, but his wife said that the way that person spoke had changed."

When they look at you, it's like they're examining a specimen through a pane of glass.

"How was it finally resolved?"

"It wasn't written in the booklet; the bottom half of that page was cut off, leaving only one line of annotation: 'Properly handled.'"

The ending was exactly the same as the one reported in the newspapers about the textile factory incident.

"There's one even earlier."

Vincent's gaze shifted to the outside of the car window, where the street scene stretched into blurry bands of color on the glass:

"In the early industrial era, an Ashford scholar, while appraising a high-grade artifact, attempted to use his intuition to 'read' the information sealed within it."

"The information has been read, but that information is not static."

"How so?"

"Some knowledge behind the veil carries with it a will."

Vincent spoke slowly, clearly repeating what someone had taught him.

"You think you're reading it, but it's actually reading you too."

When your inspiration strikes, it's like handing over the key to your own front door.

Not all guests who enter will politely leave when you say "please leave."

"What happened to that scholar afterward?"

"He lived a long life, was in good health, had a wealth of academic achievements, and was highly respected in the Royal Society."

Vincent stroked his beard:

"But ever since that assessment, he has been painting all four walls of his bedroom with holy water every night."

He hadn't missed a single day in forty years. When his wife asked him why, he only said one sentence.

"What?"

"It's still watching."

The carriage was silent for several seconds.

"So, you understand what I mean now, right?"

Vincent leaned back in his chair, his tone softening slightly:

"The worst outcome for a hunter is death, and the worst outcome for a scholar... is not necessarily death; it may even implicate those around you."

He raised his hand and patted Richard on the shoulder, with considerable force.

"Your 'just asking' tone is probably the same as that of the scholars from the Ashford family."

He said, "Just browsing," but had already taken half a step across the threshold.

"Fortunately, the cat across from us is just someone else's pet and doesn't pose any real danger."

Next time you encounter something similar, you should be able to take it back.

The carriage left Flower Moon Street and turned onto the main road back to Chelsea Road.