Chapter 132 Bonfire Night Talk

Loren walked behind Hermione, thinking about what just happened. As he walked, he felt something shaking in his coat pocket.

This outfit was outdoor clothing provided by the hotel, and he clearly remembered that the pockets were empty.

Loren didn't think much and took out the contents of his pocket.

Then, he fell into silence looking at the broken small mirror in front of him.

A cold and refreshing touch came from his fingers. The palm-sized oval mirror was covered with white cracks, and it was no longer possible to illuminate anything clearly. Below is a slender stick handle, the tip of which is inlaid with a delicate red gem.

It feels like some kind of metal material. The entire mirror is carved into the shape of a flower. The handle is a flower branch and the mirror surface is the petals. The whole body is jet black. I don't know whether it is this color originally or whether it has faded over time.

After a slight hesitation, Loren put the mirror back into his pocket and kept it.

It's more or less a magic item with magic about the illusion on it. Whether you are using the mirror itself or exploring new magic through the mirror, it is very profitable.

Hermione picked up another branch and put it into a small linen bag. She turned to look at Loren, who was dazedly fishing behind him, and said angrily: "It will get dark if we slow down any longer. Come and help!"

"Coming!" Loren came back to his senses and replied, he quickened his pace and caught up.

The two gathered some firewood, and when they estimated that the Grangers had almost set up the tent, they followed the marks along the way back.

As night falls, the forest plunges into blue-black darkness.

Loren, Hermione, and the Granger couple were gathered around a bonfire, and the fiery red light shone brightly in their eyes.

Since it was the first day in the forest and time was tight, they heated up some canned food for dinner. After eating, facing the bright and warm flame, several people felt a little lazy.

Wendell leaned back, put his hands behind his back, and sighed happily: "Canned beef at camping always tastes better than eating at home."

Monica squatted on a stone, too lazy to move, and gave him a knife look: "So you picked out all the canned beef and ate it on the first day. What will you do in the next few days?"

Wendell didn't answer, just laughed.

"Have you counted how many cans are left?" Monica asked.

Wendell was still smiling, "That's enough. There are also canned fruits, canned luncheon meat, and several kinds of canned food."

He came closer to Monica and his smile became even happier, "We will call the hotel tomorrow to send some fresh meat. How about making barbecue? We can also replenish canned beef."

“Does this still count as camping?”

"We are camping, so we don't need to be so strict."

The two couples talked to each other about their plans for the next few days and discussed play items. Completely neglected two small children.

Loren held a slender branch and kept stirring the burning fire. Five or six sparks flew up with the stirring, and then extinguished in the air.

The small mirror was regarded as their mental damage fee. Although they didn't know how to use it or even whether it could be used, Loren accepted it with peace of mind.

Leave it alone for now, and let Flamel or Dumbledore take a look at it when you get back. If there is anything wrong, burn it.

Loren opened another pile of incompletely burned wood piles. The flames shook their tails and swayed diagonally, making them burn even more intensely.

Hermione squatted down next to Loren, looked at the flames, and then at Loren. There was confusion on her face. She didn't understand what fun it was to make a fire. Loren had been playing for more than half an hour.

Hermione didn't get up. She just moved closer to Loren on her calves and whispered, "Is it fun? You seem to like playing with fire. You also like to play with blue flames for warmth when you were at school."

Loren nodded, "It's really fun."

He handed Hermione a stick and taught her how to make the fire burn brighter, adding fuel to it when the time was right.

Hermione imitated his example and poked the fire, causing more sparks, but she didn't find it amusing.

She shook the stick to draw circles on the bright fireworks, causing the flames to sway with the stick. "What's wrong with you? You haven't spoken much since you came back from collecting firewood. You seem to have something on your mind?"

Loren glanced at the Grangers who were whispering. Seeing that they didn't pay attention, he whispered: "I haven't figured out some things yet. I'll tell you later."

He had encountered the Mirror Illusion twice, and he really had no clue.

Hermione hit Loren's little stick with a small wooden stick angrily, "You can't tell me now, but you can tell me later. How many times have you said this?"

She pouted aggrievedly, "Mysterious, like this every time."

"At least I didn't lie to you or fool you, that's better if you think about it." Loren smiled and knocked back with a wooden stick.

Two wooden sticks collided in the fire and some sparks flew out.

Hermione rolled her eyes, used her strengthened strength to suppress Loren's small wooden stick, and said viciously: "Then do I still need to thank you?"

The girl looks like a little squirrel pretending to be fierce, so cute.

"You're welcome, I should do it." Loren laughed. He couldn't pull out the small wooden stick in his hand, so he lightly touched the girl's knee with his knee.

The two of them began to make more little moves. You would touch me with your knee, and I would bump you with my shoulder. It was more fun than playing with fire.

In front of their parents, the two of them were relatively restrained in their work at first, touching and bumping lightly, and playing back and forth.

But the blows began to escalate later on. Hermione didn't hold back her strength and bumped her shoulder, knocking Loren staggering.

The two of them were squatting with their legs together, unable to maintain their balance, and Loren leaned to the side.

Hermione couldn't bear the strength and fell on Loren in the direction of inertia.

"Ouch!"

This sound was made when Loren fell.

"Ouch!"

This sound was also made by Loren. Hermione fell on him and pressed down on him. She also used some subconscious fighting instinct to hold down Loren's hand to prevent him from getting up.

Two screams woke up the Grangers who were intoxicated in their sweet world. What they saw was their usually well-behaved and lovely daughter pressing Loren to the ground and screaming.

Both of them were stunned and froze on the spot for a moment.

When Hermione came back to her senses and reacted, she struggled to sit up with her red face.

During this period, while looking for a point of support, his hands pressed on Loren's ribs a few more times, and Loren said "Ouch" twice more.

After Hermione got up, Loren slowly sat up.

In fact, it didn't hurt at all. He just considered that the Grangers were nearby, so he screamed twice.

He thought of a way to resist tyranny faster than Apparating - to hold Hermione's parents hostage.

"You two are actually fighting?!"

Wendell asked in surprise. He only knew that Hermione had changed a lot this year, but the quiet and well-behaved Hermione turned into a delinquent girl. This change was too big and too fast. He needed to digest and understand it.

Monica remembered the book Hermione borrowed from their study and reacted, "Do you really want to learn "Krav Maga Analysis" after reading it?"

Facing her parents' question, Hermione's face turned red with embarrassment, and it was very hot. She didn't know if it was from the fire.

Loren coughed decently, "It's like this. Hermione received a gift of a magic item, which strengthened her physical fitness and fighting ability."

Wendell and Monica turned to look at Hermione, who met their gazes and nodded shyly.

"However," Loren said in an aggrieved tone, "Since then, Hermione has always relied on her fighting ability to bully me."

Hermione opened her mouth wide and looked at Loren with a dull expression. Why can this person be so shameless?

Wendell and Monica only hesitated for a moment, but they quickly believed Loren's words. After all, the scene they just saw and the "Krav Maga Analysis" were strong evidence.

Loren sighed and continued: "I know Hermione is just joking with me, but she doesn't know that it really hurts after being strengthened."

He looked at Hermione and sighed again, with a look of hesitation on his face.

Wendell and Monica only thought that Loren was wronged, but because they cherished their friendship with Hermione, they hesitated to speak.

"I'm not!" Hermione said sadly and angrily, pointing her finger at Loren, all kinds of strong emotions came up, and her fingers couldn't stop shaking with anger.

Monica patted the stone beside her and called: "Hermione, sit here, I want to say a few words to you."

Hermione had no choice but to go over with her little head lowered, pouting and sitting next to Monica.

Monica pulled Hermione into her arms and whispered into her ear.

She felt that Hermione was not someone who bullied her classmates, but she still couldn't control some of her behaviors and intensity. Monica whispered a few words to Hermione.

After a while, Monica looked up at Loren and called softly: "Loren, sit here too."

Wendell made room, and Loren sat cheerfully on the other side of Monica.

"You are friends, you need to be friendly and help each other, you know?" Monica also hugged Loren and said in a coaxing tone.

Loren and Hermione both nodded and acted well-behaved.

Loren grinned at Hermione.

Out of a strange tacit understanding, Hermione actually understood what he meant, "If you do anything again in the future, I will sue my parents."

Hermione squeezed her fist again and again, and glared at Loren fiercely from an angle that Monica couldn't see.

Loren also understood what she meant, "You will be dead when school starts."

But Loren didn't care. We'll talk about the future later. At least Hermione couldn't do anything to him during the holidays.

Seeing that the two children had reconciled, the four of them started talking about the arrangements for the next few days around the campfire. Wendell and Monica told Loren and Hermione the plan they had just discussed.

Hermione snuggled into Monica's arms like a kitten, nuzzling her coquettishly from time to time.

Loren was on the other side, head on his knees, stirring the fire with a stick. The warm conversation was mixed with the sound of crackling firewood. Occasionally scatter little sparks of fire.

Wendell's smiling voice came from the side: "At this time, we should continue telling horror stories. I still have a legend about Bloody Mary that I haven't told yet."

Hermione and Monica enjoyed the tenderness between mother and daughter and ignored him.

Loren, with the best of intentions to avoid making the atmosphere awkward, complimented him, "The one who appears at the end must be the scariest story."

"Of course!" Wendell raised his voice and became interested.

He began to tell in a deep and horrifying tone, "In the Bathory family in Hungary, there is a Mrs. Bathory Elizabeth. The young Mrs. Bathory has brown-red hair and snow-white skin. She is the first lady in Hungary. Beautiful woman.”

"She was very proud of her beauty and often lay in bed with a mirror to admire her beauty."

"Later she got married and had eight children with a general. Childbirth and time took away her beauty. She longed to restore her youthful beauty and was willing to pay any price for it."

"Mrs. Bathory heard from a traveler about an evil method of restoring beauty."

Wendell's voice suddenly became louder, "Bath in the blood of virgins!"

After he finished speaking, he looked around at the faces of the two children and his wife to see the results of the shock.

But no one was frightened.

Loren's expression was expressionless, and his thoughts were already churning in his heart.

The same story of bathing in blood to restore youth and beauty, but one is a countess and the other is a general's wife. Did one story prototype evolve into two legends, or did this really happen?

Wendell paused, smacked his lips and continued, "In the beginning, she used the lie of recruiting servants with high salaries to lure country girls into the castle, torture and murder them."

"Later, all the country girls in nearby towns hid at home and never showed up. Mrs. Bathory began to use the excuse of learning aristocratic etiquette to lure aristocratic girls into the castle."

"She put the girl into a cage full of spikes and hung her in the air. She stood under the cage and bathed in the warm blood in an attempt to maintain her youth."

"At the end of the story, because too many girls were missing, the king discovered Mrs. Bathory's crime and imprisoned her in a high tower, where she died of old age."

Hermione's brows knitted together, "Why did the king just sentence her to life imprisonment after she murdered so many people?"

Wendell was stunned. Is this the point of the story?

Monica stroked Hermione's head and said, "Because the laws at that time were not sound, and the progress of society has reduced such things."

Hermione nodded, agreeing with this statement.

Wendell couldn't help but speak, "I want to ask, is there really the magic of bathing in blood and restoring youth?"

Hermione sat up from Monica's arms and shook her head seriously: "Although wizards can do magic, they will age and die like ordinary people."

Speaking of this, Hermione glanced at Loren and said silently in her heart: Most of them are like this, except for the magic stone to refine the elixir of life.

Monica glanced at Loren, who was worried, and Hermione, who had a stern face and a serious expression. She was so angry that she stretched out her hand and patted Wendell: "A good campfire camping was ruined by your horror story. This story is a little bit... It’s not good either, what you said is also very bad.”

Wendell couldn't resist even after being beaten, and Sansan smiled.

Loren added another pile of firewood, and the bright flames sent out waves of heat, dispelling the darkness and cold of the forest.