Anna stepped on a branch and broke it. The cracking sound was not obvious in the rain hitting the leaves. Anna frowned. She found that there was an obvious smell of blood in the air, mixed with a faintly discernible smell of decay.
"Help … Help …" A weak cry for help came from nowhere. It sounded like it was in the woods, but it also sounded like it was right next to her ear. This made Anna even more nervous. She clenched her wand with one hand and pulled Sanguinia's silk robe with the other. "Great Lady Nya, did you hear … a strange sound?"
"What?" Sanguinas's amused voice exploded in his ears. "What?"
Anna turned around and saw Sanguinia's beautiful face. It turned out that Sanguinia had whispered in her ear to create a strange and terrifying atmosphere.
"Nothing …" Anna was a little speechless. This terrible vampire had taken teasing the little wizard as her way of entertainment. She was now covering her mouth and laughing as if it was funny to see a child's panicked and angry expression.
Anna and the vampire Nya had been in the forest for some time. The blood line led them in a certain direction.
"Crack." Anna looked at the dense vegetation and saw a small snake slithering quickly. Another snake. There seemed to be a lot of snakes here, but there were only snakes and few other animals. This was not a good sign.
"We're here."
Anna had heard this sentence more than three times on the way. She could not be sure if Nya was playing a prank again.
Although the scenery in front of them was no different from any other place in the forest, it was clear that they had arrived at their destination this time.
Nya stepped forward and passed between two ordinary trees. Then she disappeared. Anna hurried to keep up with her and squeezed through the gap between the two trees.
The moment they came in, Anna heard the sound of running water. She did not know when they had come to the stream. A strong and disgusting smell rushed into Anna's nose. The source of the smell was a pile of animal carcasses piled up on the bank. Anna did not want to find out what it was.
"Wow." Sanguinia covered her nose. "What a waste of food." She looked at the blood on the ground and said in a critical tone. "I never waste food."
Anna suddenly thought of Mr. Dott, who seemed to have been sucked dry by a vampire in the Hanged Ghost Hotel. "Miss Nya, if you don't mind me asking, do you know about the murder that happened in the Hanged Ghost Hotel nearby?"
"Fufu!"
Nya smiled horribly. She widened her eyes and seemed to be happy that Anna mentioned it. "I did it, little wizard. You know too much!"
"But in fact, it was the knife in his neck, and not your fangs, that really killed the poor gentleman," said Anna, with unusual calmness.
"I killed him with a knife!"
Nya was stunned for a second and then reacted. "I made him lose his resistance and then sucked his blood dry!"
"A vampire kills with a knife?"
Anna shook her head. "Not you. Even if it was you, you would not choose to cut his neck with a knife."
Nya was a little curious. "Why?
Little witch, do you know about us vampires killing people?
Do Hogwarts teach this? "
"You sucked every last drop of Mr. Dott's blood. There was no extra blood at the scene, except for the blood that was splashed on the wall." Anna shook her head. "You're a frugal vampire, Miss Nya. You won't allow the blood of your prey to be splashed wastefully."
Nya looked at Anna with some surprise and then laughed unladylike, showing her fangs. "You're right. Very right. I'm indeed a frugal person because there's really too little delicious blood nowadays. It just so happens that the owner of the inn is a drinker. When the woman stabbed the knife into his neck, I almost screamed —"
"You didn't see it. The blood was splashing everywhere. Fortunately, I'm the noble Sanguinia. If it were another vampire, I would have rushed up and caught it with my mouth!"
Sanguinia was now a murder witness. "And then?" Anna tilted her head. "What about the woman?
Why didn't you catch her? "
"Why should I catch her?" Nya was a little confused.
"Uh …" Anna did not know what to say. Asking a vampire to be a vigilante?
It was good enough that she did not turn into a foreign body. "I thought you would treat the woman as food."
"I don't eat everything." Nya looked at Anna with disdain. "But she was pretty good. I could see that she was panicking, but she still tried to find something in the room. Unfortunately, she didn't have a cup of Elixir of Blessings before she did something bad. When she found that she found nothing, she quickly ran away from the fireplace with a sullen face and fled to the next room."
What was the woman looking for?
What was so important that she would kill at all costs? Anna looked at Sanguinia and began to look around. "Did you find what the woman was looking for?"
"No, but vampires don't leave empty-handed." Nya glanced at Anna. "After the woman left, I went up to have a hot drink."
"…" Anna did not want to imagine what kind of scene that was. She obediently shut her mouth, trying to end the terrible conversation.
But Nya rubbed her chin and said thoughtfully, "That delicious drink is not a good thing either. His blood is full of deceit and violence. That's why it tastes so good. And I also smelled the smell of hallucinogenic mushroom powder on him."
"Hallucinogenic mushroom powder?" Nya knew it was not a good thing.
"Hallucinogenic mushroom is a kind of mushroom that can make people hallucinate. It looks simple and unadorned, so people often mistakenly eat it. Although its toxicity is weak, a large amount of it may make people fall into a hallucination and never wake up again."
"Every year, the magic hospital will take in a few patients who mistakenly eat hallucinogenic mushrooms. Most of them will see a goblin in a red dress floating in the air, and then they will reach out and scratch in the air. Their eyes will be blank, and they will drool and laugh foolishly. So this kind of mushroom is also called 'fool's mushroom.' Eating the mushroom will make people stupid."
"Sounds interesting." Anna raised her eyebrows. It was normal to be poisoned by mushrooms.
Nya shrugged. "Don't underestimate the fool's mushroom. Its powder is an important ingredient in the truth-telling serum. Drinking it together with beer has a high probability of making the victim 'tell the truth after drinking it.' The dead man probably used this method to find out other people's secrets …"
"After all, many people are very interested in other people's secrets."
— — —
"Ahhhh —" The screams were accompanied by the sound of falling objects, and a small amount of dust was raised in the air. The giant snake landed in a small room. The room was covered in dark gold wallpaper, and all kinds of toys were piled everywhere. Harry looked around and felt that this room was much messier than Dudley's toy room, but it was indeed somewhat cozy.
There were many candles lit in the room. When Najini fell, a few of them went out, but soon the candles were lit again. "Phew …" Hermione Mouse calmed her breathing and looked up to observe the surrounding environment.
A huge picture was nailed to the wall. It was a picture of a family of three. A young blonde girl was sitting in her mother's arms, holding a lollipop in her hand and a fist-sized octopus doll. Her smile was bright, and the woman holding her son was wearing a clean and ordinary long dress. She smiled faintly and seemed to be very satisfied with her life.
The happiest person in the picture was the man standing behind his wife and daughter. He touched the child's hair with one hand and put the other hand on his wife's shoulder. The smile on his face seemed to overflow from the picture.
"Is that Bowens?" Hermione Mouse rubbed her eyes suspiciously.
"But his hair looks very thick." Ron looked away from a spider doll and glanced at the picture, then shook his head. He tried to determine the identity of the two based on the hair of an English gentleman, but everyone knew that this was unrealistic because most gentlemen would start to lose their hair when they reached middle age.
That was Bowens, the man who looked very happy in the painting. No one knew what happened to him that made him look like this.
Najini didn't stay in the room for too long. She was about to leave with Three Mice. Harry Mouse hugged the snake tightly, and then he suddenly heard a weak girl's voice.
"Mom … Andy …"
Harry thought he heard wrong, but he suddenly realized that Hermione and Ron's faces were not right, especially Ron. His expression looked like he had eaten a dung egg.
"You heard it too?" Harry looked at them questioningly. Hermione nodded and motioned for Harry to look at the picture on the wall.
The picture didn't seem to have changed. The family of three looked so happy. The only difference was the girl holding the octopus doll. She couldn't help but smile, but countless tears flowed from her eyes. What was she saying? Bowens, who was touching her hair, quickly reached his hand to her mouth and tried to cover her mouth.
Harry heard it clearly.
"Save my mom, save Andy."