You call this a black hand?

At this moment, Mrs. Chelsea didn't realize that someone was paying attention to her, and she didn't even know that she was going to die tomorrow.

Under the bright circular chandelier, she was chatting about trivial matters with her future "son-in-law".

"I haven't seen Juliana for a long time. She is still teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at St. Grant's Castle?"

Mrs. Chelsea's voice is not clear, but rather hoarse. Combined with her calm face and dignified posture, she looks like a black viper coiled gracefully on a branch, quietly spitting out its message.

"Yes, but mom is only doing part-time now."

The blond boy who replied had a rather ordinary face, and his tone was full of pride when he talked about his mother.

"If someone else takes over, she will step down as a professor."

"Part-time job?"

"Well, mom has been elected as the vice president of Oak College."

"What good news."

Mrs. Chelsea smiled when she heard this, "It's just that it will be more difficult for your father to remarry."

"Dad, he doesn't know the news yet."

The young man said with a somewhat embarrassed expression: "Some of the aborigines in the Southern California colony are a bit difficult to manage. He followed the army to suppress the rebellion at the beginning of the year."

These words made Mrs. Chelsea narrow her eyes unconsciously, and then the conversation suddenly changed.

"I heard that Fort St. Grant was there recently and had a conflict with the people of the Original Truth?"

"It seems so. Mother didn't mention it much...but I think with the craziness of those cultists..."

The atmosphere of the chat between the two parties cannot be said to be pleasant, but it can be considered harmonious.

In fact, the marriage between the two families has already been confirmed. Although the engagement ceremony has not yet been held, since the tacit understanding has been reached, there is basically no need to discuss anything further.

Therefore, although the blond boy is a little restrained when facing his future "mother-in-law", overall there is no pressure at all.

…

However, when an uninvited guest suddenly sat next to the young man uninvited, he suddenly had a bad feeling.

The uninvited guest was a very handsome man of the same age, followed by a brown-haired follower in his twenties. The two of them did not look like wizards.

However, the young man was very wary and even hostile towards this person.

Because he knows the other person, he knows this guy named Mellen.

Due to the scarcity of their numbers, it is common for wizarding families to hold various social gatherings, especially when facing an ally family that has been friends for hundreds of years.

Therefore, although the blond boy is not a local, he often comes to visit and is no stranger to this city and some of its people.

During his last visit, a year ago, he and his mother had met this guy named Mellen, and at that time his mother even praised him for his good looks.

Just like that, it wouldn't cause the young man to be wary of anything.

But my mother wrote to each other afterwards, and we still keep in touch, and they have become pen pals.

This made the young man have to be vigilant.

His parents, like him, were married. His father was very satisfied with the marriage, but his mother was always dissatisfied. She even divorced his father two years ago.

Whether my mother has a private life of her own is anyone's guess.

Therefore, the young man had every reason to suspect that the guy in front of him named Melen, who had black hair and blue eyes like his mother, might be his half-brother who had been separated for many years.

Otherwise, how could my mother, who is the vice-president of a top wizarding school, be so active in establishing a relationship with an ordinary boy in the secular world?

Of course, if this alone would not make him feel nervous.

But now that he met the other party in this situation, he had to think more.

"Perhaps my mother was afraid that Mrs. Chelsea wouldn't like me, so she specially called for an alternative?"

"Or maybe Mrs. Chelsea once expressed her dissatisfaction with me, so mother specially called for an alternative?"

He couldn't sit still.

An ordinary person poses no threat to the marriage between wizards, but if it is an ordinary person with wizard blood, the restrictions are not so harsh.

Although if she is robbed, she will probably switch to another family and continue the marriage.

But this is not decent at all.

More importantly, Mrs. Chelsea is not an ordinary "mother-in-law". She seems so kind that even ordinary people can be invited to a banquet. In fact, she is a "big shot" with a strong sense of presence in the entire wizarding world -

—

One of the three major wizarding banks, the largest shareholder of Gold Flash Bank, the honorary vice president of the International Wizarding United Council, a member of the Wizarding Education Committee, the core backbone of the Era Explorers Association, and the behind-the-scenes controller of the Blackstone Ocean Trading Company...

Just one of these titles is enough to make ordinary wizards look up to them, and Mrs. Chelsea has a bunch of them.

If it weren't for the small number of members of her family, which greatly limited the spread of her influence, and if it weren't for the hundreds of years of friendship between the two families, and the close relationship between her mother and Mrs. Chelsea, the boy's family would really not be qualified to marry the other party.

Therefore, the status of Mrs. Chelsea’s “son-in-law” is very valuable and must not be taken away by others.

Therefore, when the bastard who was suspected of being his "brother" greeted him and sat next to him, the young man said in an unhappy tone: "Who are you?"

"Who told you to sit here?"

…

Why is this person so hostile?

Mellen felt a little baffled.

He saw that Mrs. Chelsea might die, so he came here to try to see if he could reverse this fate.

In his opinion, it would be a pity if such a lovely beauty suddenly disappeared.

And more importantly, he had just awakened his golden finger, and now was the time when he needed experimental subjects.

But it seems that not everyone can become the target of his experiment.

At least there were only three or two kittens around who could make his golden fingers react.

So Meren naturally chose the one that was most pleasing to his eyes.

The results don't seem to be very popular...

Are they talking about something secret and don't want to be disturbed?

But if that's the case, shouldn't we find a private place to talk?

Mellen glanced at the dense crowd around him from the corner of his eye, feeling a little puzzled.

But on the surface, he didn't feel any embarrassment at being excluded, and instead smiled apologetically at the other party.

"I have to disturb you because I have something to do. I'm sorry."

"Maybe before doing this," the young man said coldly, "you should ask for our consent?"

"Of course, that's why I'm sitting here."

As he spoke, Mellen took out a deck of playing cards from his pocket, started shuffling the cards in his hand, and said: "This matter is related to this playing card, please take a look."

Mrs. Chelsea was the absolute protagonist of this banquet, and there were already a lot of attention around her. When Mellen used a very gorgeous technique to manipulate the playing cards in his hand to clatter, he instantly attracted a lot of attention.

And when he shuffled the cards and miraculously turned the top red A into a black A, there was even a cry of surprise.

"I suddenly had this ability to change the colors of cards, and I thought it might be magic."

Mellen, who had no idea that he was showing off in front of two real wizards, said seriously: "Someone told me, you may know why this is happening."

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Chelsea looked at Mellen with strange eyes and said nothing, while the blond boy sitting next to Mellen showed a mocking smile.

The so-called magic skills are difficult for ordinary people to understand, but for a wizard with strong eyesight, he can easily see through the flaws.

The guy in front of him was so clever that he got here by tricking them. He was simply overestimating his abilities.

Mellen didn't know what the other person was thinking. Seeing that no one spoke, he then performed other card magic tricks.

Predict the card selection, turn the cards into a straight flush, and control the cards from the air...

The techniques became more and more complex and the techniques became more gorgeous. With more and more guests gathering around him, he had no shortage of cooperative companions. The bursts of surprised cries became the loudest noise in the party hall.

"Mother obviously never told him about wizards and magic."

After watching for a long time, the blond boy who had been observing at the side was finally completely relieved, so he sat comfortably on the sofa and smiled as he watched the poor guy in front of him, who was suspected of being a bastard brother, perform hard.

If this guy really knows the true identities of the two of them, then he will understand that the more exaggerated he is now, the more he will look like a funny clown in the eyes of Mrs. Chelsea.

…

The reality was different from what he thought.

Mrs. Chelsea, who was sitting opposite Melon, did not find anything funny about Mellen's appearance at the moment. Instead, she admired the boy's hard work with interest.

This is the difference in thinking between men and women.

To the young man, Mellen's current appearance was very funny, because his magic skills were very poor in the eyes of wizards.

But in Mrs. Chelsea's view, the big boy who tried his best to express himself, with sweat even overflowing from his forehead, had a special charm at the moment.

However, this is just a trivial attitude of appreciation.

This change in attitude made her even more determined not to let her daughter have contact with Melen.

…

"Obviously, you have no idea what's going on."

After showing off for a long time, there was no response from the two of them. Mellen seemed to be frustrated and put away the cards, but then he changed the subject.

"Fortunately, my visit this time has not been fruitless."

As he spoke, he stretched his hand back, and a certain brown-haired young man standing behind him handed a cloth bag inlaid with gold wire into Meren's hand.

"It seems like a magical pocket,"

As Melen spoke, he winked at the blond boy next to him who was smiling sarcastically for some unknown reason.

"Maybe we can guess what's in it?"

Seeing the pocket, the smile on the blond boy's face suddenly froze.