High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 774: Chapter 122 Cat and Mouse Talk_1

”If only the fat man hadn’t been called away by that paper crane.”

The black cat squatted behind Dangdang Ears, watching the Mouse King deftly opening a hole in an ash tree. It sighed deeply.

Xiao Xiao, standing aside, nodded in agreement.

During the time Zheng Qing and others were called to the grove by Lin Guo to mediate the ’cat-fox dispute’, a paper crane from the newspaper office found Xin Fat Man, asked him to attend a meeting, thus he missed an event he longed to witness.

In these past few days, Xin Fat Man had been constantly talking about featuring a clothed mouse once again for an interview. According to him, this was related to whether he could participate in this year’s ’Golden Feather Pen’ selection. If Xin Fat Man knew that Zheng Qing and Xiao Xiao had encountered a second clothed mouse during their mediation today, he would probably beat his chest and stomp his feet with regret.

Just as the black cat and the doctor sighed, Dangdang Ears had already engraved a circle of strange patterns around the hole he had just ’drilled’ in the tree. Meanwhile, he dragged several dried branches from nearby bushes to be leaned against the trunk and cover the hole.

In this way, if someone passed by this ash tree without paying special attention, they wouldn’t notice this dark hole in the tree at all.

”These must be runes, right? But they seem a bit different from the runes used by wizards.” The black cat approached the hole and touched the markings carved on the rough bark with its paw, murmuring to itself.

As a young wizard with considerable knowledge on talisman, Zheng Qing was highly familiar with the over a thousand runes used by wizards. However, when he saw the symbols that Dangdang Ears had carved around the tree hole, he still felt somewhat left in the dark. From the way the runes were written, to how they were put together, to the basic sentence patterns, none of them completely corresponded to the rules of rune usage in the contemporary world of wizards that he knew.

”Of course!” Dangdang Ears explained proudly, ”This is the ’Mouse Text’ invented by our Elderly Ancestor, and can only be used by us, the Mouse Clan...... Don’t wizards also have their own runic language? It’s perfectly normal that, just like I don’t understand your runes, you don’t understand our Mouse Text. It’s the same idea.”

”No, no, no, I didn’t mean that.” The black cat shook its ears and stared obsessively at the mouse’s notations, murmuring, ”What I meant to say was that your method of using runes is very unique, not that I can’t understand them at all. Because ’signifier’ and ’signified’ share some common traits across different sets of runes.”

”Huh?!” Dangdang Ears gave the black cat a bewildered look, then turned back to glance at the short male witch holding a notebook beside him, instinctively reached out its paw and scratched its ear.

It felt that it could understand every single word the black cat had just said, but when strung together in a sentence, it couldn’t understand it at all.

Is this what they call the ’knowledge barrier’?

Unlike the surprised Mouse King, Doctor Xiao thoughtfully considered what the black cat said: ”If I recall correctly, I remember a master of magic writing once expressed something similar. According to him, linguistic symbols have two key characteristics: first, their arbitrariness; second, the linearity of the ’signifier’. If we follow this train of thought, are you saying that the ancestors of the Mouse Clan simply adjusted the form of the symbols, without futzing with their deeper meanings?”

The black cat didn’t answer verbally; it only silently nodded its head.

”Excuse me! Can someone explain to me what is ’signifier’, ’signified’, and ’linearity’?!” Dangdang Ears listened to the conversation between the witches, feeling like it was listening to some sacred text read aloud, and couldn’t help but feel slightly restless.

Xiao Xiao glanced at the Mouse King, hesitated for a few seconds, and finally patiently explained:

”When discussing these concepts, we must mention Ferdinand de Saussure, a famous runology master from the late 19th century in Switzerland. He is recognized by the modern wizarding world as the founder of ’structuralism’ and one of the founders of modern rune theory. His ’General Course in Runology’ is still used as a textbook in the senior rune elective courses at the First College.”

”Master Saussure believed that any language symbol is composed of a ’signifier’ and a ’signified’. The ’signifier’ refers to the sound or the imagery of language, while ’signified’ refers to the concept reflected in language.”

”The arbitrariness of symbols implies that the connection between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, and there is no inherent, natural connection between the two.”

At this point, Xiao Xiao paused and gave an example: ” For example, wizards use the term ’Mouse’ to denote creatures similar to you, but if we decide to use the term ’Human’ to denote creatures similar to you from now on, then the ’Signifier’ has changed, but the ’Signified’ remains the same.”

”I have absolutely no disagreement with your idea.” Dangdang Ears took the opportunity to express his views.

Xiao Xiao ignored him and continued to explain: ”Of course, Master Saussure’s theory completely contradicts the traditional idea that ’Magic Text possesses natural attributes’, but this doesn’t prevent his theory from paving a new path for the study of magical and rune texts.”

”Stop talking about these pie-in-the-sky things,” Dangdang Ears had finally had enough and cried out in a high-pitched voice, ”You claimed you understand, so what did I write around the tree hole?”

”Those concepts are not pie-in-the-sky things, they are the real essence of magic.” The black cat turned back and calmly said, ”What’s amazing about runes is their arbitrariness, which requires wizards to have strong abstract thinking. Just like the symbols you carved around the tree hole, even though I can’t read the words and can’t grasp the subtle changes, by observing the basic structures, I can conclude that those are runes of expulsion.”

Upon hearing this, Dangdang Ears’s eyes widened, and he wore an expression of disbelief.

Just then, Lin Guo’s shouts came from afar.

”Oh, oh, oh, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right!” The young male wizard ran back from the edge of the woods, his left hand holding Poseidon, his right arm around a small plush cat, both bouncing as he ran.

The black cat stood up and frowned at the young wizard: ”Don’t yell and scream, it’s not a good look... What’s right? What happened?”

Lin Guo immediately stopped, put down the two small things, patted the dust off his clothes, cleared his throat, and then calmly explained: ”I just remembered, when the Elders saw me this afternoon they told me to tell you that they have procured the seed you were looking for... if you’re not in a rush, they will bring it to you during the class tomorrow...”

Before Lin Guo had finished speaking, the black cat had already turned into a black lightning bolt, shooting out of the woods with a ’swoosh’.

In the chilly wind, his intermittent meowing could be heard:

”Let’s wrap things up for today! I’ve got urgent matters to attend to, I’ll leave first!”

”The cat pack and the fox, disperse peacefully, don’t cause any more trouble!”

”And those mice, remember to clean up according to the usual rules... Be careful not to let that so-called Ears snatch away a couple of them!”

”I’m still here! I can hear what you’re saying!” Dangdang Ears was indignant, hopping and skipping towards the back of the fleeing black cat, shouting loudly.

”He actually wanted you to hear him.” Lin Guo soothed him on the side and then went off on his own to take care of the spoils of war.