Zheng Qing took a while to process it before realizing that the little girl's name was Zhu Si.
Then he grasped what she had just implied.
"They eat people?" The young publicly funded student nervously looked around. "Who... are they?"
"The elves in the mirrors," the little girl said softly. "But I prefer calling them mirror demons, demons inside mirrors. They like pretending to be other people, using other people's voices, talking about other people's business... There's nothing faker in the world! Even faker than a wizard telling a mermaid, 'I love you'!"
That was not something a seven- or eight-year-old girl should have said.
"Why do they do that?"
"To replace other people." Zhu Si's little face tightened, looking extremely solemn. "As long as they're fake enough, they can pass the fake off as real, let the raccoon dog replace the crown prince, steal the beams and swap out the pillars!"
She even rattled off idioms one after another.
Interest appeared on the wizard's face as he continued asking,
"If they're inside the mirrors, how do they eat people?"
A trace of contempt appeared on Zhu Si's face. "Why are you so stupid? Does eating people have to involve using their mouths? What's most important about a person? Their mind! Their soul! They can corrupt your mind without you noticing! Suck away your soul!"
"That scary, huh." Zheng Qing sighed, his gaze passing over the girl's head to the covered mirrors behind her.
"I feel like your gaze is very rude." The little girl crossed her arms over her chest, tipped up her chin, and looked at the older boy before her in displeasure.
Zheng Qing did not know whether to laugh or cry.
"I just thought... you were an Elf of the Mirror World." He spread his hands