Chapter 10: After the Present and Past

Du Zhengyi knew he had connected to the Pendragon Orbital System.

For a reclusive elderly Mage, it was impossible for his home to lack an access point to the Pendragon Track. Since there were no traces of energy in the front yard or inside the house, the entrance to the track must have been placed in the backyard. After taking a rough look around the house, he went straight to the backyard, hoping to find a record of the last time the track entrance was used.

When he opened the back door for the first time, he noticed a disturbance in the energy flow; it was possible that the access point had fallen into disrepair and suffered some malfunction. This was not a big deal. But before he could conduct a formal test, Luo Qi suddenly shouted for him, and he rushed back without a second thought. By the time he brought Luo Qi back to the back door, his mind was occupied with many things, and in a moment of inattention, Luo Qi bravely smashed the pot for him.

Being annoyed was of no use, and if he wanted to beat Luo Qi up, he would have to wait until they got back; besides, Luo Qi was usually too good-tempered, so beating him up might not necessarily relieve his anger. Du Zhengyi sighed helplessly and lay on the ground, quietly waiting for the effects of the regained gravity on his body to gradually subside.

Weightlessness was a common malfunction of the Pendragon Orbital System; he was like a fish thrown onto the shore, and lying still was the best choice. However, he still did not know which bank of which river he had been randomly thrown onto.

A gale was howling in his ears; this place was even colder than the village he had left, and the biting cold wind cut into his skin. There was still a glimmer of light on the horizon, and ink-colored clouds lingered there. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating, which was why he saw a huge shadow at the end of the sky. After a while, he realized that it was a mountain rising from the flat ground, standing alone and blocking the eastern sky. The mountain was massive, yet symmetrical like a perfect cone, as if a man-made object floating in the void. At this moment, he also realized that he had finally regained control of his body.

Du Zhengyi slowly sat up, looked at the shadow of the mountain in the east for a while, and then stood up, deep in thought.

The hillside under his feet sloped eastward, and snow covered everything within his line of sight. A few huge silver pines stood silently in the northern frost and snow, and homing crows flew over his head, emitting hoarse cries that became the only sound in this place besides the wind. The small village at the foot of the hill lay in such dead silence, decaying and quiet.

No matter where this place was, he was certain he had never been here before, nor was he familiar with this kind of terrain.

His heart sank. For some reason, the force that had sent him here had vanished without a trace, impossible to measure and impossible to trace back.

He stood silently for a while, finally wrapped his windbreaker tightly around himself, and walked along the long sloping road toward the village at the foot of the hill. The snow was deep up to his calves, and the damp, cold snow air climbed up his legs. He walked down with great effort, his long trail of footprints the only ones on the snowy road. Occasionally, the swirling wind would whip up a small cluster of snowflakes, dancing beside him like invisible spirits; in the ethereal mist, there seemed to be a woman's singing. He steadied himself, refusing to focus on the faint singing in the wind, nor did he waste energy testing the power behind it. Intuition told him that before the real master appeared, he needed to conserve his energy.

Although the snowy road was difficult to travel, the village was soon before him. There was a small crossroads in front of the village, just like the story Luo Qi told. He took a deep breath; in the yard on the right, there was only a pile of rubble, the house no longer existing, and on the left, facing the street, was a small, low-roofed earthen house, obscuring the courtyard behind it. The sky grew darker, twilight closed in, and the courtyard behind the earthen house could no longer be seen clearly.

Du Zhengyi walked toward the house. There was no light inside. He steadied himself and suddenly pushed open the door.

In an instant, the wind also went quiet.

The earthen house, which looked intact from the outside, had a large hole in its roof, and the straw of the roof was exposed like intestines outside a belly. The ghostly blue moonlight passed through the hole and fell into the center of the room. Du Zhengyi stared blankly at a white-haired old man squatting in the moonlight in the room, his white hair, messy like a lion's mane, dyed ghostly blue by the moonlight. If his gaze were not as sharp as lightning, perhaps Du Zhengyi would have thought he was just a madman who had wandered here.

In fact, he was basically already a madman. He looked at Du Zhengyi, his eyes flashing with frantic amusement, and made a face at Du Zhengyi.

How familiar!

Du Zhengyi swallowed hard.

"You," the old madman said, standing up from the ground.

He looked around himself, looked at Du Zhengyi, and then looked behind Du Zhengyi, his gaze constantly shifting direction as if his attention could not be focused and his mind was not sound. Then he sniffed, rubbed his nose with his right fist, and muttered, "How nice. The day before yesterday I only saw a rat here, yesterday I saw a hyena here, and today I see you."

Du Zhengyi did not understand; the things he said were as difficult to comprehend as the things Luo Qi sometimes said, as if they came from a world different from his own. Suddenly, he froze. This thought, like a flash of lightning, streaked across his mind but struck his chest. He took a step back, fearfully re-examining the old man's features. In those turbid, aged eyes, there was a trace of strange light, carrying a familiar mischievousness.

Almost immediately, he caught his gaze, as if he could intercept his thoughts. The old madman broke into a smile that was cunning to the point of cruelty, looked at him sharply, and winked at him, as if to see if he dared to reveal the answer to the riddle.

"Luo Qi?" His chest heaved violently, and spitting out this terrifying answer almost suffocated him.

"Haha." The old madman almost jumped up, shouting happily, "How long has it been since we met, old friend? Let me calculate. The day before yesterday you were at Langhuan Pavilion, yesterday you were at Qijia Youfang Village..."

A heavy fear pressed upon Du Zhengyi's heart, not for his current predicament, but for the mistake he might have made. Had he not managed to help Luo Qi escape the tearing of that force field at all? Mages could not fully explain the principles of the Pendragon Track; there were already many problems within it, not to mention that some Great Mages often illegally linked complex space-time traps within it.

This cold thought almost swallowed him. Could it be that Luo Qi was trapped in a trap where the regional clock had experienced decades or even hundreds of years? He was only one step behind Luo Qi, yet he was already decades late. Had Luo Qi been tortured here for a long time, and then finally gone mad?

The old madman seemed to read his answer, his whole body excited to the point of exploding, circling in the center of the ruined house, "Yes, yes, you figured it out! You really are a genius! I envy you so much, I have always envied you so much. You are always such a genius! Unlike me."

Du Zhengyi opened his mouth with difficulty, but was speechless, "I..."

The old madman's expression became complex, becoming almost more like the youthful Luo Qi from a few hours ago. Du Zhengyi heard him mumbling and repeating over and over in his mouth, all "Unlike me." His hands began to tremble, and he could not say whether it was because of self-reproach or because of seeing with his own eyes a person's vitality being drained away to nothing.

Just as his emotions were in chaos, the silence was suddenly broken. A drum sound, "Dong," was struck silently from the depths of the village.

Du Zhengyi vigilantly restrained his Qi.

The old madman suddenly covered his mouth, a pair of once-passionate eyes shining unnaturally above his palms, as if unable to suppress his excitement, an excitement that made his aged, thin body tremble like a withered branch.

"Oh my," he said, smiling sweetly like a little girl, glancing slyly at Du Zhengyi, as if he were about to tell him a shocking secret, saying warmly yet in a low voice, "They are coming!"

The old madman chuckled, retreated, and cowered in the corner of the room, his eyes, however, staring at Du Zhengyi with ill intent.

Du Zhengyi had no time to think further; his intuition told him something was approaching, and the sound of the war drums made his heart feel like it was about to explode. He turned abruptly and exited the old house. If Luo Qi had lived here for a long time, he must know how to avoid danger; the house he stayed in must be safe. He could see that Luo Qi was full of resentment and malice toward him, but that was indeed his fault, and he did not want to lead danger to him. He could handle the danger outside, and after that, he still wanted to take Luo Qi back.

But back to where? He heard a restless voice in the depths of his heart asking in despair. Those stolen years had already been consumed. Could they return to the school? Return to the teacher? The teacher could not solve problems outside the exam paper, could he?

He threw out a beam of light in anger, and a circle of flames ignited on the snow. He glared at the black shadows appearing from the darkness. Stars twinkled in the clear night sky above the hills. He smelled the stench of excrement mixed with the smell of blood. Before he could think of what kind of weapon to condense, his rage helped him choose a heavy sword.

With his hands covered by the hilt of the heavy sword, a portion of the virtual power helped him manipulate the blade, and he slashed out the first strike fiercely. The heavy blade severed the cold body, and the zombie-like puppet fell. He turned around, meeting a pair of withered eyes, and the stiff body lunged at him.

He dealt with it calmly, using hand-to-hand combat to find the rules within. Traps were often placed in a Sandbox; the Mage's creations existed within the box, avoiding interference with the real world, so as not to leave traces to be discovered by the Enforcement Committee, while also being able to create his own rules within the scope of the box.

The rules of a world within a box were limited, but it was like an exquisite maze; the more talented a person was, the more complex and ingenious a Sandbox they would design. Some vicious Mages used this as a trap, like weaving a spider web to catch prey. However, some Mages were simply bored; they created exquisite Sandboxes, discarded them at will, and waited for misguided travelers to have bad luck, but the purpose was merely to show off their exquisite technique.

This one before him was more like the former.

Finding the zombie's movement rules was not too difficult; he summoned hundreds of weapons to sever the zombie's pelvic bones. The snowy ground was silent for a moment, but then, as if receiving a silent command, the puppet with the broken spine used its shoulders and legs as support, crawling on the ground like a caterpillar, surging toward Du Zhengyi once again. The scene was hair-raising and nauseating. The first human caterpillar crawled to his feet and sprang up just like a snake attacking. The eager, greedy dead face flashed before him, and he kicked the thing away.

He pondered while continuing the battle.

The earthen house behind him was silent; the old madman seemed to have fallen asleep.

The twinkling stars in the sky had disappeared.

Fire could cleanse all the filth in the world.

The sky was left with only nothingness; it was a thick mass of clouds.

The temperature suddenly rose.

Fire.

A torrential downpour arrived as scheduled, extinguishing the fire he had scattered earlier to dispel the darkness.

Du Zhengyi finally understood; he threw away the heavy sword in his hand, letting it quickly decompose and become the basic matter that constituted this world.

A caterpillar with a black head crawled to his feet and sprang up like a snake. He did not resist; the thing grabbed his neck and squeezed it shut fiercely.

Du Zhengyi woke up with a start. The zombies, the old madman, the deserted village, and the floating mountain had all disappeared. He was lying on the ground in the backyard in the countryside, right next to the well, and he believed his car was still parked outside the front door. Thick fog covered everything here, and the fog carried a spicy, smoky smell that made him cough violently. He sat up, coughing while rubbing his neck; the pain of having his neck broken by the zombie puppet in the Illusion still lingered.

He had just finally figured out that he was not in a Sandbox, but an Illusion. The rules in the box changed according to his thoughts, just like a mirror of his mind; as soon as his heart moved, the rules compensated. He thought of fire, and it rained in the box immediately. But there was no such box in this world. Unless he himself was the box.

He stood up, looking around with lingering fear. Everything was quiet, and he could not feel Luo Qi's presence. However, there was someone outside the front door.

The ancient well, the thick fog, everything was similar to the scene in the story, and the knocking on the door from the story rang out abruptly. Du Zhengyi turned around, walked quietly through the corridor, and opened the front door.

In the thick fog, the obscure moonlight fell on the person. She still looked pale and fragile, with deep dark circles under her eyes. It was just that she was no longer as cute as yesterday, her expression as hollow as a Ghost.