Chapter 11: Mage

"You are not a Mage." Du Zhengyi stopped his Calculation, looked at her without much emotion, and said straightforwardly.

This sentence was not a question. Guan Xinyue blinked, hesitated for only a moment, and then smiled again in an instant, as if she had given up on the idea of lying, enthusiastically confirming his judgment. "I am not a Mage."

"But you know our world very well." Du Zhengyi added. She not only knew, but easily judged their identities and lured them here.

"I wouldn't call it knowing." Guan Xinyue smiled sharply again. "It's just that there are four Mages among the seven people in my family; Mages are not exactly rare in our house."

"Indeed." Du Zhengyi expressed agreement modestly, pulling his hands out of his trouser pockets. "I forgot that point."

Guan Xinyue put away her smile and stared fixedly at Du Zhengyi's hands, as if she had caught the scent of danger out of thin air.

"Where is your friend?" She reminded him, and also warned him.

Du Zhengyi ignored her game; he did not like to follow others' pace, nor did he have any interest in guessing riddles. He had not forgotten that the old house he was in had devoured the lives of three Mages. Perhaps even four lives, including the young girl in the photograph. Sometimes, some Mages would become obsessed with humans and reveal their secrets in violation of the rules; their superior power was not necessarily a match for humans skilled in trickery. Therefore, he was unwilling to deal with humans, nor was he willing to waste time.

He raised one hand, and the air he loosely grasped in his palm cooled rapidly, condensing into water, and in almost an instant, the water turned into ice.

"Wait a moment." Guan Xinyue shouted, her face drained of color. "Do you not care about your friend's life at all?"

Du Zhengyi suddenly discerned that she was straining her will to gamble with him; she was on the verge of hysteria. He hadn't been wrong yesterday either; she was supported by a flame, and regardless of whether she could achieve her goal, that cluster of flames would eventually burn her to ashes. She understood this herself, yet she did not care, like a destitute gambler making a final attempt.

He suddenly changed his mind, took a step forward, and closed in on the pale girl; she gasped sharply. He continued forward, and the dim moonlight outside the window cast a shadow before him. Guan Xinyue held her breath; all the dominant disguises had almost fallen away, and she was already too terrified to move.

He continued his test, the ice block suspended above his palm gradually being elongated and thinned; he sculpted it with his Yajian until the ice shard became thin and sharp, increasingly resembling a blade.

The look in Guan Xinyue's eyes as she watched him was no longer just fear, but also more disgust—it was practically deep-seated hatred.

"Truly impressive." Guan Xinyue mocked him in a strange tone; she glared at him with hysterical, red eyes and said irritably, "Kill me if you want, you Primary Mage are useless anyway; your friend will spend his whole life in a place you will never find!"

"Perhaps I..." Du Zhengyi's threat was interrupted by music before he could finish.

Guan Xinyue trembled, startled by the sound, her pupils shrinking sharply; it took her a full few sentences' worth of time to realize her phone was ringing.

Du Zhengyi was surprised to see her spare the mental energy to even glance at her phone screen. He felt a bit depressed and began to wish that the person who had fallen into the trap was himself. If Luo Qi were standing here—although Luo Qi was not even as good at being a Mage as he was at being a magician—he would certainly be better at handling this kind of situation than him.

"You have no help," Du Zhengyi said. He spun and toyed with the ice blade at his fingertips, then let it slide from his fingertips, fall to the ground, and shatter into two pieces, rapidly dissolving, vaporizing, and finally disappearing without a trace in the air. "If some Mage deceived you and made you their spokesperson, I advise you to tell me who they are, then go back and study hard; don't get involved in our affairs. If your family has a habit of slaughtering Mages... you shouldn't intentionally attract our attention either. Fire is not meant to be played with like that."

Guan Xinyue glared at him, her eyes still appearing very bright in the increasingly thick darkness of the room. She was also observing Du Zhengyi, her gaze thawing from the previous hollow state, becoming increasingly complex.

"Don't keep pretending to be a child. According to human terms, what should you be called? A pervert?" Du Zhengyi continued solemnly; he seemed to deduce a word from the air. "A perverted Mage-killing maniac? How ridiculous, like an infant murderer."

"Are you a police officer?" Guan Xinyue asked suddenly, suspiciously.

Du Zhengyi ignored her words and looked at her indifferently. Her phone rang again; this time, even she ignored it, and the phone rang persistently for a while before falling silent.

Guan Xinyue shook her head and answered her own question. "You are not from the Executive Committee; you are too young."

"If I were from the Executive Committee, I would be responsible for dealing with the Mage who leaked so much information to you."

Guan Xinyue gave a desolate smile. "Did you lose your memory? They are all already dead."

"Isn't there one left?" Du Zhengyi replied smoothly.

Guan Xinyue stared straight at him. "She is still alive? You came here just to kill her?"

Du Zhengyi was also watching her, assessing the change in the situation. "Why would I want to kill anyone?" He said, both hands tucked back into his trouser pockets, his body posture relaxing.

The phone rang again. He suddenly felt the melody of the ringtone was somewhat familiar, and after a moment of thought, he felt as if he could even remember the lyrics; it seemed to be...

"O soul, come back! The East is not to be trusted. Tall men a thousand fathoms high, only the soul is sought. Ten suns rise in turn, melting metal and scorching stone. They are all accustomed to it; if the soul goes, it will surely be released. Come back, come back! It is not to be trusted."

He became dazed; although he dared not let Guan Xinyue out of his sight, the lyrics became increasingly clear.

"O soul, come back! The South is not to be stayed in. With tattooed faces and black teeth, they obtain human flesh to sacrifice, using their bones as mincemeat. Vipers are thick, and foxes are a thousand miles long. Nine-headed serpents come and go in a flash, swallowing men to benefit their hearts. Come back, come back! It is not to be lingered in for long."

Sentence by sentence, it seemed as if someone were truly singing. The singing did not come from the girl's phone; it was ethereal and drifting, as if someone were softly singing deep within his mind, every word and every sentence, and he heard it clearly. The tone was soothing, softly calling to him. Calling for his soul to return. He remembered this song; he remembered every word. He softly chimed in, and a flash of clarity suddenly crossed his heart.

He opened his eyes once more. The surroundings were dim, and a cluster of flames on the ground burned listlessly; the flickering light faintly illuminated the walls built of red brick. In the darkness above, which felt like a void, hung a pale, round spot. He guessed he was likely at the bottom of a well.

Immediately after, an enlarged face suddenly appeared in his line of sight, blocking most of his field of vision. "Damn it," he said listlessly, "Luo Qi, stay away from me."

Luo Qi shrank back, his pair of pitch-black eyes still staring at him brightly, closely monitoring his every move. "You're finally awake. I don't know what you saw, but those were all hallucinations."

He slowly braced his body and sat up; the world was spinning, his head was light, and he felt a bit nauseated.

Luo Qi reached out to help him, saying, "This is reality now. To prevent you from getting confused, I can say some things you would never expect."

Du Zhengyi knew it wasn't a hallucination now, but he was too lazy to talk to Luo Qi. Luo Qi unilaterally announced loudly, "My favorite book is *Jin Ping Mei*, and I can recite it backward."

Du Zhengyi paused; he truly did not know what that was.

However, a voice said tremblingly, "You're sick."

Du Zhengyi turned his head and saw a little girl sitting huddled by the wall, hugging her knees; it was the real Guan Xinyue.

Luo Qi laughed out loud. "Being able to recite it is just bragging."

Du Zhengyi glanced at Luo Qi; being able to see that he was still a brat was comforting. In his relief, he didn't even have the heart to beat him up. "You woke me up?" He looked around; the bottom of the well was spacious and dry, like a renovated basement.

Luo Qi did not answer immediately, which was somewhat inconsistent with his love for bragging. Du Zhengyi looked at him again, and only then did he mumble, "I followed the method in the textbook, but I don't know if it was right, and I don't know if you'll have any aftereffects or something..."

"I'm fine." Du Zhengyi interrupted him. "Are you two okay?"

"I dragged Guan Xinyue to the backyard; their family's Pandragorn Orbital Station is in this well. Honestly, her Houye is a real pervert. Every time I think about someone possibly seeing him going in and out of the well, I..." Luo Qi shuddered. "But she—I'm pointing at you, so what—it's her, she knows everything. When she couldn't struggle free at the door, she kicked a stone drum, and as a result, we were just dragged down by the broken orbital power, and didn't fall into hallucinations like you."

"How dare you say that? You have the nerve to drag a girl to death, just relying on your thick arms and strong legs?" Guan Xinyue raised her head and glared at him resentfully. "Do you have any integrity at all!"

Luo Qi stood up abruptly and threw down four words with a resounding thud: "The one who provokes is base!"

"You!" Guan Xinyue glared at Luo Qi and suddenly burst into tears.

Du Zhengyi's head throbbed; he tugged on Luo Qi's pant leg. "That's enough, she's only sixteen, can you give her a little slack?"

Luo Qi hadn't expected her to cry. He looked at the weeping girl in astonishment, with an expression like he had stepped in excrement—misfortune mixed with depression—and he flashed behind Du Zhengyi to sit down, staying far away from Guan Xinyue.

Du Zhengyi rubbed his aching temples and glanced at the ghost-fire-like flame Luo Qi had started. He sighed, adjusted the elemental composition of the combustion, and the campfire began to burn steadily and vigorously. Then, he looked at the girl who was still shedding tears. He did not comfort her, but said calmly, "Why are you letting Luo Qi make you cry? This is such a trivial matter. Besides, someone like you, who has lost several relatives in a row, should have known long ago that crying is useless."

As if there were some strange component in his words, Luo Qi quietly poked his head out from behind Du Zhengyi and saw that Guan Xinyue had actually stopped crying, her expression becoming inexplicably real. After those traces of hysteria or trance faded away, she looked more like a real sixteen-year-old girl.

Du Zhengyi watched her quietly and asked in a low voice by the campfire at the bottom of the well, "Who set this Illusion Trap?"

Guan Xinyue did not answer; she lowered her head and also looked at the campfire.

"It was your grandfather." Du Zhengyi answered for her.

"When I was little." Guan Xinyue began, her voice already hoarse. "Grandfather would sometimes give me a small ball of fire, kept in a glass jar. I had to remember to feed it some dried lemongrass every day, and the little fire ball would live for a long time, and it had a pleasant smell."

Luo Qi remembered he had one too when he was a child; it was a traditional gift for Mages to tease children. Once, he fed his fire ball corn, and it ended up exploding a jar full of popcorn, and the fire ball was gone. That time, he was scolded terribly by his family, who said he had violated the beautiful original intention of the traditional custom. He himself felt a bit embarrassed, and even more so because it was spread among the other children and became a laughingstock. Now that Guan Xinyue mentioned it, he suddenly felt that the difference between Guan Xinyue and him was not that great, and she didn't seem so much like a perverted shrew anymore. He felt a bit embarrassed about his own simple and crude behavior just now.

Du Zhengyi's expression was faint as he kept his gaze on Guan Xinyue's face, "Your relationship wasn't that bad either."

Guan Xinyue gave a strange laugh, "Sometimes I really wish our relationship had been bad; that way, even if they all died, it wouldn't have been a big deal."

She's a pervert in that way! Luo Qi thought to himself, or else she's just in a rebellious, adolescent phase.

Du Zhengyi, however, suddenly said from the side, "This is a way of self-repairing after suffering severe psychological trauma."

Luo Qi shrank his neck, feeling as though Du Zhengyi's words were directed at him, as if he could hear his inner thoughts right now. He hurriedly dropped those critical thoughts and observed the campfire Du Zhengyi had processed; they were just campfires, only good for warmth and light, very boring. He moved his intent and added a few dry Pine Branches to the fire. The Pine Branches burned in the flames, emitting a pleasant, slight crackling sound, making it seem more like a real campfire. He was satisfied with the cozy environment he had created, and while listening to Du Zhengyi and Guan Xinyue talk, he added two more Pine Branches to the fire.

"But this is wrong," Guan Xinyue said. Her eyes were large, and tears flowed once more from those eyes that had suffered so much shock and despair; she seemed not to have noticed her own tears at all. "I want to know who killed them! I want to drag those people out! I grew up by their side since I was small, and I never thought we were different, until they all disappeared, and I realized I was powerless. I know Mages exist! I know your world exists! But what good is that? Your world, in the end, destroyed my world!"

Luo Qi was startled by the heaviness and hatred in her tone, and he absentmindedly whittled a new batch of Pine Branches.

"Hatred," Du Zhengyi took a deep breath and said suddenly.

Luo Qi was taken aback; the way Du Zhengyi spoke was like a human AI—what normal person phrased things like that?

Du Zhengyi quickly switched modes himself, his tone gaining more color, "You want to kill Mages because you are too full of hatred, so you don't care about the cost. You understand how our world operates, so you found a way to lure Mages in."

Luo Qi had thought of this point too.

Then Du Zhengyi spat out a single word, "Anxiety."

He paused, his ink-colored eyes looking deeply at the girl, his pupils slightly dilated; as if because of the illumination of the campfire, dark currents seemed to be swirling in those eyes, and the light in them was startlingly bright. "Oh—" he suddenly sighed in a low voice, "Anxiety is because you are hiding... hiding what? Hiding information about another girl."

Guan Xinyue gasped, stood up abruptly, and panted as she glared at Du Zhengyi, "You... get out! Are you in my brain? Are you looking at my thoughts?"

Luo Qi was stunned in astonishment; he hadn't even thought of that—this girl was truly smart.

Du Zhengyi did not stand up; his expression became leisurely again, and he waved his hand at Guan Xinyue in a friendly manner, "I can only see some emotions, at most some fleeting glimpses of thought. You should sit down so we can talk better. Even if you are a little girl, you have to be reasonable, don't you? You understand our world, right? Look at the age of Luo Qi and me; we aren't enough to plot the big event of killing three Mages, are we? What's more, we are no match for a Great Mage like your grandfather."

Guan Xinyue stared at him defensively.

He smiled, "I just don't want to be deceived again. But don't worry, I won't look into your brain again; I don't have that much mental energy to expend. I am not good at Mind Control, and I also consumed too much mental energy in the Illusion just now."

He was indeed very tired; the exhaustion was almost impossible to hide.

Guan Xinyue stood with her back pressed tightly against the cold wall, and Du Zhengyi waited patiently for her until she finally leaned against the wall and slid to the ground.

"I have never seen a Mage from the outside," she said vaguely.

Du Zhengyi replied, "Mages usually don't like to live in groups."

"I mean, even after my grandfather, Gugu, and Gufu all died, not a single Mage came to the door to ask," Guan Xinyue said. "If it were us humans, the police would have come to the door long ago."

"Our people must have come," Du Zhengyi said without hesitation. "They wouldn't be seen by humans; we have standard procedures for handling Mage affairs that involve living among humans. And I think the investigation result must have been death by natural causes."

"Liar!" Guan Xinyue said suddenly, furious, "My grandfather wouldn't die of alcohol poisoning! A person like him could die in any way, but he would never drink himself to death!"

Du Zhengyi pondered without speaking.

"Besides," Guan Xinyue said again, "after my grandfather passed away, my sister went missing." She gritted her teeth, spitting out the words one by one, desperate and hateful. "Do you, really, care?"

Du Zhengyi was quite hesitant. He wanted to reason with Guan Xinyue, but the little girl was clearly blinded by hatred. Although he could explain the rules of how Mages act, all explanations meant little to a little girl who had lost her relatives. Moreover, he had clearly had a falling out with the little girl again, and he didn't know how much time would be wasted trying to clarify what she knew.

Just as he was in a dilemma, head bowed in thought, a loud noise suddenly came to his ears. He was startled, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw flames soar into the air, and the girl screamed.

Du Zhengyi instinctively raised a Shield to protect the three of them, then only after making room did he control the fire. Once he restored the campfire to its normal size, he roared in unbearable anger, "Luo Qi!"

He had noticed just now that Luo Qi had been diligently throwing things into the fire.

Luo Qi was now standing behind him, pressed against the wall in a panic, cowardly and exposed.

"Come over and sit in front of me, let me see your two hands," Du Zhengyi said furiously.

This was an overbearing, merciless, and particularly jerk-like request. But Luo Qi, who had already scared himself into a daze, was not in the right anyway, so he actually tiptoed and, admitting defeat, walked to the front, sitting down across from the campfire in a pincer position with Guan Xinyue.

With this unexpected turn of events, Du Zhengyi and Guan Xinyue fell silent for a while. Guan Xinyue was startled and needed to steady her mind, while Du Zhengyi was likely just angry. Luo Qi looked at him pitifully several times, and seeing that it was unlikely he would pay attention to him in the short term, he turned to Guan Xinyue. After hearing her talk for a while, he also felt some sympathy for her, and his anger had dissipated quite a bit.

Just like that, almost completely unaware, Luo Qi sat by the fire and said a sentence that settled the matter, "The Mage World is just like that."

Guan Xinyue turned her head to look at him, and her expression actually softened, leaving only exhaustion on her face.

Du Zhengyi hurriedly seized the opportunity to ask, "What you said about the situation of your family's death yesterday, it's all true, right?"

Guan Xinyue nodded and added, "My sister went missing after my grandfather passed away. She was supposed to go to college, you know... the kind of college you have. But she went missing before school started. She hasn't called me once in such a long time; I know something must have happened to her."

"Oh," Luo Qi said, "so you wrote those ghost-hunting posts to get in touch with the Mage World? But you were also worried about attracting a murderer, so you wanted to try to strike first?"

Guan Xinyue straightened her neck with reserve, a different person from the one who was crying and begging them to catch ghosts yesterday.

Luo Qi sneered, "If you want to ask for help, just say so."

Guan Xinyue turned her head, stared at him from above the campfire, and unceremoniously looked him up and down, "Asking you, is it useful? Didn't you say you aren't a Mage? Since you aren't a Mage, how are you any different from me? Can you do what I can't do? Because you have thick arms and strong legs?"

Luo Qi's face turned red.

Du Zhengyi glanced at him and took over the topic, "Before your grandfather passed away, was there really anything unusual?"

Guan Xinyue caught her breath, and a truly troubled look added to her expression, "He was a bit unusual; it was as if his brain was overwhelmed. Sometimes he would ramble on, saying a lot of things I didn't quite understand; sometimes he was terrified, sometimes angry, and sometimes he would stand by the window alone for hours, staring blankly. When I talked to him, he didn't react."

Luo Qi felt that for a sixteen-year-old girl in her rebellious adolescent phase, everything she said was a bit exaggerated, and she misused metaphors. She hadn't seen much of the world, so how would she know what a person's brain looked like when it was overwhelmed? He glanced at Du Zhengyi and found that he was listening thoughtfully, but his expression was serious. He didn't want to express an opinion and provoke Guan Xinyue into attacking him with sharp words again.

Guan Xinyue continued, "At that time, there was indeed a woman who was very close to my Gufu. She lived in this village. I met her several times when I went for a walk with Gugu. Every time, she would glare at Gugu strangely, and Gugu was, of course, very angry when she saw her. She was the daughter of a family in this village. I heard she originally attended a health school and worked as a nurse in a private hospital in the city after graduation, and even married a Doctor there. But later, I don't know how, she got divorced, lost her job, and moved back to her parents' home in the countryside. Just like that, she met my Gufu."

"Attended a health school, was a nurse," Du Zhengyi repeated, "You mean to say, she is a human?"

Guan Xinyue nodded, "A human. So I don't understand either, how a human could take a Mage's life. And my sister said that my grandfather was a very powerful Great Mage." She paused, showing some of a little girl's expression, and added anxiously, "My sister definitely wasn't bragging."

"She certainly wasn't bragging," Du Zhengyi said. "The Illusion he laid out here can still be used after so long, and it's so complex; only a Great Mage could do that."

Luo Qi suddenly felt that Du Zhengyi was quite gentle. Although he had a serious face, this sentence was clearly meant to comfort the little girl, which made Du Zhengyi seem truly very old—old enough to know how to accommodate and care for others.

"My Gugu hadn't really been sick before," Guan Xinyue said in a low voice, "Suddenly, she had a heart attack."

"Did you see that woman later?" Du Zhengyi asked.

Guan Xinyue's expression was somewhat disgusted and somewhat awkward, "She would often return to Jingtu Temple; I saw her several times."

"Temple?" Du Zhengyi was a bit surprised, "Can monks marry and have children?"

Guan Xinyue was stunned, looking at Du Zhengyi as if he were a monster, "Of course not, she wasn't going home; she was going there to burn incense." After she finished speaking, the expression on her face became even more awkward, as if she were looking up at the mouth of the well as a conditioned reflex, and her voice became softer, as if she were afraid of being heard by someone. "I heard... I heard from the girls in the village that burning incense at Jingtu Temple is very effective, and whatever you ask for will be rewarded."

Luo Qi's heart stirred, "Every wish will be rewarded? Just a small temple in the countryside?"

"That is the Jingtu Sect," Guan Xinyue said. "I heard that if you want to get what you ask for, you need to accumulate enough merit first. The greater the desire, the more merit you need to accumulate. I don't believe gods and Buddhas would listen to people's evil thoughts, but having heard many rumors, I am still a bit afraid. My grandfather and Nainai didn't like this temple at all and always hoped that we sisters would stay away from it."

"Then why live next to the temple?" Luo Qi asked curiously.

"When we first lived here, there was no temple; next door were just a few dilapidated rooms that locals said were the ruins of a temple. About four or five years ago, a gang leader suddenly washed his hands of the underworld and returned to his hometown. Perhaps he felt that even though he had put down his butcher's knife, he might not necessarily become a Buddha, so he donated money to build a temple there and even went through the motions of inviting a monk to live in it. That man originally wanted to name the temple after his own father, but the monk refused to comply even at the cost of his life, so he beat the monk up and chased him away. Later on, that gang leader died of illness, but the temple had already been built. Then, one day, a few monks moved in, and suddenly the temple became very efficacious; many people from out of town even traveled from afar to burn incense," Guan Xinyue said.

Luo Qi gave a "ha" sound, "If her wish was to kill people, how many would she have to set free to make up for it? Did she really set fish roe free?"

Du Zhengyi, however, suddenly looked at Luo Qi, "What about you? Don't you want to go to the temple and try making a wish?"

Luo Qi was a bit surprised. Of course he wanted to go and see, but he couldn't gauge Du Zhengyi's temperament and was afraid he was being sarcastic to tease him. After all, he had already been reckless once today, and he knew from Du Zhengyi's listless appearance that he had been harmed quite badly by him. A genius is always impatient, and Du Zhengyi's temper was not very good; he reckoned that the quota for causing trouble he could allocate to himself today must have been used up, so he had best not rashly walk into a trap and deliver himself to be scolded.

He hesitated for the length of a single sentence, and Du Zhengyi seemed to be annoyed again. Without waiting for his answer, he suddenly asked, "Have you studied the principles of spatial movement?"

This topic... was too jumpy. Luo Qi couldn't quite connect, "I have... studied it a little." But that was only learning some basic theories in introductory classes; it couldn't be called a deep understanding.

Du Zhengyi nodded, however, and suddenly began to explain various bits of knowledge about instantaneous spatial traversal to him. Du Zhengyi's speaking style was concise and comprehensive. Although Luo Qi had studied many of the things he said in class, the angle from which Du Zhengyi explained them was very different. Areas that had once felt vague to Luo Qi were broken down in a few words, and Luo Qi actually understood them. Later, Luo Qi reflected on it; Du Zhengyi's explanations were full of pragmatic characteristics, and many things were based on experience rather than profound theory.

Du Zhengyi seemed to be enjoying the lecture, completely leaving Guan Xinyue behind. Carried away by his interest, he even displayed mathematical Calculation formulas out of thin air, using jumping out of a well as an example to demonstrate to Luo Qi how to set the Coordinate from here to the flat ground in the backyard and how to choose the reference frame.

The lesson finished, and Du Zhengyi stood up, "I am now going to shut down this broken hub station from below."

Luo Qi exchanged a glance with Guan Xinyue, then both followed Du Zhengyi's movements, watching him open a wall niche and remove the artificial Crystal inside.

Luo Qi began to understand, "Then how do we get up? It's fine if you don't take me; I'll apply for a rope, and I can climb up myself."

Du Zhengyi walked back, one hand landing on Guan Xinyue's forearm to help her up from the ground, his right hand pressing against her waist. However, his face was always turned toward Luo Qi, a trace of a particularly cheerful smile on his face, "Remember the story of the little fox spirit I told? Don't get yourself stuck in the wall; you must be careful."

Luo Qi was completely stunned. Guan Xinyue only had time to glance at his blank face before she felt a sense of compression around her body; the feeling was very unreal, coming and going quickly. Once she steadied herself, she realized she was standing face-to-face with Du Zhengyi in her kitchen.

Du Zhengyi let go of her and turned to rummage through her kitchen. Finally, he found a bag of tea in the upper cabinet, looked at it, and then began to boil water.

Guan Xinyue looked uneasily through the window at the backyard in the thick fog; the well they had just been in could hardly be seen in the night. Thinking that Luo Qi was really still in there, she felt a bit uncomfortable. After a moment of thought, she reached out and turned on the backyard lights.

"Are you really not going to bring him up? I heard from my grandfather that spatial movement is extremely difficult; neither my Gugu nor my Gufu can do it."

Du Zhengyi watched with satisfaction as the water in the kettle began to boil. He brewed a pot of tea and poured a cup for Guan Xinyue as well, "I just wanted to see if he would dare to jump the threshold first next time."