Chapter 12

Guan Xinyue sat in her own kitchen, a cup of hot tea placed before her; the kitchen light was as warm as it had always been.

Her Nainai and Gugu both loved to cook, and they spent a lot of time in the kitchen, so naturally, she and her sister often played here after school, sneaking some cookies and juice; later, when her grandfather and Gufu came home, they would also find their way here. Those relaxed laughs and the fragrance of food seemed not to have dissipated from the air yet; she restrained the urge to go to other rooms to look for them, otherwise, she might not be far from truly going insane. She had searched here alone countless times, knowing full well she wouldn't find them, knowing full well they no longer existed.

She touched the ceramic teacup filled with hot tea, warming her chilled fingertips, and slowly forced her nerves to relax. Withdrawing her thoughts, she suddenly felt a bit of curiosity about Du Zhengyi; he had been sitting there drinking tea very quietly, as if he didn't intend to sleep tonight. Guan Xinyue remembered that coffee and tea worked the same way on Mages; their physical structures really weren't that different, although that tiny bit of difference in their brains made them completely two different species.

She stole another glance at Du Zhengyi; he had the typical characteristics of their race—tall, good-looking, and possessing a cold temperament. Luo Qi, honestly, didn't look much like a Mage; medium build, easygoing personality, a pair of eyes that were always brimming with light, and facial expressions that were erratic—it wasn't hard to see that his inner world must be constantly turbulent. In other words, Luo Qi was a total drama queen. She was somewhat glad that it was Du Zhengyi she was alone with right now; being with Luo Qi was truly too exhausting. Du Zhengyi could swallow her emotions, while Luo Qi could set off another firecracker on top of all her emotions.

"Is Luo Qi really not a Mage?" She had originally been grateful for Du Zhengyi's silence, but who knew that after half an hour of relative silence, she couldn't stand this silence anymore.

Du Zhengyi seemed to wake up from Meditation, looking quite puzzled as he pondered her question for a long while before saying, "He said that himself?"

Guan Xinyue nodded, "He hasn't made a sound now, you really don't need to go check..."

Du Zhengyi didn't answer, only turning his gaze slightly toward the window; thick fog still shrouded everything. "I came here at the time you mentioned in your story, wanting to verify what you said as much as possible. You hinted at the relationship between the old well and your grandfather; there's nothing to say about that, but how did you predict the time the fog would rise?"

Guan Xinyue looked out the window, "That's not all fog; it's smoke. The air quality is terrible now; the villagers are used to starting fires to keep warm when the sun sets, and the emitted smoke quickly turns into smog; the air is even worse than in the city."

Du Zhengyi revealed a look of realization and asked again, "Has it always been like this?"

"It's been like this for these past few years."

"Was it like this when your grandfather lived here?"

"Yeah." Guan Xinyue was finally a bit surprised. "Why? The general environment is just like this; the whole north is like this. What does it have to do with my grandfather?"

Du Zhengyi looked at her, "Mages like your grandfather have the ability to disperse small-scale smog."

She froze.

"To get along with humans, we always have to think of ways to keep the surroundings from being too noisy or too dirty," Du Zhengyi said.

Guan Xinyue's brows arched again.

Du Zhengyi continued, "If we didn't have the ability to purify the air, water, and noise, we would have no choice but to purify the humans."

Guan Xinyue gasped, the sarcasm she was about to spit out swallowed back down hard.

As it turned out, Du Zhengyi laughed; she was greatly shocked, realizing that this Mage was just joking with her.

The smile was fleeting; Du Zhengyi pushed his teacup toward Guan Xinyue, and she subconsciously picked up the teapot to fill it for him; it was only when she got up to refill the teapot with water that she remembered why she was doing this chore.

But Du Zhengyi's next sentence immediately grabbed her attention, making her forget the trivial matter of pouring tea and water. "If a Mage doesn't want to use their ability, it must be to better live in seclusion."

"Seclusion?" Guan Xinyue repeated the two words, "No one could discover their identities anyway; in this day and age, who would believe in Superpowered Beings? Marvel fanboys? At most, they'd think our family had a deity possession, and burning some paper at the entrance of the alley would fix it."

"The seclusion I'm talking about," Du Zhengyi patiently pointed out to her, "is seclusion relative to my world. What we want to avoid is also our own kind. How are you as stupid as Luo Qi?"

"Oh." Guan Xinyue lowered her head and rolled her eyes.

"Can I look around?" Du Zhengyi asked.

Guan Xinyue nodded.

Luo Qi sat on the cold ground, quietly waiting for Du Zhengyi's prank to end until his patience ran out. It lasted about three minutes in total.

He was furious; even jokes had to have a limit, let alone the fact that they had only known each other for a few days and weren't familiar at all. Unless this wasn't a joke at all, and Du Zhengyi was just the type to hold a grudge, cold-faced and hard-hearted, the little bastard.

He tried to climb out of the well, but unfortunately, the four walls were all vertical brick, with nowhere to climb. Mages were always blindly confident, unlike sensible humans who, even if they could use an elevator to go up and down, wouldn't forget to build an old-fashioned staircase for emergencies. Mages were much more screwed up; they never thought about what to do if the Pendragon Orbital System malfunctioned one day. Du Zhengyi had only left him one path and gifted him a simplified course. Who knew what the hell that was good for?

Luo Qi worried uselessly for the general public of Mages, walking a circle around the bottom of the well; it was only a space of about forty square meters, so it didn't take long to finish a lap. It was almost empty, with only a wooden shelf hanging on one wall, holding a folding umbrella, a few pieces of expired candy, and a dusty fisherman's hat.

Luo Qi picked up the hat to look at it, and there were a few gray hairs caught inside; it must have been worn by the Old Mage before he died. He put the relic back, muttering a few "Amitabha"s that he didn't mean to take it and for him not to come looking for him.

He studied the Crystal that Du Zhengyi had removed for a while, but unfortunately, the principles of this kind of Crystal were too profound; they were generally made and sold by specific Mage families, and the methods were rarely passed on. The Crystal itself wasn't precious; the value lay in the power stored inside. Specific Crystals would store specific powers. For example, the Crystal used by the Pendragon Orbital System—the Mage's ability for Space Travel.

His mind stirred, and he suddenly thought of a long-circulating theory. It was said that the families who made Crystals were skilled in secret arts, capable of capturing souls, trapping them within the Crystal, and then relying on infinite replication of the Crystal to create infinite soul-slaves. In other words, every Mage family enslaved at least one soul to help them guard the gate. Besides storing the ability for Space Travel, this Crystal also had hallucinogenic abilities added, which could be considered very complex. But if this was originally a Crystal sold by the Pendragon company, it should have been purely for Space Travel, and the hallucinogenic ability should have been added by someone later. Only a Great Mage could modify a Crystal—the Great Mage who set the trap here. That is to say... it was possible, very possible, that Guan Xinyue's grandfather had moved a part of his own soul into this Crystal?

He burned his fingers on his own line of thought.

But for some reason, he didn't want to let go of the Crystal in his hand; instead, he scrutinized it carefully, slowly feeling a bit sad. He didn't know if it was because he thought of these legends about souls, or because he thought of the Old Mage who had lost his beloved daughter. It seemed like neither; he just thought of his own sad affairs. A bone-deep, marrow-piercing sorrow swallowed him, his legs lost the strength to support him, and he sat dejectedly on the ground.

There was one thing, an important thing, something he had sworn never to forget, that he suddenly couldn't remember now. He tried his best to recall, but there was only a large black hole in his mind, radiating intense pain; he couldn't remember what was originally there, only a wound that would never heal, left behind after a memory had been uprooted.

He was unwilling to give up, struggling to recall; for a moment, that thing had been lurking beneath the surface of his memory, ready to emerge, but ultimately it didn't show its face. He let his imagination run wild, full of sorrow, with no end in sight.

"Luo Qi!" Someone was shouting his name loudly.

He raised his head, and Du Zhengyi appeared out of thin air before him, looking down at him, his expression anxious, "What's wrong with you? I felt..."

"I..." He choked.

"Damn it," Du Zhengyi said in horror, "Why are you crying? Crying from anger?"

"I..." Luo Qi came back to his senses, wiping his face messily with his sleeve; he didn't even know he had been crying.

Du Zhengyi looked at him suspiciously, his gaze moving downward, finally seeing the Crystal clutched in his hand. Du Zhengyi froze for a moment, furious, "Didn't your mother tell you not to touch suspicious things?"

Luo Qi was startled, as if he had just realized it, and threw away the hot potato he had been clutching tightly.

The Crystal fell to the ground and shattered into three pieces. He received another death glare from Du Zhengyi, "Did I tell you to break it?"

"I..." Luo Qi was speechless again, but couldn't help but sob; he must have just had a good cry, and now he still couldn't quite catch his breath.

Du Zhengyi glared at him with frustration, wanting to scold him more, but he had already cried so inexplicably, so what effect could words have now?

"What's wrong with you? You don't look like you're caught in a hallucination."

Luo Qi couldn't figure it out either; he didn't know what was wrong with him, but he told the whole story exactly as it happened. Even though he knew the situation just now wasn't normal, that wave of sorrow still lingered around him, and the feeling of loss wouldn't go away.

Unexpectedly, after Du Zhengyi finished listening to what he said, he didn't hesitate at all, flatly denying his suspicion, "That wasn't your emotion, and you didn't forget anything."

"But..." Luo Qi was still a bit suspicious.

Du Zhengyi interrupted him cleanly, "At your age, what kind of painful life experience could you have?"

Although these words were annoying, they were indeed somewhat reasonable. Luo Qi breathed a sigh of relief, as if waking from a nightmare; although that strange feeling in his heart was still there, it was disappearing into the air at an astonishing speed. Du Zhengyi was right; he really didn't have any opportunity for pain. His parents were alive, and his life wasn't exactly what he wanted, but it couldn't be called painful. He hadn't even held a girl's hand, so there was no talk of separation. Besides, if he thought about it a little, no matter which stage of the past, his memories were intact; amnesia was completely nonsense.

"Then... it must have been a hallucination after all," Luo Qi said hesitantly.

Du Zhengyi didn't answer him; he couldn't help but look up at Du Zhengyi, and to his surprise, Du Zhengyi avoided his gaze.

Luo Qi was a bit puzzled, suddenly remembering something else, "How did you suddenly find your conscience and come into the well to fish me out?"

Du Zhengyi furrowed his brows, looking very impatient, "I waited for you for three hours, and I didn't see you try Space Travel even once, so I came down to see why you were such a coward."

"Three hours?" Luo Qi was stunned; to him, it felt like it had only been a minute. But now that he said that, he realized he was frozen through, and his legs and feet were a bit stiff.

"If you hadn't come to find me, I might have frozen to death here," he said gratefully.

Du Zhengyi felt immediately uncomfortable at being spoken to like that by him.

Luo Qi glanced at him, then suddenly realized the crux of the matter with a delayed reaction, "Oh, if I freeze to death here, it'll be because you killed me, feeling guilty now? Since you're so guilty, can you burn paper offerings for me during the holidays?"

Du Zhengyi's face darkened, but he didn't retort.

Luo Qi felt a bit awkward; Du Zhengyi was a man who loved to pull a long face too much. He would joke with you when he wanted to, but just when you thought you were close enough to be buddies and couldn't help but joke back, he would turn hostile the moment he felt like it.

He licked his lips in boredom and embarrassment, wanting to find something trivial to say, but couldn't think of anything, so he just stared blankly as Du Zhengyi crouched down to carefully collect the shattered Crystal. Luo Qi felt annoyed; if it was like this, why didn't you collect the Crystal properly earlier? As if reading his mind, Du Zhengyi glanced at him again, his expression cold and thoughtful.

Luo Qi touched his nose nervously, "What?"

Du Zhengyi didn't answer him, reached out with a sour face, and grabbed his upper arm; the question he was about to ask was shoved back down his throat by an invisible gust of wind. He stumbled and fell against Du Zhengyi, only to be hauled up again; for a moment, the world spun, his stomach churned, and he nearly vomited on the floor.

Fortunately, when he looked up, he was already in a human kitchen with warm lights. There was also a Guan Xinyue who was not quite adjusted yet; she hadn't gotten used to the way Mages came and went without a trace, and was so startled by the sudden appearance of the two men that she jumped up, her back pressed against the cabinet door.

Luo Qi suddenly perked up; although he was still hunched over and fighting nausea, he still had the energy to nitpick her, "Look at how timid you are, and you have the nerve to claim you killed a Mage!"

Unexpectedly, Du Zhengyi spoke gloomily from above his head, "She didn't faint when she came up."

The teasing expression on Luo Qi's face collapsed instantly, and Guan Xinyue looked at him with schadenfreude.

"It seems you really aren't suited for Space Travel," Du Zhengyi added, looking Luo Qi up and down with an evaluative gaze.

"You know by now that throwing me directly into the deep end is useless, right?"

"You're quite proud of that?" Du Zhengyi asked him in disbelief.

Luo Qi grew restless; it wasn't that Du Zhengyi's disparagement hurt him, but he had an intuition that Du Zhengyi didn't trust him, and that observant, suspicious gaze was like static electricity, prickling and itching all over him. He believed he wasn't just guessing; as a Mage Apprentice with basically no ability, he had always gotten by on his intuition. He pondered for three seconds, "Can that Crystal be left in Guan Xinyue's care?"

Both of them looked up at him upon hearing this, and he licked his lips, "That thing seems to have the least effect on her."

Du Zhengyi looked at him calmly, intending to inquire, but also carrying a hint of a threat.

He withstood the pressure, "If you had one hundred percent certainty, you should have taken it away after taking it off the first time, shouldn't you? I bet your teacher would definitely be willing to study this piece of Crystal." Avoiding Du Zhengyi's gaze, he simply took the Crystal fragments out of his pocket himself and shoved them directly to Guan Xinyue.

Guan Xinyue gave a dry laugh, "Swarovski? That's not very popular anymore."

"This might be a clue, you should keep it safe for now," Luo Qi said. Whether it was a psychological effect of self-deception or not, he felt much lighter after handing off this hot potato. "I'm hungry, did you cook?"

Guan Xinyue's expression immediately turned ugly, and she said sharply, "Why should I cook? Because I'm a girl? Are you a male chauvinist?"

"Because this is your house," Luo Qi looked at her, bewildered. "I'm a male chauvinist, are you in the late stages of middle-school syndrome?"

Guan Xinyue glared at him and said stiffly, "I don't know how to cook."

Luo Qi turned to Du Zhengyi helplessly, "How about... you..." He didn't dare finish his sentence; the intuition honed by years of survival crises kicked in again, "How about I go buy some instant noodles?"