Chapter 136: Field of Vision
"You promised me you would look after him, and yet I was gone for only a few minutes, and you tell me he's run off and gotten lost," Du Zhengyi said calmly, though there was fire in his eyes. "Even if I had let you walk a husky for me in the plaza, it wouldn't have been lost faster than this."
Majiang rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "Fine, it's my fault, it really is my fault. But he won't run into any trouble anyway; there's no one and no wild beasts in a forest like this, and even if there were beasts, he could just climb a tree..."
"Majiang, that is not the point," Du Zhengyi said.
"Fine," Majiang said. "But Luo Qi is truly unpleasant to look at. I'll say it again—look at Guan Xinyue—why can't Luo Qi be like Guan Xinyue?"
"If we're going to talk about that, why did you get out of the car first? Didn't the whole thing start with you?" Du Zhengyi said, frowning.
Majiang let out a "Damn it." "Why are you so protective of him?"
Du Zhengyi said, "He is practically isolated and helpless in this world; is it not normal for him to lack a sense of security? He has his issues, but who doesn't have some flaws? When has he ever performed poorly on the big things? His attitude toward you has indeed not been great, but when have you ever truly trusted him?"
"What does that mean? Am I supposed to go beg him to let me help him?" Majiang said, dissatisfied. "I only help him because of my friendship with you; he'd better understand that."
"Isn't it precisely because he understands that he ended up like this?" Du Zhengyi said irritably. He had already turned his head away in anger, but at this, he suddenly turned back to scrutinize Majiang.
"What?" Majiang said defensively.
"Luo Ruian has always emphasized that Luo Qi is an offensive-type Telepath," Du Zhengyi said.
Majiang suddenly realized something as well, and he gritted his teeth as he asked, "What do you mean?"
"Has Luo Qi been subconsciously attacking your emotions the whole time?" Du Zhengyi asked.
Majiang looked depressed. "You mean I've been under attack this whole time without even knowing it?"
"Look, you are just not a tolerant person," Du Zhengyi said mercilessly. "Maybe you are a good person, but you are a rigid, good person who carries a ruler around to measure everyone. With one stroke of the ruler, you cast Luo Qi outside the group of people you favor. I know you've always been weighing and speculating, pondering what kind of dangerous person Luo Qi will become in the future—how are you any different from those with ulterior motives who are constantly testing me?"
"Damn it, Du Zhengyi, are you ever going to stop?"
"Enough!" Guan Xinyue couldn't take it anymore. "Stop arguing, or should I just apologize? I shouldn't have been sarcastic to Luo Qi yesterday; otherwise, he wouldn't have been in such a bad mood." "You're still apologizing?" Majiang said in disbelief. "He's a man with such a petty heart, and he's still in the right?"
"Forget it!" Guan Xinyue shouted, drowning out Majiang's voice and stunning him into silence. "Why do you have to distinguish right from wrong over such a small matter! Luo Qi and I have been arguing since we first met, so what if we argue? He isn't a bad person, and I'm not a bad person. The problem now is to find him quickly! I know you men too well; you're basically all childish idiots. Now an idiot has gone missing in the mountains, and anything could happen. We must find him immediately, right now. We've reached this point, are you still planning to deal with further complications?"
Du Zhengyi and Majiang looked at each other, speechless after being lectured by a sixteen-year-old girl.
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In another vision, Luo Qi retreated from Guan Xinyue's Consciousness World, looking disheveled. He hadn't expected Du Zhengyi to be so intensely worried about him; in his impression, Du Zhengyi wouldn't have such intense emotions at all. And Guan Xinyue's consciousness was filled with worry and anxiety, a worry and anxiety that made him feel ashamed and extremely uncomfortable. Just now, when Guan Xinyue shouted those words, her blood pressure was rising and her pulse was quickening; she was in an abnormally agitated state. Those emotions squeezed his consciousness, making him feel very unwell. Besides, he really had no face to keep watching. Now he understood: he shouldn't have been looking at a situation where he wasn't present. That was stealing privacy, that was eavesdropping—it was completely the behavior of a bastard.
Luo Qi switched back to his own consciousness for a while, fully recovering his senses of the outside world, but the Consciousness World made him feel at ease, so he didn't fully return to the external world. He decided to wait here for Du Zhengyi and the others to find him; honestly, he should trust Du Zhengyi's tracking ability.
He let himself fly in the Consciousness World, savoring this feeling of freedom while setting aside some of his spirit to reflect on himself. He didn't know what was wrong with him; if he traced it to the source, he just felt that Majiang was hiding something from him, and perhaps Du Zhengyi was hiding something from him too; the two of them must have some secret alliance. Most of his displeasure, alienation, and distrust came from this. Majiang, as another Telepath, was naturally someone he couldn't touch, unlike Du Zhengyi, whose barriers were heavy but whom he had touched several times; from Du Zhengyi, he felt only warmth and trust.
Suddenly, he realized a truth in the Consciousness World: just as Mages like Du Zhengyi were accustomed to observing the world with Energy Vision, had he gradually begun to observe the world with the vision of consciousness? Was it because Majiang was a point he couldn't observe in his vision that he couldn't trust him? Were the shadows of his childhood that he thought he saw perhaps just excuses he was making for himself?
Ultimately, he had entered another life.
He actually... did not loathe his Telepathy as much as he had previously thought. He had even begun to enjoy immersing himself in the Mental Domain, using spirit and consciousness to depict a person. He sat cross-legged on a high, thick branch of a tree in the Southern Country, flying freely on the wind in the world of intent, occasionally collecting the scattered consciousnesses of simple creatures. Those simple comforts, those tiny thoughts, made the world unfold for him in a different way. He admired this vibrant world and even felt a bit of a longing to share the secrets of the world he had newly discovered with someone.
He circled the forest once, like an invisible eagle, watching as the most complex consciousnesses in the forest left the human path and began to walk into the forest; he could even distinguish that Du Zhengyi was walking in the lead. Du Zhengyi would certainly be able to find his location from the traces of his manic jumping around.
He felt lazy, but just then, his attention was caught by a suddenly appearing consciousness. At the other end of his territory, a new consciousness appeared. Luo Qi was startled and, leaving Du Zhengyi's side, flew rapidly toward the new consciousness in the world of consciousness. It had appeared too suddenly, with strange and shifting colors; at first, Luo Qi couldn't even be sure if it was a person, but then he realized that only a person, whether a Mage or a human, could have such a complex consciousness.
But just as Luo Qi approached this consciousness, it suddenly disappeared again, and he was greatly shocked. Luo Qi bit his non-existent fingernails in his Consciousness World, blankly observing the spot where the consciousness had vanished. Finally, he irritably opened more of his Shield and rose to the highest position to monitor the entire range he could observe—his territory.
The consciousness appeared again at the other end of the forest, and Luo Qi finally understood—a high-energy Mage was constantly using Teleportation nearby.
End of Chapter
