Chapter 151: Luo Qi's Speculation

Luo Qi opened the "Jiangzuo Child Prodigy Directory" that Guan Xinyue had handed him; she had inserted a cat bookmark into the section on the Du Clan of Twenty-Four Bridges.

He quickly finished reading that page and flipped it over, realizing the next page was already something else. The entry in the "Jiangzuo Child Prodigy Directory" regarding the children of the Twenty-Four Bridges Du Clan was only a thin page; one could imagine that while the premature deaths of children were lamentable, there was truly nothing of note to record in their short few years of life.

"Are there any other books where I can find the deeds of the Du Clan Mages of Twenty-Four Bridges Town?" Luo Qi asked.

"There should be," Guan Xinyue said. "I've been reading the biographies of mages from my hometown, and I haven't looked this far south yet. But a family like the Du Clan of Twenty-Four Bridges must have produced many Great Mages worthy of having biographies written about them. As long as you search by region, you'll definitely find them."

Luo Qi nodded, suddenly pulled out Guan Xinyue's cat bookmark and returned it to her. He rudely and directly folded the page on the Du Clan, stood up, rolled up the thin book, and stuffed it into his pants pocket.

"What are you doing?" Guan Xinyue asked leisurely.

"I feel Du Zhengyi calling me," Luo Qi said.

"How nice," Guan Xinyue said lazily. "Is he whistling to call you?"

"Let's go over together; I feel like he's inviting you over too," Luo Qi said, as if he had truly listened intently.

Guan Xinyue shook her head helplessly and said, "Just looking at you like this, it's really like metaphysics, you know? Are you interested in going to the temple entrance to swindle people in the future?"

Luo Qi was stunned by this remark; the person who swindled people in the temple was Da Hei. This sentence suddenly made Luo Qi think once again that the most influential organizational form a mage could choose was likely religion, and this mage would also have to be very knowledgeable about human society. He could not be someone like Du Zhengyi, who had grown up entirely among mages. Luo Qi wondered when he would be able to piece together the character puzzle belonging to Da Hei completely.

Guan Xinyue had already climbed up from the carpet. Luo Qi reached out to help her stand steady, and the two walked downstairs, taking a shortcut back to the courtyard next door. Along the way, Guan Xinyue kept chatting with Luo Qi, but Luo Qi didn't take much of it in; he had been thinking about Da Hei the whole time.

1. Da Hei is a person very familiar with humans, using Telepathy to control the monks in the temple, and even influencing many believers, making them act according to his will while managing to evade the detection of Mind Mages.

2. The person who raided Gushan and attacked Du Zhengyi must be a Mind Archmage. Although it looks very much like something Li Xu would do, it isn't. The Lotus Burner Li Xu seems to deeply hate that he wasn't the one who did it, and has been frantically investigating this matter, this person.

3. Da Hei is very much like a Lotus Burner, yet not entirely; he is more like a new sect evolved from the Lotus Burners, his ideology even more radical. A radical Lotus Burner who is very familiar with humans.

4. Da Hei massacred several mages who had marital relationships with humans; this is strikingly similar to the behavior of the Lotus Burners, but the Lotus Burner Li Xu is unaware of it. Clearly, Da Hei has also been radical in practice. This radicalism finally met with retribution and attracted the attention of the Vault.

5. The massacre in the department store was a demonstration. The modus operandi is very much like Da Hei's. Once the incident is over, even a Mind Archmage cannot find evidence in the attacker's mind; this is completely consistent with the characteristics of the Guan Family tragedy and the Lu Jinfeng Case.

But summarizing 4 and 5, since 5 exists, there is absolutely no need to do 4. Because of the complexity and impact involved, the cost-effectiveness of 4 is too low. Unless Da Hei is a complete pervert, and his behavior is intended to punish those mages who dare to marry humans. But that is impossible; all leaders have complex goals, and complex goals are even one of the characteristics of being human. Therefore, Da Hei's goal might actually be very clear: it is Guan Yushan. This is a suspicion they have long reached a consensus on.

6. Guan Yushan is a Mind Mage working for Pei Shu; Guan Yushan is a mage at the First Laboratory of Gushan...

Everything circles back to Gushan; what Da Hei wants is some kind of secret of Gushan.

Li Xu also wants the secret of Gushan; he is resentful of the person who got there first.

Therefore, it is highly possible that Da Hei is the person who almost killed Du Zhengyi in Gushan more than three years ago.

Luo Qi suddenly felt that even without more evidence, he could almost be certain that that person was Da Hei.

He didn't know what would happen if Du Zhengyi encountered Da Hei now. He was suddenly a bit glad that when he was a complete idiot, following Du Zhengyi to the Guan Family Old Residence and to Da Hei's temple, he hadn't encountered Da Hei there. If such a thing had happened then, he didn't know what he could have done; it seemed that besides kneeling and begging the big boss to spare his leader, he had no second choice.

However, having said that, Luo Qi thought of the key point emphasized by Mahjong: the intention of the person attacking Du Zhengyi was not him as a person, but what he was guarding in Gushan. Since he is not in Gushan, he actually loses the value of being attacked.

Troubled by these speculations, he swayed into Mahjong's study and immediately felt dry and comfortable. In this season, the interiors of old houses in the south are damp and cold, but it was very comfortable here at Mahjong's. He looked around in confusion and found small bonfires built with wind-eroded stones in the four corners of the room, the flames burning in an orderly fashion.

Damn, I didn't expect Mahjong to know how to enjoy life so much.

Du Zhengyi was sitting in a chair very close to the fire, flipping through a book. He put away his thoughts and sidled up to Du Zhengyi's side. Du Zhengyi didn't even look up as he handed him an apple.

"Cool." Luo Qi laughed. "You really can sense that I'm hungry."

"Stay away from my barrier," Du Zhengyi said, annoyed. "Don't release your emotions there."

Luo Qi bit into the apple with a crisp sound and sat on the armrest of Du Zhengyi's chair. "Try dropping your barrier; I feel like I might be able to talk to you directly in your mind."

"Thanks for the suggestion, but you're already noisy enough just using your mouth to make sound," Du Zhengyi said.

"Luo Qi, be quiet," Mahjong also said impatiently. Luo Qi looked up and found the Doctor's hair was a mess, knowing he was about to explode, so it was best to be sensible.

"Xinyue, I'm completely stuck. No matter how I calculate, I can't move forward even a little bit. I'm wondering if the information I've collected as a key is not enough," Mahjong said to Guan Xinyue.

"Doctor, I'm already an open book. What else do you want to ask?" Guan Xinyue said helplessly.

"No," Mahjong said, "I just remembered I haven't collected your appearance data yet. I'm wondering if I need to perform appearance sampling and modeling on you. Maybe the key is your... appearance, your form."

"In that case, the computational load would be too huge," Du Zhengyi said in a low voice without looking up.

It sounded like they had already argued about this issue several times. Luo Qi understood a little; Mahjong was treating a dead horse as a living one, and it was likely that the remaining work would be hard to make any progress in his hands.