Chapter 194: The Guan Family's Well

When Luo Qi returned to the hotel room, Du Zhengyi was still asleep. The blackout curtains in the room were half-drawn, while the other half was covered only by white sheer curtains. Du Zhengyi was fast asleep on the bed, and Guan Xinyue was half-lying on the corner of the large bed, playing a game on her phone.

The room was quiet. Guan Xinyue heard the sound of him walking in, turned her head to look, and sized him up from head to toe.

Luo Qi walked closer to Du Zhengyi, held his breath, and watched him carefully for a moment.

"He won't wake up even if you talk to him; Doctor Ma said he needs to sleep for at least twenty-four hours," Guan Xinyue said, then took a closer look at Luo Qi. "I think you should get some sleep first; your complexion is even worse than Du Ge's."

"He doesn't have any external injuries, so you can't tell just by looking, right?" Luo Qi said in a low voice.

Guan Xinyue rolled her eyes and looked at him suspiciously. "Do you have external injuries?"

Luo Qi was looking at Du Zhengyi in deep thought. Guan Xinyue sat up and looked at him with a serious expression, which made him realize what she had asked. "Who? Me? No, I don't have any external injuries."

"You really don't look well." Guan Xinyue put away her phone and tucked it into the pocket of her overalls. "Ma Jiang went to get something to eat and will be back soon. When he returns, let him take a look at you too; you look like you've gotten lost inside your own head."

"I'm fine," Luo Qi said in a low voice, reaching into his pocket, then suddenly froze. "I left the cat at your place."

"You went to my house?" Guan Xinyue said calmly. "It's fine, I can call a girl in the neighborhood I'm on good terms with and ask her to go look for the cat. If she finds it... should I have her look after it for you for now?"

"Xinyue, something happened in the village last night. Let me tell you first, don't be afraid. They might not have the energy to help you look for the cat, and if you call over there, it might arouse the police's suspicion," Luo Qi said.

"Xiao Hei is still a kitten; it won't be easy for it to survive on its own," Guan Xinyue pondered and said. "In another day, I'll find a male classmate in the city and ask him to go take a look for me."

"Okay." Luo Qi thought about it and felt there was no better way. He looked at Guan Xinyue; she seemed to really have no intention of asking any more questions. She was indeed very mature at times, possessing a patience rarely seen in young women. "I remembered something I wanted to ask you."

Guan Xinyue pointed to the door of the suite. Luo Qi nodded, looked at Du Zhengyi carefully for a moment longer, and then followed Guan Xinyue to the outer room. He sat down on the sofa, and Guan Xinyue went to the snack area, picked out a box of salted pistachios, and brought them over to Luo Qi. "Eat them, maybe it'll make you happy. You look like you'll never be happy again for the rest of your life."

Luo Qi rubbed his face and didn't eat anything. "Xinyue, I want to ask how you knew about the trap your grandfather set under the well?"

The atmosphere made Guan Xinyue feel a bit pressured. She sat on the sofa, feeling uncomfortable. "Isn't there only one trap? Could there be other traps under the well? Did you run into them again when you went this time?"

"Xinyue, you know that well is actually a terminal for the Pendragon Orbital System, right?" Luo Qi said.

"I know, I've used it many times," Guan Xinyue said. "Your public travel system, named after the lover of the Great Mage Merlin, the Arthur Pendragon Orbital System."

Luo Qi froze for a moment. "What?"

"My sister said so." Guan Xinyue stretched out two fingers and scratched.

"Alright, that's not important," Luo Qi said. "How did you know your family's Pendragon Orbital Terminal had been turned into an Illusion Trap?"

"My sister said so," Guan Xinyue repeated the sentence again.

"Can you describe the situation in detail? For example, what else did your sister say? Given your personality, it's impossible that someone told you it was a trap and you just obediently stayed away from it, and that was the end of it," Luo Qi said.

"What else would I do?" Guan Xinyue asked. "Should I be like you and, upon hearing there's a trap, immediately go and try to get trapped in it?"

"Is that my personality?" Luo Qi asked in surprise.

"Pretty much, otherwise I reckon Du Ge wouldn't have come back lying flat," Guan Xinyue said sharply. Seeing Luo Qi's expression suddenly become very fragile, she immediately regretted it. "I was just talking, don't take it to heart. I might be a bit mean."

"It's okay," Luo Qi said in a low voice. "Maybe you aren't wrong."

"Oh, forget it, Du Ge wouldn't blame you at all. Let's not talk about such depressing topics. If you want to hear it, I'll tell you," Guan Xinyue said. "Although there's not much to say. My sister told me how to use the trap and how to close it. Of course, I asked what would happen if someone fell into the trap. If it were a trap that would just kill someone instantly, I'd have to weigh the cost of using it, right?"

"Right, so what did your sister say?" Luo Qi's attention became focused. He suddenly saw a girl's face in his mind; she didn't look much older than Guan Xinyue. Although they were two girls without blood relation, because they were raised together, one could see the similarities in their expressions at a glance.

Luo Qi was shocked and hurriedly forced himself to disconnect from his probing of Guan Xinyue's surface Yajian. He had used Telepathy too many times recently and had done this subconsciously.

"What's wrong with you?" Guan Xinyue asked worriedly.

"Nothing." Luo Qi touched his nose and forced himself to calm down completely. "Go on."

"Alright." Guan Xinyue looked at him suspiciously and gathered her thoughts for a moment. "My sister said it's a trap that combines Teleportation with the Pendragon Orbital System while simultaneously causing hallucinations; the core is the part that produces the illusion. The illusion simulates a repeating time period, a cyclic trap. For example, after Du Ge fell into the illusion, if he could break through it the first time, the illusion would iterate once and return to the events before he fell into the trap. Each iteration, the illusion would draw out more of Du Ge's memories to construct a more complex illusion, eventually potentially trapping someone deep in their mental world, making it very difficult to wake them up. But you woke Du Ge up very quickly at the time, so I think it should be fine."

"Such a complex hallucinogenic trap," Luo Qi said. "It must have been made by your grandfather, right?"

"Yeah, do you think my sister could make it? She's not that powerful, is she? She hasn't even started school yet," Guan Xinyue said.

"We encountered a village in the mountains near your home this time that was almost identical to the scene in the illusion," Luo Qi said. "Du Zhengyi said he saw me in the village, and that I was trapped in that village for a lifetime."

"The original intent of this illusion is to trap a person's spirit for a lifetime. If Du Ge hadn't saved you back then, the one who would have fallen into the illusion would have been you. In that subconscious state, it seems to make sense that Du Ge saw you trapped in the illusion for a lifetime," Guan Xinyue said. "And, not to be mean, but all villages in the countryside look the same now; the houses are basically the same, and the layout is the same. To you Mages, aren't all villages the same?"

"No, that was a village abandoned around the nineties; I thought it was very unique too," Luo Qi said.

"The abandoned village in Xingtai Mountain?" Guan Xinyue asked in surprise.