Chapter 287: A Book

Du Zhengyi held a cigarette in his mouth, frowning as he looked at Luo Qi, as if waiting for him to find the answer himself. But all Luo Qi could observe was the speed at which that cigarette was burning.

The genius quickly lost his patience, his brow furrowing deeper. With the cigarette still in his mouth, he reached over and rapped Luo Qi on the head. "Are you stupid?"

"What?"

"I don't have a plan, Luo Qi. This is your mental world; I don't exist at all. The only person who can find the answer and formulate a plan is you yourself," Du Zhengyi said. Seeing Luo Qi's stunned expression, a trace of regret appeared in his demeanor. "Sorry, but in reality, it's still just you here."

"What do you mean?" Luo Qi asked, bewildered.

"It means that the me you see right now is also something you imagined," Du Zhengyi said. "Our conversation is actually just your own thought process; you are using the form of a dialogue to think."

Luo Qi jumped up, venting his frustration in annoyance. "If you were an illusion, an illusion wouldn't admit it itself. If an illusion admitted it was an illusion, the illusion would end. That's a paradox. Even if I didn't finish school, I know that mental world illusions collapse on their own when they encounter a paradox."

"You're right," Du Zhengyi said. He put the cigarette down, and the burning cigarette floated in mid-air. Du Zhengyi unbuttoned his shirt collar and leaned back, settling himself more comfortably into the sofa in Luo Qi's home. Everything was as if it were real. Luo Qi even felt a bit like hiding in this illusion; here, his parents hadn't gone mad and didn't want to kill his friends. He could stay comfortably in his own home with Du Zhengyi, getting along like normal friends, and maybe they could even play a game together after they finished dinner.

"I'm right?"

"But, you can figure it out too, I'm not an ordinary illusion. Ah, how should I put it? I'm really not very good at explaining this; we only have a smattering of knowledge about the world of Telepaths. If I had to force it, I suppose I count as the highest-level illusion you've created, the deepest layer of illusion within the Tree of Illusions," Du Zhengyi said gently as he leaned back in the sofa.

"My Anchor," Luo Qi lowered his head and admitted to himself, knowing in his heart that this was indeed the case.

"An Anchor. I am the entity that embodies your trust, loyalty, and sense of security. After your world was overturned, you deposited most of the positive power in your heart into this entity, and I protect the peace of your soul. Even though the world is messed up, your soul hasn't been carved into some messed-up shape," Du Zhengyi said, smiling at Luo Qi. "Your current situation is bad, and you instinctively sought help from the depths of your heart, so I appeared."

Luo Qi had nothing to say and helplessly sat back down on the carpet, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible. Snow began to drift outside the window, and the temperature dropped rapidly; he felt a bit cold sitting on the carpet. He realized this coldness felt very real. In this protected Barrier, the enemy hadn't been able to invade yet, so it must be that his physical functions had suffered heavy damage; he probably couldn't hold on for much longer in the real world.

He suppressed the fear in his heart and followed Du Zhengyi's lead, saying, "Then, why did you appear here? This is my home, after all."

"That's for you to ask yourself," Du Zhengyi said. "I've already said, this is your own thinking. You must be thinking very hard, which is why you constructed a real-life scene. If I had to guess, you must be trying to extract something from the depths of your memory. Since it's from the depths of your memory, it means you don't really remember it anymore; you just subconsciously feel there's a connection, and your deep consciousness is searching for an answer. I remember you always liked human computers. The human brain itself is very much like a computer with superior performance, right? We rely on energy to operate, we both need electrical power—bioelectricity—and we both run on logic. So Luo Qi, your brain must have performed a fuzzy search when you weren't aware of it. You have to help yourself, and help me too; I must be struggling to hold on in the real world right now."

"But I don't even know what I'm thinking of," Luo Qi said gloomily. "You're sitting on my home's sofa, so maybe I'm actually just missing my home's comfortable sofa and want to die on the sofa."

Du Zhengyi laughed, as bright and clear as in Luo Qi's memories, as if he himself didn't care that his death was imminent. The gloom in Luo Qi's heart grew heavier, and the wind and snow outside the window immediately turned into a blizzard.

"Don't, don't," Du Zhengyi looked at the window and said with a smile. "I don't want to die. You really can be dense sometimes! This matter definitely has nothing to do with the sofa. Think about why your mother appeared here? Auntie was just discussing with you why you had the advantage but were still backlashed by the Queen. I think what she said makes a lot of sense. But have you thought about why the person you're discussing this with is your mother? In an illusion, you could have chatted with Mahjong about the lessons of the failure of the Thought War. And there's that antivirus issue; you could even talk to Guan Xinyue."

Luo Qi turned his head to look at his frozen mother. "I don't know, maybe I just missed my mom."

"Missed your mom scolding you?" Du Zhengyi said.

"Because my mom was always scolding me," he defended himself. "So when I think of my mom, I think of her scolding me."

"Come on, everyone gets the most scolding in their life from their mother; that doesn't mean anything, nobody would really care that much," Du Zhengyi said, picking up an apple again. "Your mom looks really young."

"This isn't what she looks like now," Luo Qi said. Although he knew the person sitting on the sofa wasn't the real Du Zhengyi, he was still willing to talk to Du Zhengyi about his own affairs. "This is what she looked like when I was about three or four years old. But in my childhood memories, my mom didn't really scold me much; back then, I could still count as the treasure of the family."

"Luo Qi, have you ever thought that parents are always eager to teach their children what they are best at? Whether it's fishing, playing ball, or math and painting, I suspect teaching one's children is a happy thing, or perhaps a biological instinct. Like your parents, two Mind Mages—even if they didn't want you to become a Mage, did they still teach you quite a bit of knowledge during your growth? It's just that you might not have realized it at all, or didn't realize that that knowledge was related to Telepathy?" Du Zhengyi said.

"What you're saying isn't impossible," Luo Qi said in a low voice. He turned his head to look at his mother; her facial features seemed more like they were reminding him of a point in time. "Then some important knowledge might have been taught to me by my mom when I was only three or four years old?"

"It looks like it; you should ponder the memories from that age range," Du Zhengyi said.

"Give me a break, boss, what can you remember at three or four years old?"

"Little white rabbits and big tigers, I guess," Du Zhengyi said and laughed.

Luo Qi sighed and lowered his head in disappointment, but just as his gaze dropped, he suddenly caught a glimpse of where his mother's hand was reaching. Before she froze, she had been about to pick up a book—a children's picture book placed on the coffee table.

Luo Qi leaned over in astonishment and picked up the children's picture book from the coffee table. The picture book landed in his hand, feeling nearly real; it did not disappear.