Chapter 39

The teahouse courtyard was kept neat and tranquil, with a pebble path laid out in a rather tasteful manner, and a few stalks of bamboo and plum trees in the corners. In the center of the courtyard grew an apricot tree; because it had stood there for many years, its branches were gnarled and slanted, with a swing hanging from them. If it were deeper into spring, with the sparse shadows of apricot blossoms, the drifting faint fragrance, and the clear, shallow shadows of bamboo, there would be two tea tables set up here as well.

Du Zhengyi opened the sliding door, and the wind blew in from the courtyard, bringing a slight dampness mixed with the scent of soil and more complex information. Du Zhengyi closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the air here, almost with satisfaction; many dormant parts of his spirit were restlessly waking up, stirred by a faint, almost imperceptible probing. That erroneous probe was as fine as a gossamer thread; it touched him lightly and immediately retreated in alarm, but it had retreated too late. He had already caught that thread, and he would eventually catch the spider that spun it.

He felt a faint sense of excitement; he was always in a standby state, and he felt as if he were about to become rigid. He walked into the teahouse courtyard unhurriedly, yet all the spiritual power within him was taut with excitement, like a sail filled with wind; he truly missed this feeling of sailing with full sails.

The short pebble path of the courtyard came to an end. He enjoyed the process of approaching his prey and pushed open a door with a satisfied smile. He smelled the rich aroma of baked pastries and knew he had reached the back kitchen.

Several pastry chefs in white chef uniforms turned their heads to look at him with curiosity, but his gaze swept over them without pausing.

"Who is that?" came a low murmur filled with curiosity.

On the other side of the back kitchen, a group of girls had gathered; they were teahouse waitresses taking a break while it wasn't busy. Du Zhengyi looked over, and they were also curiously sizing him up. He carefully scrutinized them, and suddenly, one girl captured his full attention.

Oh, he sighed in realization to himself—"The girl on the swing outside the mulberry and paper mulberry trees, with double-bun hair and flower branches tucked in." The scene when Luo Qi said those words was right before his eyes. She was still wearing her hair in symmetrical buns, and a red tassel still hung behind one of her ears.

He hadn't expected this; she had hidden herself too well at the time, and he had also overlooked one point: that it was very likely someone had been monitoring Guan Xinyue all along. He pondered briefly, his eyes already seeing a flash of ghost-seeing panic cross the face of the girl with the double buns, and he smiled warmly.

The other girls gradually came to their senses, following his gaze to stare at the girl with the double buns. They slowly caught on, looking back and forth between the girl and the tall, handsome man at the door; surprise, displeasure, delight, and excitement flickered across the faces of her colleagues.

Du Zhengyi looked at her and smiled gently, "Let's go, we agreed I'd come to pick you up. Forgot?"

The girl with the double buns almost shuddered, her eyes flashing with nervousness and despair. She took the opportunity to turn that nervousness into a look of surprise, stood up abruptly from her chair, her light-colored pupils trembling slightly, "You... you just walked in like that?"

"Giving you a surprise." Du Zhengyi smiled slyly, his body still leaning against the door frame, lazily reaching out a large hand toward her.

The stench of romance is always the most moving; her colleagues began to tease, several eager eyes looking at the young man at the door with undisguised envy. But the girl with the double buns read the threat in Du Zhengyi's eyes—go out with him, and they would resolve the issues between them in a place away from human eyes.

She was so nervous she didn't dare take her eyes off Du Zhengyi, saying, "I'm leaving work early today, please tell the landlady for me."

Someone answered her, while most of the girls were still teasing; even the chefs were smiling and watching the scene. Her nervousness was seen by others as the infatuation of someone in love. She walked forward a few steps, and Du Zhengyi's hand landed on her forearm, gently pulling her toward the outside.

"What do you want for lunch today?" Du Zhengyi asked with a smile.

With her back to the others, the smile vanished from the small face of the girl with the double buns. "Anything is fine. My car is in the parking lot in the west courtyard." She looked up at Du Zhengyi, staring intently into his eyes.

Her cooperation in the act made Du Zhengyi laugh again. He let go of the door he had pushed open, and they walked back into the courtyard. The people in the back kitchen were still enthusiastically watching the gossip through the glass. Du Zhengyi's hand slid to her waist, pulling her close and leading her toward the west courtyard.

"Who are you?" she whispered, her voice full of horror.

"What do you think?" Du Zhengyi asked back gently.

"I haven't done anything," she said sharply.

Du Zhengyi laughed.

She took a deep breath, wisely deciding not to humiliate herself further; at this point, both sides knew exactly what was going on. They stepped through a moon gate in silence. The ground became uneven, with broken bricks mixed with wild grass. A dozen cars were parked in the not-so-large courtyard; this was the staff parking lot for the teahouse.

The girl with the double buns was trembling with nervousness, and she suddenly stumbled, tripping over a broken brick. Du Zhengyi subconsciously reached out to grab her, but he grabbed nothing.

Among mages, she was a rare petite person, with the physique and agility of an elf. With a fake fall, she twisted her body and circled behind Du Zhengyi. Even without using energy, mages are faster and more agile than humans in terms of physical quality, with better vision and hearing. These traits of hers were almost top-tier among mages. Du Zhengyi was much taller than her; although he could be considered lean and agile by human standards, compared to her, he was almost clumsy.

By the time Du Zhengyi turned around to attack her, she had already circled back in front of him. She judged her own strengths and weaknesses accurately and had no intention of getting into a tangle with Du Zhengyi. Once there was no obstruction in front, she ran for her life. In the blink of an eye, she had reached her car on the other side of the parking lot. She had already reached out from afar, the car door opened automatically, and she jumped in, locked the doors, started the engine, and slammed her foot down.

The engine roared madly, and the car surged forward like a beast trying to break free. Who would have thought that the brake pedal, which no one was touching, would suddenly slam down? The car screamed to a halt amidst this abuse, and the engine stalled. She frantically tried to restart the engine, but it didn't respond. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone in the passenger seat, but the car doors had remained tightly locked. She turned her head in horror and saw Du Zhengyi sitting right there.

She screamed hysterically, and Du Zhengyi couldn't help but frown. But in the next second, a bone-handled dagger appeared in her hand, viciously stabbing toward Du Zhengyi's abdomen. The sharp blade was aimed directly at Du Zhengyi's vitals. Her strike was without warning; she watched the tip of the knife hit Du Zhengyi, but the force in her hand fell completely into empty air. Du Zhengyi had vanished into thin air again.

She screamed again. Du Zhengyi appeared in the seat behind the driver's seat; this time, she didn't even have time to turn her head. A chain looped around her neck and tightened sharply; the despair of suffocation made her struggle desperately.

"Do you like the necklace I gave you?" Du Zhengyi whispered in her ear. She lost all strength, her vision went black, and she lost consciousness.

The chain disappeared from Du Zhengyi's hand. He looked up and saw Guan Xinyue standing outside the car window, looking horrified.

He hesitated for a moment, assessing how frightened Guan Xinyue was and whether she would lose her mind, before cautiously pushing open the car door.

"That's very creepy, you know?" Guan Xinyue said with disgust.

Du Zhengyi breathed a sigh of relief, ignored her, and continued to finish binding the mage.

"You really are a bit like a vampire, tall and thin. Standing there watching, you look like you're hunting."

"Blood-sucking is just a rumor," Du Zhengyi said, but he didn't deny the other parts.

Guan Xinyue shrugged, "I guess so, all legends have a source." After saying this, she immediately asked eagerly, "Is the agreement I mentioned earlier still valid?"

Du Zhengyi looked up, frowning at her, "You really have a big heart. With such an unexpected turn of events, you turn a blind eye and can still go back to continue discussing the previous matter? Don't you feel uncomfortable having such a mage monitoring you by your side all the time?"

"Wait," Guan Xinyue said, "let's talk about this uncomfortable thing later. I can only handle one uncomfortable thing at a time. Do you want to accept my conditions or not?"

Du Zhengyi pursed his lips tightly again without realizing it. He found that the number of things he couldn't handle had clearly increased recently, whether it was Luo Qi, this sixteen-year-old girl, or this series of difficult problems whose core he had never been able to approach.

"I believe my teacher will take measures favorable to Luo Qi, and I also believe Luo Qi's parents will fight for his rights," he said. "In this situation, my intervention would just be a waste of resources. I want to seize the time to investigate other matters for which we have no manpower. For example, the suspicious points in Lu Jinfeng's death, or your sister's disappearance case."

Mentioning her sister, Guan Xinyue's expression dimmed for a moment, but a moment later, her stubbornness surged again. She said indignantly, "When that woman named Qi Yue was pestering my aunt, I was the first to discover it. I told my grandfather, thinking that I had completed my task and that the adults would surely resolve this matter perfectly. But what was the result? The result was that my aunt died."

Du Zhengyi was silent.

"I believe that in your world, the occurrence of these things can also be explained as being out of control. I don't know what happened, but I can be sure that there are more and more out-of-control events. If the next one out of control is Luo Qi's death, then I can't accept that."

"Trading your grandfather's magical artifact for someone you've only known for a few days?" Du Zhengyi said.

"It's not just about helping Luo Qi; I think that by doing this, I am preventing the devouring of a black hole," Guan Xinyue said stubbornly. "If I can successfully persuade you, I will have leveraged a greater power."

Du Zhengyi sighed, "At least give me some time to deal with the problem at hand first." He turned his head and stared thoughtfully at the unconscious woman, "I... have an idea."

He leaned over to pick up the bone-handled knife she had dropped on the ground. The handle was made of human bone. He gently turned the bone-handled knife, the sharp blade reflecting a chilling light. He looked at the knife and pondered; the knife had not disappeared with the interruption of the mage's consciousness, so this was not a condensed replica weapon, but a precious prototype.

One could say there is no real difference between a prototype and a replica, or one could say there is a world of difference, because the ritualistic nature of using a prototype weapon has immeasurable significance.