Chapter 42: Jin Yu 2

"I have never harmed anyone," Jin Yu said, wiping away her tears. "Why are you hounding me? I only wanted to test you. Even if I had succeeded, what could I have done to you? You know perfectly well that my telepathy isn't that strong."

The Bone-Hilt Knife was tossed back and forth in Du Zhengyi's hand. Jin Yu looked away; she knew what Du Zhengyi meant. "I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to kill me?" Du Zhengyi laughed, as if he had heard a funny joke. "If I had been a bit lacking and unfortunately failed to dodge, and you had killed me with that knife, would you have truly thought the same thing while standing over my corpse?"

"You are so powerful, I know it, I can feel it," she said. She barely dared to look directly at the knife now. That legendary blood-tempered blade was said to be a symbol of honor. She had no interest in honor, but she liked the feeling of saying the word, as if everything had meaning, as if the goal she pursued was worth it, as if she were a strong person. But she knew she was weak. When facing such powerful strength as Du Zhengyi's, she was innocent. She had no way to harm him at all, so what could she have done wrong?

"I couldn't have harmed you at all!" she said aloud, her voice filled with righteous accusation.

"What does that have to do with whether or not you could harm me?" Du Zhengyi said softly, his tone very gentle. He felt a trace of exhaustion and a trace of annoyance. "Everyone could have lived their own lives just fine. You were already living better than your parents. Even your parents, living in human society, were more beautiful, stronger, more agile, and longer-lived than most humans. Isn't that good enough? You voluntarily chose to join the Lotus Burners; you were willing to pick up the Bone-Hilt Knife to slaughter humans and eliminate dissenters. You went through the Sacrificial Rite, which is how you got the Bone-Hilt Knife, isn't it? Did anyone force you? Of course not. And you're still crazy enough to carry this thing around with you."

Jin Yu trembled even more violently, her pupils darting around almost frantically. "I carry this knife because I want to..."

"Because you want to appear more radical and make them admire you more," Du Zhengyi finished the words she couldn't bring herself to say. "Did you also stab someone with this knife during the Sacrificial Rite?"

"I..." Jin Yu was a pretty girl, petite and cute, but now her face was streaked with tears, her eyes flashing with an unnatural, trembling light, and her pupils darting around almost frantically; she looked like a madwoman.

Guan Xinyue had been listening from the side. Because she was nervous, she had chosen not to sit down, and the madness on Jin Yu's face frightened her. She grew afraid and couldn't help but take two steps back, leaning tightly against the lectern behind her.

"I didn't stab her in a vital spot!" Jin Yu screamed, crying, as if a vengeful ghost had been suppressed in her heart, and now that the ghost had been resurrected, it was beginning to hunt her down. Suddenly, she grew angry again, glaring at Du Zhengyi in a fit of shame and rage. "How do you know so much? A secret society like the Lotus Burners—no outsiders know the process of the sacrifice!"

But her hysterical rage could not sustain itself for long. She couldn't keep shouting, and as this breath released, she burst into tears again, desperately begging Du Zhengyi to let her go. "I didn't kill her! She was already dying; she was about to die the moment I stabbed her! Her eyes were already blind, her brain was already finished, she couldn't even feel pain! I didn't cause her death!"

Guan Xinyue raised her hand to cover her mouth.

Du Zhengyi suddenly raised his eyes. His previously disinterested and nonchalant expression changed instantly, and he stared fixedly at Jin Yu. His voice remained steady, yet it was filled with pressure. "Speak clearly. Whose eyes were going blind, and who blinded them?"

Jin Yu no longer had the capacity to discern the enemy's expression or intentions, and she answered subconsciously, "It was a woman. I don't know who she was; she was already near death at the time. It was the Sage Mage who gouged out her eyes. He is a Venerable among the Lotus Burners. I don't know why he wanted to do that either!" At this point, she couldn't help but break into another round of wailing, no longer having any intention of bluffing. Between her sobs, she spoke incoherently, "I don't know why they wanted to do that! There were steel nails driven into her eye sockets! Why didn't they just kill her! I had no choice. If I couldn't pass the Loyalty Trial, they would have killed me too. After she died, when she was being moved, a membership card for a cake shop fell out of her pocket. That's a cake shop I go to often. I can never forget that scene."

"Stop crying. You had the guts to lie to the Lotus Burners and the guts to complete that bullshit trial, so why are you scared like this now?"

She shook her head helplessly, covering her face with both hands. "I don't know, I don't know!"

For a full five minutes, Du Zhengyi said nothing. During this five-minute respite, she gradually calmed down from her hysterical state. She was also cried out; she clutched her chest, eased her breathing, and settled down.

"I will ask you one more question. If you answer me truthfully, perhaps I will let you go," Du Zhengyi said.

She looked up at him in surprise, unable to believe if what he said was true, but she was adventurous by nature and willing to move forward. She adjusted her breathing for a moment and nodded. "Ask."

"What did you do to Luo Qi?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"Who?" She was stunned for a moment. Du Zhengyi did not answer her, and she hurriedly searched her memory, but still could not find the name. "I swear, I have only harmed that one person. I haven't done anything to anyone else. At most, I just made them like me. Does that count as harm?"

"Luo Qi," Du Zhengyi said. "The boy who came with me the last time I was here. He looks younger than me."

Jin Yu's expression was somewhat strange. "Him?"

"What's wrong?"

"How could I possibly touch him?" Jin Yu said with disgust. "He's a freak! I would absolutely only avoid him; I wouldn't do anything to him at all!"

Du Zhengyi was taken aback, even subconsciously glancing at Guan Xinyue, as if to ask whether, from a female perspective, Luo Qi was really that annoying.

Guan Xinyue shook her head keenly, fully understanding Du Zhengyi's meaning. "I don't really think he's annoying. He's a funny person, a good person."

"Of course she doesn't understand; she's a dull human," Jin Yu said bitingly from behind the desk. "That person, Luo Qi, right? He makes me uncomfortable."

"You aren't the first Telepath to come into contact with him. No one else feels uncomfortable with him; some can't even sense him at all," Du Zhengyi said.

"If a Telepath can't sense him, isn't that a problem in itself?" Jin Yu asked tit-for-tat.

Du Zhengyi paused. "He is a bit special in that regard."

Jin Yu shook her head. "You don't understand. Even for a Mage as strong as you, with an ultra-strong Mind Shield, I can at least perceive your existence. But Luo Qi, he is like a hollow person. You have to believe me. Although I don't count as a Mind Master, I have many special talents, and sensing danger is one of them. Luo Qi makes me feel danger. Although I can't say exactly where his danger lies, no matter what, I will never touch him. I just want to stay as far away from him as possible."

Although Du Zhengyi could not understand this fortune-telling-like empty talk, he believed that what she said was indeed her true thought. All her micro-expressions and all her physical signs showed the same meaning without contradiction.

He fell into thought, and after a long while, he asked, "Was that the first time you saw him that day?"

"It was also the only time I saw him," Jin Yu said.

Du Zhengyi fell silent again. Guan Xinyue couldn't help but say, "If what she says is true, then... that matter has nothing to do with Luo Qi, at least not something Luo Qi did. I said long ago that he was innocent."

"Everything I said is the truth," Jin Yu said hurriedly. "I have no need to lie."

"You have two choices now," Du Zhengyi said. "Be handed over to the Qionglin Academy as a Lotus Burner, or I will hand you over to the Lotus Burners and tell them you lied."

Jin Yu's face turned extremely ugly in an instant. Her throat was already hoarse from crying, and she screamed in pain with a piercing voice, "Don't you know that the two of them are the same thing now? No matter where you send me, the Lotus Burners will kill me!"

"Who in the Qionglin is the same thing as the Lotus Burners?" Du Zhengyi leaned forward with interest. "Speak clearly."

Jin Yu hesitated for a moment, but her expression softened instantly. Du Zhengyi could see clearly that she had no loyalty to the Lotus Burners and no motive worth holding onto; she wanted to go with the flow. But when she spat out that name, his heart still gave a jolt.

"Li Xu."

He had guessed this name long ago, but hearing it with his own ears now was still uncomfortable. His mind had been a mess these past few days, and he hadn't thought things through this clearly. He had been wondering how Li Xu discovered they had entered this affair, and he had been wondering where the outpost was. Now everything was clear: from the very first day they stepped foot here, Li Xu had already received the report.

Li Xu was a Lotus Burner, and Zhao Zhiyan might be one too. Luo Qi had discovered it long ago; he had already hinted at it to him. But he hadn't paid attention. He didn't know how Luo Qi had discovered it, just assuming that Luo Qi's situation made him too sensitive to discrimination. Now that he thought about it, perhaps it was precisely because Luo Qi was sensitive to discrimination that he was able to discover the Lotus Burners earlier.

"Who else?" he asked.

"I only know Li Xu. I only contact him. He calls the shots on everything; everyone calls him the Sage Mage," Jin Yu said. "I am just a Mage who has just reached the level to participate in operations. The newcomers who participated in the Sacrificial Rite with me—we don't know each other, but judging by their age, they wouldn't hold important positions anywhere."

Du Zhengyi asked her some other questions, but she truly could not answer them anymore.

He silently organized the information he had obtained. It seemed everything had started from the moment they stepped into the teahouse. Li Xu had been paying attention to everything here, perhaps because of his position in the Supreme Committee, or perhaps because of his identity as a Lotus Burner. They had an incident that night and quickly left the village; spatial movement could not be tracked, yet Li Xu was able to meet Ma Jiang and Luo Qi at the tavern. If everything really had nothing to do with Luo Qi, then it meant Li Xu had been collecting intelligence on himself and Ma Jiang much earlier, guessing his whereabouts. Perhaps a more reasonable explanation was that he had been collecting information on the Great Mage Pei Shu all along and knew his students' information like the back of his hand.

But why did Li Xu torture Qi Yue to death? Because she killed a Mage and committed a taboo of the Lotus Burners? But a human could not accomplish the extermination of a Great Mage's family. This brought it back to the starting point: Qi Yue could only be a puppet, and there was a mastermind behind her. If the mastermind was Li Xu, then it was a case of killing to silence.

But Du Zhengyi's heart suddenly stirred. The word "puppet" returned once more. He suddenly thought of the true meaning of the word "puppet" in the Magic World, and a chill couldn't help but pass down his spine. If Li Xu was interrogating Qi Yue, if Li Xu wanted to force a puppet to break free from its shackles, regardless of the consequences, even if it meant ravaging the puppet to the edge of life and death...

But Li Xu still hadn't found the shadow behind her. He had been investigating, he had let Guan Xinyue stir up trouble, and he was monitoring everything here. Until he and Luo Qi appeared, Li Xu cast his suspicious gaze upon them. He must have been overjoyed; perhaps he had originally just been handling a suspicious murder case in the line of duty. As a result, Pei Shu and his disciples bumped right into it, and he immediately understood that there were more entanglements involved, a much larger trap.

He made a decisive move and focused his attention on the strangest one, Luo Qi. At first, Du Zhengyi thought Luo Qi was just a smoke bomb, and Li Xu might have thought the same, until Luo Qi dug up Qi Yue's corpse.

For Du Zhengyi, he was actually more surprised than Li Xu. Luo Qi's groundhog didn't just dig a hole; he also almost accurately predicted what was in the hole. For him and Luo Qi, the key node of everything was actually the teahouse, not the Guan Family Old Residence. Luo Qi's "Apocalypse" was likely obtained here. The one carrying this Apocalypse was the frivolous fool before him; she messed everything up just to find a bit of boring superiority.

Jin Yu was no longer crying, but she was even more anxious from being calculated by his gaze, reflexively starting to pick at her fingernails.

Luo Qi had obtained the Apocalypse from her. He pondered.

"Hmm—" A strange sound came from beside him. Seeing that he had been distracted, Guan Xinyue immediately swallowed nervously. "Can I ask, what is a Lotus Burner? Are you all that dissatisfied with human interior design tastes?"