Chapter 434: Rising Waves Without Wind (6)

"Do you know any more details about the mission? Why did they transfer Du Zhengyi away so suddenly?" Luo Qi suppressed the last remaining bit of hope, not wanting to be too disappointed.

"Suddenly?" Zhou Quan crossed his arms over his chest. "If you ask me, this is a common occurrence; it's not sudden at all. A Mage of Du Zhengyi's level, holding both the positions of Battle Mage and Execution Mage, can be sent to the ends of the earth at any moment."

Luo Qi pressed his lips together tightly. He couldn't say the narcissistic and perverted words that because he needed to be "nursed," his "wet nurse" Du Zhengyi shouldn't leave.

"However..." Zhou Quan hesitated for a moment, looked up uneasily at his surroundings, and said in a low voice, "To be honest, I didn't expect you to pass the review so easily. In the past, when they reviewed high-energy Mages..."

Zhou Quan didn't finish, but Luo Qi understood the meaning. He replied gloomily, "Because they don't need to review me anymore. They've already grabbed me by my weak spot and can turn me into a marionette."

"Cough." Zhou Quan moved suddenly and raised a hand to cover his mouth. Luo Qi paused, looked up, and met Zhou Quan's eyes; an unusual warning flashed in the latter's gaze.

"What?" Luo Qi said gruffly, but his expression had already turned vigilant.

Zhou Quan looked at him thoughtfully, and after a long while, he said, "Ah," "I understand. You really can't feel it, can you?"

Luo Qi looked up at him, waiting for him to continue, but his expression was very strange. He was like a little hamster with fifteen nuts hidden in its mouth, staring at Luo Qi with beady black eyes, but simply unable to spit the nuts out.

"Fuck." Luo Qi waited in vain for a while, then suddenly cursed irritably. He said, "I understand."

Zhou Quan blinked. Just as he was wondering whether Luo Qi truly understood, he felt an invisible hook pierce into his body and yank him out violently. He was scared to death!

In that instant, it was as if a massive amount of noise exploded; the door to a brand-new world swung open for him with a roar. His eardrums seemed to have switched to a different mode, and even the form of the world's existence had changed. He couldn't truly describe this feeling; his only sensation was that his previous understanding of this world seemed to have been entirely wrong.

Only after a moment did he realize what had happened. Luo Qi was still standing in front of him, the hall was still there, and he could see everyone else, but they were almost all frozen in place. At first, he thought Luo Qi was so badass that he had frozen everyone, and perhaps even stopped the Earth from rotating, but he sobered up in a flash, realizing belatedly the fact that Luo Qi was a Mind Archmage.

"Holy crap!" he cursed tremblingly, then shouted, "Is this the Consciousness Space? Are we having a Soul Dialogue?"

"Don't act like a hick," Luo Qi said impatiently. "We are having a Consciousness Contact, certainly not a Soul Dialogue. Souls cannot lie; you can still bullshit freely right now, can't you tell the difference?"

Zhou Quan was still incredibly astonished. He felt very light, as if he had lost the shackles of gravity. "Holy shit," he couldn't help but exclaim, floating up in the world Luo Qi had created. While curiously observing the people around him, he subconsciously followed up on Luo Qi's words, "Do souls really exist?"

"Souls? That depends on how you define them," Luo Qi said; he had just been speaking off the cuff. Sometimes he often called the consciousness trapped in a container a soul, but perhaps a soul is the entire essence of a person, and what is in a container should be called a ghost.

Zhou Quan didn't dwell on this philosophical question; he was inherently a rather worldly person in the secular world. "Hey, hey, then can you create a carnival by imagining it? If you're willing, could I experience a Jurassic Park firsthand?"

"I've only ever created hell," Luo Qi said dryly. "And I didn't invite you here to play. Aren't you worried that someone can hear our conversation? Speak now; no one can stick their nose in here with me."

Zhou Quan turned around—or rather, his consciousness turned and floated next to Luo Qi's consciousness. "Damn, you're really cool. You... I have to say, I didn't expect your volume to be this large. My consciousness feels a tremor the moment it gets close to you."

As he spoke, he tried to touch Luo Qi. His consciousness immediately shuddered, and he hurriedly pulled away a bit. But then he couldn't help but touch Luo Qi again, getting a bit addicted to the game.

Luo Qi had never encountered someone so bold and annoying. He suddenly extended a tentacle and whipped it against Zhou Quan like a lash. Zhou Quan screamed, and the world of consciousness trembled. The feeling was like he was a fish, and Luo Qi had whipped him and taken a scale off his body. It hurt, and it was fucking bizarre to the extreme.

Luo Qi opened his "scale" with a pretentious flourish, as if unfolding a scroll. "You were quite disgusting during puberty, fantasizing about your physics teacher?"

Zhou Quan was stunned, then cursed with a foul word. "That's my privacy."

"Then you should fucking know to be serious, shouldn't you? I'm a Telepath, and with Du Zhengyi gone, my consciousness is as unstable as an active volcano!" Luo Qi roared, even more violent than Zhou Quan, who had lost his privacy. He furiously threw the fragment of consciousness back at Zhou Quan. "You should feel fear! I'm asking you to be serious for the sake of your own head!"

"Why?" Zhou Quan asked.

"What?" Luo Qi paused. "Are you a moron?"

"Oh, I was asking, why are you unstable when Du Zhengyi isn't here?" Zhou Quan asked. Luo Qi stared at him and realized his consciousness had already calmed down. When his privacy was snatched away just now, it had been a bit like a pot of boiling porridge, but that pot had been taken off the fire in an instant. Luo Qi truly didn't know if he should praise him for having such high emotional intelligence...

After a long while, Luo Qi also calmed down and said, "None of your business."

"Alright then," Zhou Quan said tactfully. He was still not far from Luo Qi, and for some reason, he wasn't all that afraid of Luo Qi's power. He looked around again and saw that those physical bodies in reality had moved slightly. "Time isn't absolutely frozen right now?"

"No, it's just that as pure thought, we operate more rapidly, so there's a time difference between us and the outside. It doesn't matter for a little while; no one will notice." Luo Qi had to explain to him, then remembered that he had been playing this trick in front of Du Zhengyi just a few days ago. "But you'd better hurry; there are definitely some sensitive people around here."

Zhou Quan let out a "pfft" of laughter. "The sensitive people around here will only think we suddenly got horny and hit it off. Don't worry, Qionglin doesn't have that many amazing Mages, otherwise they wouldn't use Du Zhengyi so hard."

"Don't talk so much nonsense."

"Alright," Zhou Quan said. "Let's get to the point. Let me remind you, Master, you have blind spots too."

"What?" Luo Qi asked.

"Although you're so badass in the field of Mind Mages, I guess you didn't feel that this place is filled with tiny Induction Crystals," Zhou Quan said. "They can see us, they can hear us, so..."

Luo Qi asked in astonishment, "They're monitoring? Why? Why are they doing this?"

"I can't say it's necessarily aimed at you," Zhou Quan said. "I can only say that these are extraordinary times, after all, so doing anything isn't considered wrong. However, because we don't know what they are actually listening to or watching, we have to be even more cautious. Especially... the fact that you passed the review so easily is just too suspicious."

Luo Qi remained silent, and only after a moment did he say, "Does Qionglin's surveillance cover every corner of this place?"

"Indoors, yes," Zhou Quan said, then thought for a moment and corrected himself, "No, it should be said that it covers all our activity areas. The Highland Mages' rooms, and the areas where those Highland Mages meditate behind the curtains in the hall upstairs, don't have them. Perhaps because Induction Crystals affect meditation to some degree, they don't allow Qionglin to do that. So if you want to say something to someone that you don't want others to hear, it's best to go to the garden outside."

Luo Qi felt a lingering fear. He hadn't expected people to be so meticulous, nor had he expected them to be so rude as to install surveillance even in his room. He hadn't thought about this before, and he didn't need to; everything he couldn't see, Du Zhengyi could see. So even if he had blind spots, it didn't matter. To be honest, in the best days of his life recently, it wouldn't have mattered even if he were blind. But now...

"When did they set up the Induction Crystals?"

"Early this morning," Zhou Quan said, and he smiled. "I was in charge of the procurement."

Luo Qi thought for a moment before he understood what Zhou Quan was proud of. "Doing business is quite fun."

"Mm," Zhou Quan said with a smile. "If they could, Qionglin would like to install Induction Crystals for every Mage family."

"Because of insufficient mining capacity?"

"Mainly because there isn't enough manpower to handle the monitoring work; that is work that consumes a lot of energy and can drive people crazy," Zhou Quan said.

Luo Qi shook his head; he didn't care about those things. "Except for Du Zhengyi, everyone is afraid of me. Why aren't you afraid?"

"Perhaps because I have a pair of wise eyes, and I can see through the essence of your soul without needing to open a Heavenly Eye. Most importantly, I like making deals. Only people without brains fear all power they cannot control. As for me, I look forward to you owing me a few more favors," Zhou Quan said solemnly. After hesitating slightly, he added, "But I'll kindly remind you of one thing: don't complain about Qionglin publicly. Just because they can't tell who the Lotus Burners are, Qionglin now has a tendency to put everyone who complains about Qionglin on a watch list."

"Fuck," Luo Qi said.

Zhou Quan nodded, agreeing with Luo Qi's exclamation. He wanted to say something more, but the light and shadow before his eyes twisted. He felt dazed, as if he were being spat out. Then he felt his heavy body; the real world reappeared in an extremely distorted way, and he felt a bit dizzy.

Before his eyes, that irritable Luo Qi was frowning in reality. Zhou Quan, feeling dizzy, wanted to suggest to Luo Qi that in the future, before and after doing this, could he please give him a clear signal.