Chapter 45: Laboratory No. 5

Du Zhengyi appeared in an empty corridor, released the girl's arm, and waited for her to regain her balance. Traversing space was as natural to him as breathing, only, it was no longer as effortless as it once was. He had to restrain himself from using his ability as freely as he used to. For instance, he would not traverse space just to go to the kitchen for an apple.

But the feeling of using Magic Ability was so good; when traversing space, the world became slow and every detail was laid bare. He could see the trajectories of Space Distortion, could see space standing still like sliced gelatin, and he truly felt that he was alive—that was the form of his existence. Yet now, he used his power cautiously; he was like a high-performance car that could never be switched to sport mode, forced to drive slowly in energy-saving mode, feeling the engine rusting at every moment.

Therefore, if Luo Qi could handle his own trouble, he should not waste time coming here to save him. Du Zhengyi had never been a savior, nor had he ever for a day thought about being a hero.

If there truly existed a hero, it should be the girl beside him. Perhaps the role of a hero, once one reached adulthood, was no longer suitable to play.

The moment they walked into the hall, Du Zhengyi knew Guan Xinyue would definitely be fine; the girl wore an expression of extreme contempt and provocation on her face. He knew this look might stem from Guan Xinyue's deep-seated hostility toward the Mage World, or perhaps it was a symptom of the "middle-school syndrome" Luo Qi had mentioned. But in this hall where top-tier Mages gathered, two-thirds of the people wore this expression; Guan Xinyue walking in was practically like returning home.

In the open-plan hall, many Mages hurried back and forth. Du Zhengyi walked among these people with composure, occasionally nodding to one or two acquaintances. Guan Xinyue kept a distance of two steps behind him as previously agreed. He watched her from the corner of his eye; there were several magic experiments going on in the surrounding Sandbox Barriers, yet she maintained her indifferent expression, devoid of any curiosity. He almost wanted to applaud her; if the person following him now were Luo Qi, he would probably have to find a leash to tie him up to walk through safely.

This hall was quite large, and they had finally walked through most of it; with ten meters left to go before exiting the hall, Du Zhengyi felt himself secretly heave a sigh of relief, turned his head to glance at Guan Xinyue, and exchanged a look with her. At the north end of the hall was a corridor, where most of the rooms were offices for Great Mages, but they were only offices in form; they were usually not here, as the sense of honor brought by having an office here was greater than its actual utility. In the middle of the corridor was a Library, and the Energy Crystal that secured the Qionglin Barrier was in this Library.

His only hope was that there was no one in the Library right now; if someone were inside looking up information, he would have to wait a while before acting. Everything depended on this final bit of luck; generally speaking, people did not often go there during the day, so his probability of success remained high. His premonition about Luo Qi getting into trouble grew heavier; he recalled the details related to Luo Qi, and there were suspicious points everywhere. He even began to regret not pressing harder on why it was Luo Qi who followed him; it was all because of that ghost story with the exceptionally high L-value from Great Mage Liu Li that had distracted him entirely. Even now, he could not understand how someone as upright as a grindstone like Liu Li could say such nonsense.

He thought too much and was distracted; when he caught a glimpse of a yellowish-brown flash out of the corner of his eye, he failed to react. Someone shouted, "Watch out!" Du Zhengyi's body sensed the sudden approach of energy, his instincts practically screaming danger. Without needing to think, he obeyed his instincts and dodged violently, turning his head back to look at Guan Xinyue first. She was standing very cleverly beside a pile of Mages, one hand pressed tightly over her mouth, but she made no sound and had no unusual movements.

He set his mind at ease and turned to look for the thing that had attacked him; several Mages rushed up to subdue the thing together. He was truly lucky; walking in the most respectable office building of the Mages, he could still almost have his face scratched by a baboon.

"What's going on?" he said distractedly. He was eager to leave this place, yet he could not appear completely indifferent; after all, "vengeful" and "not to be trifled with" were labels he had stuck to the back of his head. The kid who caused the trouble had already run over, terrified out of his wits, to apologize. Du Zhengyi was famous on this floor, and when the man saw clearly who it was, his legs went soft with fear.

Du Zhengyi listened with full impatience to his stuttering explanation about an accident involving a Psychic Beast losing control; they had just started experimenting with primates and were having trouble grasping high-intelligence animals.

Just as he was about to shoo this kid away, a voice came from behind him, "Du Zhengyi? Is that you?"

Du Zhengyi turned his head back impatiently. A middle-aged Mage with graying hair was standing not far away, wearing black-rimmed glasses, looking serious and highly dignified.

"Teacher Zuo Yu." Du Zhengyi had to stop; Zuo Yu was a colleague of his teacher, and he heard he had even been promoted this year; he was the person in charge here.

"Here to find your teacher?" The Great Mage walked straight toward him.

"Here to look up some information," Du Zhengyi said, subconsciously glancing at Guan Xinyue. She seemed to realize she needed to be wary of older Mages, turned her back, and blended into a group of girls discussing Magic Coefficients, putting a greater distance between herself and Du Zhengyi.

The young Mage finally retrieved his baboon, Zuo Yu glared at him sternly, and the young man ran off in a flash before he could speak. Zuo Yu watched his back as he left, shook his head, then turned to look Du Zhengyi up and down, his gaze softening much more, as if looking at his own child. "Haven't seen you for a while. Is Pei Lao still ordering you around everywhere? I remember you graduate this year; come to our department."

"I still need to talk to Teacher Pei," Du Zhengyi said; compared to the serious Great Mage, his attitude could be considered cold. "You aren't short of hands here either; there are many new faces again this year."

Zuo Yu smiled with annoyance and shook his head, "I've been talking to Pei Lao about this recently; there are too few excellent Mages."

"How so?" Du Zhengyi didn't want to talk much, but it wasn't easy to leave immediately. "Are they unwilling to come to the Experimental Department?"

"I have some disagreements with Pei Lao." Zuo Yu did not answer him directly; his expression was faint, revealing slight displeasure, "I hope to be more cautious from the start of admissions, to raise the entrance requirements. Some Mages have too low a Mind Rating; even if they have some Magic Ability, they shouldn't be admitted."

"Why is that?" Du Zhengyi thought of Luo Qi and subconsciously defended him, "Some Mage Apprentices might have obstacles in releasing their own abilities and will gradually overcome them after years of study."

"But it is limited in the end," Zuo Yu interjected. He was telling the truth, and Du Zhengyi could not refute it.

Zuo Yu continued, "Besides, these students are destined to go to the Otherworld to survive, naturally leaning toward humans and promoting human lifestyles at school; the influence on other students is too bad. A student from your year who obtained Level 1 Mage status directly refused the Mage Committee's conscription and went to the Otherworld to open a restaurant. In our time, such a situation was simply unimaginable."

Du Zhengyi, however, thought that Zuo Yu's "our time" was exactly the terrible era for humans, when the war had not yet completely ended and the land was scarred; if any Mage had wanted to live in human society back then, that would have been truly unimaginable.

"Many of your classmates have similar thoughts; it's a bit difficult for us to conscript Execution Mages now. Even if they come here, many have mobile phones tucked in their pockets. I specifically blocked electronic equipment throughout Qionglin."

Du Zhengyi had nothing to say; he never cared what others were doing and was also very distant from his classmates. Moreover, he had a mobile phone in his own pocket.

"You are a rare child with a sense of responsibility and commitment," Zuo Yu said earnestly. "Although I can't move Pei Lao, we still have some common language; I hope you can talk to Pei Lao."

"What does my teacher say?" he asked.

"Pei Lao always hopes to give people a chance," Zuo Yu's face showed respect, yet also some disapproval. "Even if we give those children a chance, what can happen? In the end, not many students are willing to work hard to break through their bottlenecks; most are not diligent enough, lazy and only knowing how to play those games that sap the will of humans."

Du Zhengyi did not speak. If diligence were a virtue, he knew Zuo Yu was only diligent; if Pei Shu were not a person willing to give others a chance, given Zuo Yu's talent, there would have been no hope of reaching his current position. When Du Zhengyi was fifteen, he had already played the game of testing Zuo Yu's ability; Zuo Yu was like an open book in front of him, and this book was written in pinyin and illustrations, not worth mentioning at all.

What is the point of wanting to evaluate others by one's own standards? Zuo Yu's value was diligence, but in this world, diligence was not the most important thing, nor was intelligence, nor was Magic Ability. Therefore, Pei Shu was always willing to give others a chance, willing to wait and see other possibilities; Du Zhengyi knew this was wise.

But Zuo Yu appreciated him, so he considered them the same kind of person. Zuo Yu patted his shoulder, and the topic shifted, "I heard from Liu Ziyi that they assigned you a problematic partner."

Du Zhengyi was stunned for a moment, his interest piqued, "Liu Ziyi said that? How did she know?" She was also Pei Shu's student, had been working here all along, and was a girl only interested in innovative magic; he hadn't even talked to her much. Hearing her gossip was strange enough, let alone about things she shouldn't know.

"When your partner was dragged here, he went to pester her," Zuo Yu said with dissatisfaction. "Li Xu is doing things in an increasingly ugly manner; I don't know why he had to drag a child with no ability to Qionglin."

"How does Teacher Zuo know he has no ability?"

"His parents came, and as a result, Li Xu of the Security Department detained the child and wouldn't let him see his parents," Zuo Yu said with dissatisfaction. "I happen to know his parents; Luo Yisheng and his wife are the most outstanding doctors. It's a pity this child is not like them."

"Luo Yisheng and his wife are both doctors?" Du Zhengyi asked in surprise, his voice lowered, "Are they both Mind Masters?"

This time it was Zuo Yu's turn to be startled, "The list of Mind Masters is confidential; how did you know?"

This was equivalent to an affirmative answer, though Du Zhengyi also knew Zuo Yu never considered him an outsider; Zuo Yu didn't even consider him a student, always viewing him as a colleague, or even as the person to succeed Pei Shu in the future. Although a Great Mage like Zuo Yu was stubborn and difficult, he also had a simple and honest side.

But these were not things for Du Zhengyi to consider; he had a thought that had been weighing on his heart for a long time. Although Zuo Yu was not some amazing genius, his diligence also gave him a wealth of knowledge. "Teacher Zuo," Du Zhengyi said somewhat urgently, his sincerity in seeking advice making his attitude much more earnest, "Teacher Zuo, I heard that Telepathy is a rare ability, often appearing in alternate generations in families with such abilities. But if both husband and wife are Telepaths, then the probability of giving birth to such a child is very high. Is that so?"

"That is correct," Zuo Yu said with slight surprise; it seemed the Du Zhengyi who was always sleepy was suddenly not lacking sleep, which surprised him a bit. "When Luo Yisheng mentioned their only son's lack of ability, it was also very regrettable. Although I don't know how you, kid, got the news, Luo Yisheng and his wife are dragons and phoenixes among people, pretty much the best Mind Mages of this era, and have helped Qionglin solve many problems."

"Luo Qi said... their family's Mind Rating is very low..." Du Zhengyi muttered, the prickly, itchy feelings in his heart suddenly becoming clear, drawing a definite trajectory that pointed to an unbelievable yet plain conclusion.

"What are you talking about?" Zuo Yu asked suspiciously. Seeing Du Zhengyi not responding, he didn't take offense, shrugged his shoulders, and followed his own guess, "Are you talking about their child? Telepaths all have a contradictory psychology; the privacy of ordinary people is nowhere to hide in front of them, but they often treat Telepathy as their own greatest privacy. However, this is not hard to understand, right?"

He looked at Du Zhengyi with some worry; he often heard those young people talk about Du Zhengyi having a tendency toward high-functioning autism, seemingly unable to understand the ordinary emotions and privacy of many people. Although he didn't believe these words, he still worried for Du Zhengyi.

"Mm," Du Zhengyi answered him vaguely, "I still have an experimental result to confirm with Liu Ziyi; I'll go ask her."

"Wait," Zuo Yu said, stopping Du Zhengyi.

Du Zhengyi felt a bit of vigilance rise in his heart.

As it turned out, Zuo Yu looked at him and asked, "How is your body lately? Your complexion doesn't look too good."

Du Zhengyi was taken aback; he hadn't expected Zuo Yu to be concerned about him, and for a moment he was at a loss.

"It's fine, no problems," he said vaguely, nodded slightly to Zuo Yu, and turned to walk away.

Unexpectedly, Zuo Yu called him back again, "Since you've been a partner with Luo Yisheng's child, do you want to go see him? I think no matter what happened, Mage Li will eventually look for you to ask questions. Since you're here today anyway, why not go talk to him directly and ask what's going on."

Du Zhengyi's complexion slowly grew weary; he blinked and said, "What does that have to do with me?"

Zuo Yu sighed, as if he still wanted to lecture him on relationships between people, but he had already walked away.