Chapter 487: Restoring Luo Qi

For a moment, Luo Qi just stared blankly ahead, his gaze failing to focus on Du Zhengyi, as if his retinas and the visual processing functions of his brain couldn't coordinate for the time being. His eyes were bloodshot, unfocused, and terrifyingly crimson; the wound on his neck was caked with dirt, his clothes were torn, and his exterior was smeared with a layer of mud mixed with blood. Du Zhengyi watched him silently; the gentle and eccentric boy from before now looked like a ghost.

He condensed a bubble filled with water at his fingertips and inserted it into Luo Qi's cracked, bleeding lips. The bubble burst inside Luo Qi's mouth, and Luo Qi swallowed the water. Just as he was about to continue, Luo Qi fumbled to grab his wrist and rasped, "No need." If he hadn't been familiar with him, he would have barely been able to make out what he said. Du Zhengyi frowned slightly, and just as he was about to raise his hand, Luo Qi pressed it back down. "Save your strength."

"You know... the two of us look like two destitute people scraping pennies together right now," Du Zhengyi said.

Luo Qi laughed sluggishly, then suddenly choked and began to cough. Du Zhengyi was distractedly thinking that the gurgling sound in Luo Qi's throat sounded like he was about to vomit blood, when Luo Qi caught his breath and coughed up a mouthful of blood mixed with bloody foam. The bloody foam carried an ominous air, and the fresh blood painted Luo Qi's lips in a jarring way. Du Zhengyi's heart sank heavily. "I'll take you..."

Luo Qi held him back. "It's fine. I know where I'm injured; I can repair myself." After a brief, labored breath, Luo Qi said in a low voice, "I don't need to owe the Qionglin any favors."

"That bit of anatomy you taught yourself? It's mainly focused on cranial nerves. Is that how you plan to repair yourself? Have you thought about the consequences of connecting the wrong tubes?" Du Zhengyi said, stunned. But today's Luo Qi was different from the past. Luo Qi usually had many ideas but lacked resolve; if Du Zhengyi insisted on something, he would choose to follow orders. Yet today, Du Zhengyi could clearly feel Luo Qi's will. In the space of his mind, Luo Qi's Slime was very close to him, but unlike before, it didn't joyfully smear a circle around his dam; it simply stayed near him.

"Your Nainai gave me a set of medical encyclopedias." Luo Qi raised a finger and tapped his own temple. "I was always too lazy to open them, and I didn't even know I had them. It wasn't until I was forced to survive here that I discovered such a treasure book at the bottom of my box."

"My Nainai?" Du Zhengyi looked at him, bewildered. "Hasn't your brain fully recovered yet?"

"You know, I think the Highland Mages inherited the botany of the Ancestor Mages, and the Wushan Goddess inherited the medical Magic of the Ancestor Mages," Luo Qi said. He wiped the blood from his mouth, and Du Zhengyi could feel his breathing becoming steady; the bruising on his lungs should truly be improving.

"Wushan Goddess... you mean Shi Xiansheng?" Du Zhengyi frowned, his heart easing slightly, yet he remained deeply uneasy. "Did you two pass things behind my back at the barbecue restaurant? And you just loaded what he gave you into your brain?"

"Only between Mind Mages can the knowledge of another Mind Mage be fully loaded into one's brain to become one's own knowledge," Luo Qi said. "Otherwise, I would have shared it with you."

"I thank you for thinking of me! Have you considered that it might also contain her consciousness? Don't you remember how your brain was taken over by another mind? She gives it to you, and you just take it? And you even stuffed it into your brain?" Du Zhengyi knew he absolutely shouldn't be arguing with someone while they were still vomiting blood, but this person was Luo Qi, so it wasn't something an ordinary person could endure.

"I feel like she is on our side; she looks like your Nainai," Luo Qi couldn't help but retort.

"My Nainai? Even if you actually saw my real Nainai, don't trust her," Du Zhengyi said, annoyed.

"You still have a Nainai alive?" Luo Qi asked, surprised.

"My Nainai died a long time ago; I was speaking metaphorically! You're in this state and you still have the leisure to care about these trivial matters?"

"It's fine," Luo Qi swallowed and comforted him, "I've already repaired myself several times."

Du Zhengyi glared down at him. "From personal experience, you'd be more comfortable if you just spat the blood out."

"Soon, it will be fine," Luo Qi said. He raised his sleeve to cover his mouth and wiped away the bloody foam.

Du Zhengyi looked at him with a complex expression. "I really don't want to admit it, but every day I feel more like your father might be right." He was covered in blood, spitting blood, yet he was miraculously recovering; the bloodshot look in his eyes was rapidly disappearing—even a Mahjong couldn't heal itself like that. The logic was like the Ouroboros that couldn't truly exist; a snake couldn't survive by devouring its own tail, and it was difficult for a Mage to heal themselves when their body was severely damaged. Luo Qi's feeling might be right; the small faction of Wushan had inherited medical Magic that the Qionglin Mages didn't know about. "If everything could go back, I really wish we had finished the investigation smoothly. We would meet at the mall on the weekend, playing video games, not this."

"And then one day you disappeared." Luo Qi blinked, his vision beginning to return to normal. He suddenly said with resentment, "I thought you had really disappeared!"

"Is this... a child acting spoiled?" Du Zhengyi assessed his recovering physical parameters. "The startup password you set for yourself was me. If you didn't believe I would come to find you, were you planning to sleep forever?"

"Not here. It was when I woke up the next day, and they told me you were gone, transferred by the Qionglin to do something else! You just left like that!"

"Shh, shh, calm down, Luo Qi, your blood pressure is spiking." Du Zhengyi raised his hand and tentatively placed it on Luo Qi's shoulder, gripping it. "Even if I had to leave, I would never have left without saying goodbye."

"That was also part of the test, I realized later. Pine branch, Qionglin, you told me the answer to the riddle, so I could keep my cool," Luo Qi said in a low voice. "You cheated."

"Who cares?" Du Zhengyi smiled. "I've never followed their rules."

"You have your own rules," Luo Qi murmured. His vision finally fully recovered, and he saw at a glance that the Zombie Legion in the distance was passing through the edge of the world. "What is that? Was the Sandbox opened?"

"I dismantled this Sandbox," Du Zhengyi said.

Luo Qi opened his mouth wide, and after a long while, said, "Do we have to pay for it?"

"Probably can't afford it, so I guess we don't have to pay," Du Zhengyi said, without a shred of a guilty conscience. "It's fine, they always have quite a few collateral losses when they use me; I think they should be used to it by now."

"But why are they running out?" Luo Qi watched in shock as the zombies stampeded away like an African animal migration. "You really have the heart to do it; the Investigation Committee is all outside, aren't they?"

"It's fine, they're all Great Mages; if they can't handle this little bit of trouble, what kind of Great Mages are they?"

Luo Qi opened his mouth wide; this was no "little bit of trouble," but... they really deserved it. He closed his mouth, blocking out the flying dust. "That's fair."