Chapter 52: The Reason for the Attack

Du Zhengyi silently passed through the Interrogation Room; Li Xu and Zhao Zhiyan lay on the ground not far apart, both still alive. He walked quietly between them, able to feel their steady breathing stirring the dust on the floor.

He raised his hand and skillfully sent a cold-light Fireball up to the ceiling. The new light source replaced the eerie, dismal blue glow that had originally filled the Interrogation Room, and the room brightened in the steady firelight. The Obsidian tabletop in the center of the room reflected an uncanny luster; Du Zhengyi only paid the slightest attention to that table, and the whispering in his mind immediately grew louder.

He frowned and focused his attention once more, firmly shielding those whispers outside of his Yajian. He took a few steps forward, careful not to touch the Obsidian; the Crystal Coffin on the long table looked even more ominous than the massive block of Obsidian. The coffin made this place feel like a morgue or an ancient tomb, though he could not be certain if the oppression in his chest came from this underground chamber or from the ancient soul sleeping within the Obsidian.

But when he walked closer to observe it carefully, he realized the Crystal Coffin was not manufactured in an ancient era, at least not in a way that could compare to the Obsidian. He suspected the form of the Crystal Coffin was imitating some kind of human experimental apparatus. He could not help but raise his head to look around; the four walls were hung with magnificent tapestries. At first glance, he thought the tapestries had a Central Asian style, but then he discovered they were far older than the era he belonged to.

Looking closely, he realized these tapestries depicted a series of complex stories. He could recognize the scene of the Mysterious Bird descending, ancient ancestors praying in a temple, and humans crawling in the distance far beyond the Holy Mountain, so small they were almost negligible. The style of the temple was more ancient than the temple deep within the Gushan caves, bearing some shadows of Ramesses II, carrying the marks of a hodgepodge of many civilizations. Du Zhengyi did not find this strange; in ancient times, geographical limitations were not as insurmountable for Mages as they were for humans.

He quickly browsed the stories on the four walls; the tapestries completely narrated how Mages descended to this world following the Mysterious Bird, endured various trials of the devil, and finally transcended their physical bodies to become deities in the temple. The only thing that bothered Du Zhengyi slightly was that, unlike general myths and legends where one person attains the Dao and the masses admire them, here, in every scene of apotheosis, it was a group of people who became gods. In the previous scene, they held hands as if praying in unison, and in the next, they became gods in the clouds together. However, this thought merely flashed through his mind; he did not care for these primitive metaphors that only Scholars would be interested in, and instead turned to probe the composition of the tapestries, delving into the material and age of the tapestries, and soon found a set of contradictory data.

The wool composition of the tapestries was a specialty of Shuofang Prefecture during the Tang Dynasty; Qionglin had many items left over from the previous Shengdian, most of which were products of the late Tang Dynasty. Du Zhengyi had grown up here and was very familiar with these. This would normally be nothing, but all things gradually tend toward annihilation with the passage of time; even with careful maintenance by Magic, it could only slightly delay this process.

So, that was where the problem lay. The tapestries were of an unreproducible Tang Dynasty white felt base, but they were simply too new, not like objects that had traversed a thousand years. Most people might not notice the contradiction between the material and the time, but Du Zhengyi had always been meticulous. He was very skilled at finding contradictions, and once a contradiction existed, no matter how many realistic details there were, they were nothing but lies. A single subtle contradiction could shatter the grandest illusion.

Once he realized this, Du Zhengyi immediately withdrew all probes of the Interrogation Room's Barrier and cautiously wrapped all of his Yajian within a Shield. He knew this ancient Interrogation Room was densely covered with complex Barriers, with layers upon layers of locks composed of scattered thoughts, wrapping the four walls here like vines. Only on the outermost layer of these illusionary Barriers were the real door locks; a prisoner could never break through this layer of grand locks to walk out of this Interrogation Room. The prisoner could not even find the most basic reality, let alone find an opportunity to leave.

In other words, if Du Zhengyi were trapped here, he could at best ensure his own mind remained clear. This premise also required his body to be in a good state, energetic, healthy, and capable of constructing a Shield of thought. No Mage could successfully break out of prison while this Interrogation Room was activated, unless... Du Zhengyi thought helplessly, unless someone was like Luo Qi, for whom illusions had almost no effect. He had never truly thought about what it meant that Luo Qi could not see illusions, because the most logical answer was undoubtedly the most inconceivable one.

Du Zhengyi looked around, imagining what it would look like from Luo Qi's perspective; perhaps it was the origin of things, walls built of stone or caves rammed from yellow earth. He did not quite know if being able to see the essence of things was always a good thing; being brought into a hole underground was perhaps less comforting than seeing a glorious illusion.

He frowned, and anxiety corroded an ever-larger hole in his chest. He condensed a test tube out of thin air and quickly took away a portion of the liquid from the Crystal Coffin. He did not want to think at all about what this Crystal Coffin was used for, nor did he want to know what Luo Qi looked like right now.

He finished all the work of collecting samples, and only then did he extremely reluctantly turn back to carefully examine the two people on the ground; he had to decide what to do, and he had to be fast.

There was a ring of bruises on Zhao Zhiyan's neck, seemingly strangled by someone's hands. He did not think Luo Qi had enough strength to make a Second-level Executive Mage like Zhao Zhiyan allow him to choke his neck without resistance; that scene was quite ridiculous to think about. But if this possibility were excluded, then one could only guess that Li Xu and Zhao Zhiyan had turned against each other. If that were the case, the situation would be somewhat funny; that would probably be Zhao Zhiyan cursing the Great Mage Li Xu into a vegetable with open eyes, and the vegetable Great Mage strangling Zhao Zhiyan half to death.

Du Zhengyi hoped he could compile a report from this angle; otherwise, Luo Qi would shock the entire Magic World, and would also be fortunate enough to receive an arrest warrant for more than half of the Magic World.

Du Zhengyi fell into thought, but he had never had any patience; in less than thirty seconds, he knew he could at least be certain of one thing—that he definitely had no time to waste on writing a report. The Sensing Crystal he had left in the underground tunnel sent him an alarm; someone was already coming here.

He stood up, raised his hands, and without hesitation, launched an attack on the two poor people lying on the ground who had already lost consciousness.