Chapter 551: Lu Qingshan

Du Zhengyi stepped onto the stairs, finished the last two puffs of his cigarette, tossed the butt into the trash can by the entrance, and looked up at the gray building in front of him. This was the most uninteresting type of human architecture: gray-white, rigid, and as solid as a cold fortress. However, he suddenly recalled that, from a certain angle, it looked a bit similar to the decor style of his own home.

The double doors opened automatically before him, and he walked inside. Behind the doors was a two-story open-ceiling foyer; the white walls, unpainted for many years, had turned gray, and the murky air was permeated with a strong smell of disinfectant. The old terrazzo floor was dull and lusterless, its heavy wear leaving the surface rough and uneven. A dilapidated wooden table used for reception sat at the entrance; there was no one behind it, and a thick visitor logbook lay on the surface, its blue plastic cover caked with years of grime.

Du Zhengyi glanced at it but did not touch the book. His footsteps paused slightly before he headed straight into the corridor on the left. One side of the corridor was lined with windows, while the other side had a row of identical iron doors, each with a small double-paned window that had also been worn opaque.

Du Zhengyi stopped in front of one of the doors and kicked it open.

A male guard sitting by the window, leaning against his chair back, stood up slowly. He looked Du Zhengyi up and down, failing to recognize him, and the lifeless expression on his face became even more frozen.

Du Zhengyi nodded at him as a greeting. "They have you on duty here?"

"Yeah," the man said, a flash of disgust crossing his face. "And they make me wear this tiger skin."

"I don't like coming to the humans to see corpses either," Du Zhengyi said. "Was it the human police who found him first again? Why haven't they sent the body back yet?"

The man's hostility softened slightly. He walked a few steps to the left and pulled open an iron cabinet door with force. "Human preservation technology works just fine, so why should they go through the trouble of taking the body back? He was just a Second-level Executive Mage anyway, nothing major. When the time comes, we just need to tell his parents one thing: your son has sacrificed himself for the Magic World."

As he finished his last sentence, the frozen corpse was dragged out completely, and a gentle force of Magic blew away the white cloth covering the deceased's face.

An overly young face was revealed, the expression from the moment of death frozen upon it. Du Zhengyi had seen many faces of dead men filled with terror, but this one was not terror; it was more like surprise—surprise that death would actually come for him, an surprise that was so naive. That force of Magic also stirred the strands of hair, adding a false sense of vitality to the young face, as if his slightly parted mouth might choke out a breath at any moment and open those eyes that were surely naive.

"So young," Du Zhengyi couldn't help but say in a low voice.

"Yeah," the man said, also looking down at the deceased. "Just graduated, his first time working as an Executive Mage. The head is well-preserved, but the cause of death is clear."

The white cloth suddenly pulled back, revealing a bowl-sized hole in the deceased's chest; it was empty inside, the ribs broken cleanly, looking as if...

"The local space was directionally distorted," Du Zhengyi said.

"Right," the man said. He stared at that ghastly hole, and after a long while, he shivered. "You guys are the ones who do this work; this way of dying... it should count as a quick death, right?"

Du Zhengyi did not answer; he reached out and pulled the white cloth back over.

"What is his name?"

"Lu Qingshan," the man said after thinking for a moment.

Du Zhengyi walked out of the main entrance, lit another cigarette, and stood on the steps, puffing away while looking at the flower bed circling below the steps and the few old cars that seemed to be parked there year-round. The end of the courtyard was surrounded by black iron railings, with a military recruitment poster hanging every two meters. A narrow asphalt road led straight to the electric retractable gate, where red LED text flickered, and a black Mercedes business van was parked outside. Further away, things were unclear; thick fog permeated the gray, overcast sky, as if the sky had increased in thickness, leaving only two stories of space for the earth, and the distant high-rises were reduced to dark gray shadows under the gray sky.

He finished the cigarette in his hand, walked down the steps, and followed the narrow road all the way outside the gate. The door of the business van slid open automatically; he sat inside and kicked the back of the seat in front of him. The Mage in the front, who was wearing headphones and playing a game, sat up straight abruptly. He said, "Let's go."

The three Mages in the back also became restless. Xiang Qian, sitting next to him, unhurriedly put down the book in her hand and stuffed it into a handbag. "You just had to come see for yourself, even though you knew there was nothing to see. You really are a control freak."

Du Zhengyi did not speak, his gaze fixed on the street scene outside the window. The car gradually accelerated and drove forward. The door of an internet cafe by the side of the road was pushed open, and several noisy human high school students walked out, pushing and shoving each other in play.

Xiang Qian looked Du Zhengyi over again, her face full of disapproval. "Two cigarettes in such a short time? Kid, you aren't lacking anything, except for a nagging mother."

Du Zhengyi sensed that the three Battle Mages behind him were all restraining their Qi, as if hoping to plug their ears and erase themselves from this conversation. He truly did not have a nagging mother, but for some reason, he thought of the jabbering Luo Qi and quickly stopped this bizarre train of thought.

He turned his head to see that Xiang Qian still intended to keep talking, but he did not want to chat, and he never chatted with colleagues. "Has Lu Qingshan's final trajectory been confirmed?"

"Of course," Xiang Qian replied. "Led by a Level 1 Executive Mage, their group came to Ganzhou to investigate all the temples that worship the Great Black Heaven. This arrangement was made based on the news you brought back, to test the waters of the Lotus Burners. Lu Qingshan and another Second-level Executive Mage were assigned to a village called Hongquangou, and the tragedy happened there."

She finished speaking, saw that Du Zhengyi had no reaction, and added, "They were unlucky. They were just ordinary Mages, and they ended up running into an expert among the Lotus Burners. Lu Qingshan's companion was in the same village, and at the time of the incident, they were on opposite sides of the temple; he didn't even know how he died or who killed him. To be precise, that person didn't even know he was dead at the time—truly blind and deaf. It was the villagers next door who found the body first. Mages these days are really... a bunch of little chicks."

Du Zhengyi did not comment and asked, "What is the name of Lu Qingshan's companion?"

Xiang Qian smiled for some reason, a hint of mockery floating in her eyes. "Zhou Ruisi—'Rui' for wise, 'Si' for deep thought."

(End of chapter)