Chapter 556: Hongquangou

Zhou Ruisi is a young man with a gaunt face; he is older than Du Zhengyi, but since no one would ever want to compare themselves to Du Zhengyi, he can still be considered young.

At the moment, his shoulders are pulled tight, his thumbs and index fingers are constantly picking at each other, and his pair of dark, bright eyes are darting nervously beneath his eyebrows, shifting from one Battle Mage in the room to another; in short, he is trying his best to avoid eye contact with Xiang Qian.

A sharp-eyed female Mage will make many young boys think of their own mothers, and if the two identities of "one's own mother" and "a warrior" are combined into one, anyone would break into a cold sweat.

"Say it again, and be more detailed," Xiang Qian interrupted what he was currently saying. "Louder! Are you still a young man? My granddaughter has more spirit than you."

Zhou Ruisi swallowed, trying his best to recall the details of the whole affair, struggling to straighten out his tongue. "We were assigned to this county—oh, a human administrative county—to inspect temples. Logically speaking, no Mage has ever registered a residence here, which means there shouldn't be any Mages. So my original point was that there was actually no need to come over; the briefing mentioned that Da Hei Heaven temples are all related to Mage murder cases, and if there are no Mages, there wouldn't be such temples. But Qingshan, he... he is a very, very serious person; he said since we were already here, we might as well check this county too. Then we came over here. Before we arrived, no one told me it was so high up here. Sorry, I mean to say, I have a bit of altitude sickness. Most Mages don't have this problem, but I have always been a bit..." He made a vague gesture, not knowing if he hoped others would know he was fragile, or if he hoped others wouldn't think he was fragile.

They were currently in the main hall of a temple. At this time, the lighting in the temple was not very good, and it could not reach the corners of the temple. Du Zhengyi did not listen to his report with the other Battle Mages; he turned through all the corners by himself and then turned toward the back hall. The statue worshipped here was slightly different from the one in Guan Family Village, but he found the iconic Ouroboros of the clownfish on the base of the statue, so he could be certain this was also one.

Under Xiang Qian's gaze, Zhou Ruisi gave up on describing himself and continued, "We walked through most of the villages in the county. These villages are actually basically abandoned; this place was already close to a human no-man's-land, and it didn't look like there were many people to begin with. Even in the villages that weren't abandoned, the young and middle-aged people had basically all left; there were only old people and children. This village is called Hongquangou, and although it doesn't look big, it definitely counts as a large village in this area. It's shameful to say, but as soon as we entered the village, we were surrounded by a group of old people. I couldn't understand a single word of the local dialect they spoke. We hadn't said more than a few words before they actually used some kind of sticks and forks to drive us away. My god, I think those old people were already ninety in human years; they were so old they were practically falling apart, and just looking at them made me dizzy. I was terrified that if they swung a stick over, they'd break my old waist. No matter what, we couldn't fight back against people that old. Qingshan, following human custom, threatened those old people by saying he would call the police. But they said they were the Red Spring Valley Senior Association—I don't know what the hell that is—but they said they were responsible for local public security and told us that if we wanted to call the police, we should just report it to them."

"Didn't you say you couldn't understand a single word of the local dialect they spoke?" Xiang Qian asked.

Zhou Ruisi paused and said, "I couldn't understand, but Qingshan could understand some."

"Fine, then go on with what happened later."

"Later, Qingshan gave them three thousand yuan, Renminbi, and then they let us go worship at the temple."

"Huh?" Xiang Qian was stunned for a moment. "What is all this? Are you sure Lu Qingshan could really understand what they were saying? A senior association claiming to be a law enforcement agency, and in the end, they collected a three-thousand-yuan entrance fee from you?"

"I... you asked me for details, and anyway, these are the details!" Zhou Ruisi said aggrievedly, looking like he had suffered a terrible misfortune.

"Don't tell me that even though you two are Mages, even if you were humans, two big young men just got extorted by a bunch of old thugs like that?"

"I don't know, I really don't know, that's just how it was at the time." Zhou Ruisi sighed impatiently, his eyes a little red. "If I had known Qingshan would meet with an accident, we shouldn't have come. We thought it was best to do things the human way at the time; the latest Qionglin guidance also says so, telling us to use as little Magic as possible, and if something can be solved with Renminbi, don't use Magic. We were also following the rules, thinking that three thousand yuan to investigate a temple was fine."

Xiang Qian also became irritable. "Do I have to praise you for saying that? Alright, alright, stop talking. I really don't want to get angry with you two. It's fortunate that I never have to go to school to be a teacher for you lot in this lifetime. What happened later? What happened after you arrived at the temple?"

"Nothing happened. The only thing was that Qingshan died," Zhou Ruisi said.

"What?" Xiang Qian wanted to slap him. "Are you catching an attitude now?"

"No, really not, Mage Xiang. I don't know, I really don't know. When Qingshan and I came in, we saw that this temple was indeed unusual. Although I don't understand human faith, I've seen dozens of temples, I'm almost sick of looking at them, and I can tell at a glance whether a temple is normal or not. Anyway, in China, no one worships such a black-faced god; it's the kind of Da Hei Heaven mentioned in the briefing. But this temple was an empty temple; there was no one there at all, and there was nothing to investigate. I said I'd better take some notes, as I still had to report back. Qingshan said he would go to the back to take a look and see if there was anything there. Then... then it just happened. After I finished my notes, I went out the back door to look for Qingshan, but I didn't see anyone. I thought he must have gone around to the front entrance after looking at the back. Then I went to the foot of the wall... to relieve myself, and then I heard someone shouting in the front courtyard. I ran over and saw Qingshan lying there..."

"What kind of person could strike so quickly, and what kind of person could let you go after striking so quickly?" Xiang Qian said irritably. "Didn't you notice anything wrong at the time? Think about it carefully again!"

"I... Mage Xiang, I have thought about it, I've been thinking for two days," Zhou Ruisi said aggrievedly.

Du Zhengyi shook his head, got up, and walked out through the back door of the temple, lighting a cigarette at the entrance. Like most rural courtyards, the front courtyard of the temple was very spacious, but the back door was very close to the perimeter wall, with a distance of less than two meters. The courtyard wall was made of rammed earth, the foot of the wall was overgrown with wild grass, and some broken tools were piled up. If Zhou Ruisi walked out of the back door, these were the only things he could see.

He walked forward slowly. The courtyard walls in this village were very high, mostly over two and a half meters, but unlike residential houses, the temple's courtyard wall would not block the building. He remembered that Lu Qingshan was about the same height as him, likely close to one meter nine; Zhou Ruisi was a bit shorter, about one meter eight. So, it just so happened that when Lu Qingshan approached the courtyard wall, he could see outside the wall, while Zhou Ruisi could not.

Du Zhengyi stood by the wall and finished the cigarette. Outside the wall was a narrow village road, and opposite was a row of residential houses, also surrounded by walls, though they were brick walls plastered with cement. There were many children's graffiti on the walls: suns, turtles, strange human figures, houses, and... Du Zhengyi's gaze fell on the foot of the wall opposite, a line of Advanced Magic Script written in chalk. It was exactly the same as the one Luo Qi had given him...

Lu Qingshan had been attracted; he must have climbed over the wall, curious to go and see what was going on.

(End of chapter)