Chapter 566: Meeting Up (7)

"Mr. Shi, you look well." The man who looked remarkably like Du Zhengyi separated from his embrace with Pei Shu, turned back, and spoke to Mr. Shi. Luo Qi could tell he was very happy, expressing his joy to his old friends with the greatest sincerity a gentleman of the old era could muster. If the intensity of his emotions were placed on Luo Qi, it would surely be a beaming, radiant smile, and nothing short of jumping up and down would suffice to express such delight, but these old fogies could probably only go this far.

Mr. Shi complained with feigned grievance, "You know, an older wife and a younger husband never ends well; who told me to be twenty years older than Mr. Pei? I was mentally prepared long ago and won't change careers to become a bitter woman just because I've been abandoned. But Tingxiu, once you've been divorced three times like me—with two of those being to the same person—then you too will have such a good complexion when you see your ex-husband." So he really was Du Tingxiu.

Pei Shu pulled a long face; only then did Luo Qi realize that Pei Shu was much younger than he was now, just approaching old age, same as Du Tingxiu.

Du Tingxiu smiled slightly, "Since he was able to invite you here, perhaps there is still room to mend the connection?"

"Ha," Mr. Shi said, "I don't think so. I was just speaking off the cuff. Actually, as for men, young and handsome is better; this old fellow doesn't interest me anymore."

Luo Qi couldn't help but burst into laughter. Pei Shu's complexion was ashen; he turned to Mr. Shi and said, "Using magic to deceive a young human, don't you feel ashamed?"

Mr. Shi nonchalantly brushed a fallen crabapple petal from his shoulder with the gloves he was holding, and teased, "Pei Shu, if you could go even one day without nagging me so fussily, perhaps you really would have a chance to marry me for a third time."

"Thanks!" Pei Shu said irritably, "I'd rather marry a Qiongqi than marry you again."

Du Tingxiu smiled and reached out an arm to wrap it soothingly around Pei Shu's shoulder, pushing him toward the house, "Come on, I have new tea picked before the Qingming Festival here; drink it to cool your temper. Mr. Shi, you still want coffee, right?"

"Yes, I do," Mr. Shi said, following the two men across the threshold and into the house. Luo Qi felt a timeless joy surrounding her phantom; she wasn't angry at all about the conflict just now. She liked this place, liked the two of them—it had nothing to do with romance; she seemed to enjoy this kind of long-flowing friendship in the spring, and was content at this moment.

For some reason, although Pei Shu was certainly already a Mind Master at this time and not exactly young, he still had a bit of a naive streak. No wonder the fame in the Mage World at this time belonged to Du Tingxiu rather than Pei Shu.

There was no shift in light or shadow, but the details inside the room were clearer than before. Luo Qi smelled the scent of the wooden doors, windows, and rafters; a faint woody fragrance mixed with a hint of floral scent from the courtyard. The ceiling of the old house was so high, and the spring breeze blew in through the long, narrow windows, circulating between the high rafters. A portrait hung on the wall directly opposite the door. He wanted to look closely, and as this thought stirred, the details of the ancient portrait surged forth. A young man sat in the painting, dressed as a Progenitor Mage, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders, a slender build, and hair worn in an uninhibited, loose style. He was extremely handsome, and one could vaguely discern many traits of the Du Family. An Abnormal Beast leaned against the young man's right knee; although fierce, it also looked a bit simple-minded. The young man's right hand rested on the beast's head, as if stroking it, while his left hand, resting on his knee, held a wine gourd. On the middle finger of his left hand was a conspicuous jade ring. Luo Qi silently replaced the person in the painting with Du Zhengyi, and after thinking about it, it didn't feel out of place at all. This ancestor truly had a tenacious nature and powerful genes.

He shifted his attention away from the painting. That he could see so clearly was likely because Mr. Shi had also studied it carefully and engraved it in her memory. A burst of laughter came; Luo Qi naturally looked to the left. Behind a row of horseshoe chairs stood a six-paneled screen, and a line of white fat birds flitted past the bottom of the sandalwood screen. The three of them had already turned past the screen and were led by Du Tingxiu to a more comfortable round table, where several high-footed bowls filled with eight types of snacks had been placed at some point. Du Tingxiu was pouring tea for Pei Shu, while Mr. Shi held an exquisite Western porcelain cup, drinking her coffee with satisfaction.

This was clearly an old friends' reunion, an extremely private memory.

Luo Qi understood, yet fell into confusion. Peeking at his elders was somewhat fun, but this wasn't right. He had thought the memory Mr. Shi gave him was like data, recording intelligence circulating in the Black Market. He had once flipped through some without any specific purpose, and they were indeed dry intelligence—information that Mr. Shi had summarized subjectively. But she shouldn't have given him her own life memories; this was too intimate. Luo Qi was terrified, worrying whether he had subconsciously stolen the elder's memory at the time.

But even if he had accidentally stolen someone's memory, why would he happen to find this stolen memory in a fuzzy, retrieved dream? Luo Qi hesitated, intending to listen for a few more sentences; if they were just planning to have afternoon tea and exchange some bantering nonsense, he would step out the door.

Luo Qi wandered around the room again and found that as long as he wanted to see something, he could see the details. It was evident that Mr. Shi was truly very familiar with this place, and the relationship between the three of them might be quite close. He couldn't help but sneer in his dream, and at that moment, the voices behind the screen grew louder.

"We must face death squarely; the Mage race is destined to go extinct in the foreseeable future. This is an undeniable fact."

Luo Qi was startled; this was Pei Shu's voice.

He hurried over and turned past the screen, surprised to see that Pei Shu wasn't shouting at his ex-wife; he was losing his temper at Du Tingxiu.

From this time on, Pei Shu already had a disheveled look; both his arms were on the table, and his sleeves were soaked in the tea. Du Tingxiu sat like a blade, his expression unclear, but Luo Qi saw him lift Pei Shu's sleeve corner out of the tea. Mr. Shi shook her head helplessly and leaned back into her chair, as if wanting to detach herself from this dinner-table war.

Luo Qi became interested. In this memory, he didn't exist; the people deep in the memory couldn't see him, so he sat down at the round table as well.

"And so what?" Du Tingxiu asked in a low voice. Luo Qi glanced at him; he still couldn't describe the soft yet sorrowful expression on his face. "Pei Shu, what do you want?"

"I want a meaning!"

Luo Qi froze, looking at Pei Shu in surprise. He had actually said this line too.

"Meanings are all relative. Humans live and die in a flash; the time they have to build a career in their short lives is no more than thirty or fifty years. In the eyes of a Mage, what meaning does that have?" Du Tingxiu said softly.

"But they have a tomorrow, and we don't." Pei Shu's voice also deepened. "What exactly are we? The Progenitor Mages created us in their own image, as if we were the chosen ones. But why can humans multiply like locusts, while our existence in this world seems to have been set on a timer? Don't you think so? Just when humans are reaching maturity, we are about to wither away, as if... as if we were only created to be nannies for humans. The ridiculous thing is that for tens of thousands of years, we all thought we were gods. As long as the Calculator calculated what was best for the world, we executed it. We taught humans to worship, to make them coalesce; we taught them to end the religious era and believe in logic and experiments; we made them go to war to temper them, and then stopped the wars so they could survive. The Calculator said we shortened human growth time by at least five thousand years, helping them quickly enter this mature period. And then? Then we are going to die, an entire race, without even a trace of having existed in this world."

Luo Qi was shocked by the heavy sorrow in these words, looking at Pei Shu in astonishment.

Du Tingxiu also looked at Pei Shu, his expression unmoved, with the same stubbornness as Pei Shu, asking the same question he had just asked, "And so what?"

For a moment, Pei Shu seemed to have suffered a huge blow; his expression wilted, as if he had fallen into a deeper grief. "You don't even count as a person."

Mr. Shi trembled and shouted warningly, "Pei Shu!"

Pei Shu stubbornly knitted his brows. Luo Qi now understood why he had been dumped by his wife twice; his ex-wife couldn't stop his foul mouth either. "You are tied to those pieces of junk; you only count as half a puppet. As long as that Contract Entanglement is triggered, you have no free will at all. Even if your wife and children were standing in front of you, you would strike them down without even blinking. They call this a warrior and give you a fancy title, Gushan Guard. You think this title sounds good, don't you?"

"Enough!" Mr. Shi shouted, slapping Pei Shu hard. "In ten minutes you will regret it, and ten years from now you will still feel heartache for this. Just shut your damn mouth! I'm begging you!"

Luo Qi stared intently at Du Tingxiu, who actually smiled gently, with a hint of self-mockery, and said honestly, "That's correct."

However, it didn't even take ten minutes; Pei Shu's expression immediately showed regret. His ex-wife really understood him.

Du Tingxiu saw it and reached out to pat his shoulder, "Then don't stand between me and Gushan. Other than that, we will listen carefully to whatever you want to say. I don't know what the meaning of a Mage is; perhaps Mages have no meaning of independent existence, but if we and humans are one, inseparable, then human glory is also ours. Have you ever thought that perhaps integrating into human society is our final destination?"

Luo Qi didn't know what Pei Shu answered; his dream became blurred, as if the dream had reached its end.

By his generation, the Magic World did indeed encourage them to integrate into humans, and had also streamlined the organization of Qionglin. However, perhaps precisely because of this, the contradictions in the Magic World had become sharper, and the group of Lotus Burners was growing stronger day by day.

The dream vanished. When Luo Qi woke up groggily, he finally thought of the most important question: what exactly was Mr. Shi trying to tell him by letting him see this memory?

(End of chapter)