Chapter 583: Painting

Four hours later, the Magic Structure had a faint echo, summoning even less Magic than the previous time.

"Some Magic just weakens after the sun goes down." Liu Ziyi explained to Luo Qi, who was trailing behind her. She had conducted many intermittent experiments, having probed almost every inch of the river valley and every type of known Magic.

"Why?" Luo Qi asked.

"Why what?" Liu Ziyi retorted.

"Why does Magic have a connection to the sun?" Luo Qi asked studiously.

"I didn't say it had a connection to the sun," Liu Ziyi said bluntly. "Just because something happens to occur at night doesn't mean it's related to the sun."

"Huh?" Luo Qi was uncharacteristically hesitant to speak. "Then... isn't it just that there's no sun at night?"

"Most people have sex at night; is that also because people have stronger desires when there is no Sunlight?" Liu Ziyi asked straightforwardly.

Luo Qi looked back at Du Zhengyi in a panic. "Your junior sister is talking dirty."

"Shut up, Luo Qi," Liu Ziyi scolded him in a low voice. She was currently taking care of Guan Xinyue, so she was in a bad mood. It was because Luo Qi had agreed to their request to connect Guan Xinyue's Yajian to Liu Ziyi's, allowing her a brief glimpse of Magic, just like how Luo Qi had watched Liu Ziyi burn her brain before. But now Guan Xinyue said her head hurt, and Liu Ziyi suspected her brain had literally burned.

Luo Qi could see she was taking her anger out on him, even though they had both thought it was fun earlier and had forced him to help. "It seems human fairy tales are all true. People are one way when they pray to a pixie, but they are never satisfied with the pixie's magic. Once they're done using it, they're another way entirely, always wanting to stuff the kind pixie into a bottle and throw it down the river."

Actually, Mahjong had diagnosed Guan Xinyue and said she needed to lie still for now; she was severely dizzy and felt a bit nauseous. According to Luo Qi's simple human perspective, he felt Guan Xinyue's symptoms were a bit like a concussion, but he didn't dare say it, lest he be attacked again. Liu Ziyi pulled a full set of bedding out of a panda bag the size of a Fuji apple, let Guan Xinyue lie on her soft mattress decorated with flamingos, and then pulled out a ball of waste paper. Her hands performed complex gestures, and the paper ball expanded and opened in the wind in front of him; Luo Qi could see it would grow into a tent sooner or later.

Surrounding Guan Xinyue's bed was their core small group: him, Du Zhengyi, Liu Ziyi, Mahjong, and two female Mages, Xiang Qian and Wen Lin, who had come over to check on the patient, presumably because they were fellow female members. However, what surprised Luo Qi a bit was that those Battle Mages were in the third circle; although they were covered in armor forged from frost, their eyes revealed a will as hard as steel... but how to put it, it was like a group of eagles curiously and reservedly watching.

Luo Qi wasn't used to them, but Battle Mages were creatures without such self-awareness and would never grasp the coldness of the world just because of someone else's glance. Luo Qi felt Du Zhengyi could make them disperse with a single look, but Du Zhengyi seemed not to establish any connection with them at all, turning a blind eye to them. Luo Qi himself couldn't stand being stared at by a group of eagles, so seeing that Guan Xinyue was fine, he quietly backed away.

Dozens of meters away, Shi Qian sat alone by the river, deep in thought, like a banished Mage. Luo Qi watched him for a while and yawned. Love is truly troublesome, especially unrequited love. No one could get love from Wen Lin; she was always looking for a chance to talk to Du Zhengyi, but Luo Qi could smell her scent. Although Mages could live for two hundred years and were mostly young and beautiful, she wouldn't be happy because of love either. She didn't have that kind of scent.

He turned in another direction. Wusu was sitting on a large rock, drawing. That rock wasn't locally produced; either he had created it or he had brought it with him. Luo Qi couldn't be sure. Now he knew how high-level the space compression technology based on Fermat's Theorem was, and Mages' personalities were all strange and varied. In Luo Qi's view, since Liu Ziyi could bring a bed that was 1.8 meters wide, the marble block under Wusu's butt could also have been brought by him; it looked like it originated from the Mediterranean.

"Guan Xinyue is fine," Wusu said, sensing his approach.

Luo Qi remembered that he was also a Mind Mage; it sounded like he had also quietly checked on Guan Xinyue. Luo Qi stepped on the riverbank, which had been soft mud at noon but was now frozen hard, and walked toward him, saying casually, "Why don't you go see her? She definitely hopes you can keep her company."

"After I finish drawing, I will go over to comfort her," Wusu said. He was tracing on a PAD with a stylus, and he explained, "If I interrupt my work now, the inspiration might disappear."

Luo Qi grinned and looked toward the river in the direction of Wusu's gaze, the crimson valley, and the huge black gullies plowed open by human machinery, like the rotting wounds of the earth. He really couldn't figure out where the beauty was; he was indeed not good at drawing, nor was he good at photography. "Aesthetic ability is truly innate. Like me, I can't see where the scenery in front of me is beautiful at all. It is said that the same scenery is different in everyone's perspective..."

Luo Qi's words choked in his throat because he had just looked over Wusu's shoulder and seen the painting he was working on. He opened his mouth wide and only said after a long time, "But I can be sure that your angle is... the most unique."

Wusu smiled, but the brush in his hand did not pause. He was focused on his painting, as if trying to draw the scene in his heart, as if he had an urgent desire to express himself.

Luo Qi could recognize the river in the picture; it was the river right in front of them, and he could recognize the river valley on both banks, the crimson river valley lying before the glacier. However, in Wusu's painting, the only realistic thing was the geographical features here.

In the painting, the river flowed through a modern city; buildings that looked like both human and Mage architecture were lined up on both sides of the river valley, and a steel monument stood at a bend in the valley. Luo Qi couldn't help but think of the monument in the Sandbox. They were different; the world in the painting was not the world in the Sandbox, but the shape of the steel monument was so similar. Just then, Luo Qi suddenly realized he was holding his breath; Wusu was writing on the monument.

The text in the Sandbox had all been wiped clean.

Wusu's pen tip suddenly stopped. Luo Qi stared anxiously at his painting, but he looked up. "Why did your pulse quicken?" "What are you writing?" Luo Qi asked.

Wusu looked up; he didn't know if it was because of the light, but the color of his eyes seemed to have become lighter. "This is a type of ancient pattern; it has no special meaning."

"Is what you're drawing... your imagination?" Luo Qi asked softly.

"What else could it be?" Wusu laughed with a "chi" sound. "Sometimes I am a person who draws; being a concept artist for humans is very interesting."

"Nothing," Luo Qi said. "I just thought you had seen it with your own eyes."

"That would be a bit strange," Wusu said. He remained sitting, looking up at Luo Qi. "If I had seen it with my own eyes, I would never draw it, would I?"

Luo Qi looked at him and didn't respond to that. "Could I have the honor of admiring Mage Wusu's previous masterpieces?"

"Pay and you can see them," Wusu said jokingly. "One dollar a piece, honest and fair."

Luo Qi didn't speak; he looked off into the distance. "The last bit of sunset is about to disappear. Xinyue shouldn't be moved; are we going to spend the night here?"

"Of course," Luo Qi said. "We have dozens of Battle Mages, and Liu Ziyi has screened every inch of this place; it is very safe."

"But this is also a human slaughterhouse," Wusu reminded him.

"The dead don't haunt; Mages don't believe in evil," Luo Qi replied.

"The dead often haunt," Wusu laughed. "But you've made up your mind, haven't you?"

"There's no hiding from it," Luo Qi said, seeing Du Zhengyi walking toward him out of the corner of his eye. If they went back, Du Zhengyi would never give him another chance to come out. He had a premonition that Du Zhengyi might not even give Pei Shu any face; once Battle Mages made up their minds, he was afraid no one could change them. But this round they were coming for Du Zhengyi; if Du Zhengyi faced it alone, his survival rate would drop sharply. This had nothing to do with other considerations; it was a real problem right in front of them that had to be solved.

(End of chapter)