Chapter 588: Fragment

A hand wearing a gold bracelet reached toward him, holding a glass of wine; the slender-waisted dancer exuded a heavy floral scent.

"A toast to a friend," the chestnut-skinned man said, extending two empty hands toward him.

He remained unmoved. "Why did you come with the Human? Where is your tribe? We haven't had news of you for a long time."

"They are all dead," the man said, persistently offering him a toast. "Come, only those who drink are friends."

Disgust rose in his heart. "Don't mimic human speech. Why did they die?"

"Sick, old, then dead," the man said, giving up on the toast and drinking the wine from a Crystal glass himself.

"You have done a terrible job," he said sternly. A wave of dizziness suddenly struck him; the scent on the dancer choked him, making his head spin. "Since you have come here, why did you not report to the Committee immediately?"

The man smiled. "Is your surname Du?"

Luo Qi's chest heaved; he felt his blood pressure rising, his heartbeat accelerating, and his breathing gradually becoming paralyzed. Something was wrong.

He had to repel the dancer, but his Magic could not be commanded; he could not condense any Magic, so he had no choice but to reach for the blade at his waist. There was no time left; he was going to die, but he had to send the message out.

Another group of Mages had messed up, with the same ending; those who turned back were all desperate outlaws.

He was about to die. He felt so miserable; if only he were not in this place. But if not here, where? Who was he? He recalled a distant name: Luo Qi. Who was Luo Qi?

In a valley in the wilderness, Du Zhengyi returned from Meditation empty-handed. He heard a faint sound; the black cat crawled out of the nest Luo Qi had built for it, and the fur on its back bristled. Suddenly, it raised its head and stared at him. He glared back at those cat eyes, sensing no sign that Luo Qi was joking with him; Luo Qi was sleeping very soundly beside him.

Perhaps because Luo Qi had less influence on the cat while asleep, the kitten's Yajian was completely autonomous? Du Zhengyi reached out to the kitten, and the small black cat tentatively walked toward him. He guarded against it spraying something, cautiously picked it up, and scratched the cat's chin.

Luo Qi seemed to be having a nightmare; he was restless in his sleeping bag, turned over, and thrust out a hand, as if wanting to grasp something, but it stopped near Du Zhengyi's knee.

Du Zhengyi looked at him carefully, seeing nothing unusual. His gaze fell on the hand extended near him; the wrist was slender and fair. Du Zhengyi silently picked up the kitten and dipped one of its paws into a small mud puddle melted by the campfire; the fastidious cat struggled irritably. Du Zhengyi maliciously lifted the cat and, dragging its paw like a stamp, pressed it onto Luo Qi's fair wrist. Lifting it to look, the muddy paw print on Luo Qi's wrist was very satisfying. He contentedly released Luo Qi's cat, letting the kitten scramble away in a rage to scrub its feet vigorously on Luo Qi's jacket.

In another space-time, in someone else's memory, the dying Luo Qi had his right hand held. He turned his head abruptly; there was no one behind him. His right wrist was wrapped in several threads of Magic, the characteristics of which were extremely familiar—he had just seen them that afternoon.

Du Zhengyi?

In a flash of thought, his soul returned to its place. Luo Qi was surprised to see himself standing in a spacious house that looked like it was from the Tang Dynasty. The house had only three walls; the fourth wall had only a few pillars. The architectural structure, grand and open at the time, was vastly different from the ancient buildings that survived today. Slender, exquisite dancers clustered around a man with Western Regions features and thick eyebrows. Opposite him, the person he had just been mentally attached to was a dying Old Mage.

Luo Qi looked at him in surprise, not knowing who he was, yet he was now about to die. Luo Qi's heart stirred; he suddenly realized that the person collecting this memory was about to arrive.

The Old Mage was about to die, but he was the owner of the memory, so someone must have seen him for the last time.

"Du Mage," the Persian-looking Mage called out.

Luo Qi shuddered and turned to look at him. He was hidden in the candlelight, his features unclear, but even if they were clear, it would be useless to Luo Qi. First, he was long dead; second, he was a Persian. Mages chose the race of their companions based on their own physical characteristics, and for Luo Qi, it was difficult to distinguish the faces of other races; to him, all Persian men looked the same.

He turned back to look at the Old Mage. He had a gaunt, long face; he must not have been a handsome man in his youth, but he had eyes of the same series as Du Zhengyi's, which Luo Qi recognized. Perhaps a tenacious lineage was a hereditary trait of their family. Luo Qi let his mind wander as he watched the Old Mage struggle in death, suppressing the urge to help him. Saving someone in an illusory memory was as useless as a daydream.

"Du Mage," the foreign Mage said, "I am tired of protecting the Human. I have come to divide the ancestral property. I hear you are the key to the ancestral home."

Ancestral home, key, customs from around the Tang Dynasty. Luo Qi suddenly determined what time this was. Someone said a Treasure Hunter opened the Seal Land, slaughtered the Human, and rebelled against Qionglin. Perhaps the alias for the Mage Supreme Committee at the time was not yet Qionglin; that rebellion destroyed the headquarters of the Supreme Committee at the time.

Luo Qi watched the savage man in the candlelight, holding his breath; his thick beard looked dirty while he drank.

"You will not get your wish," the Old Mage said in a low voice.

"I don't need your help," the man said. "But why am I telling you this? You will know nothing soon. I cannot let you live because I cannot beat you. I also cannot let you die; a dead person certainly cannot be a key anymore. Between life and death is a good place; you just stay there."

After the man finished speaking, he stood up and put his arms around the dancer beside him. "It is time to set off."

Luo Qi looked around anxiously; if someone were coming to collect the memory, they should be here now. The Old Mage was swaying, but the dancer beside him was much stronger than she looked; her exquisite, slender body supported the Old Mage.

Luo Qi suddenly understood that no one else was coming. The surrounding Illusion began to blur and shake; the old man was about to lose consciousness, and the memory was about to end. The dancer, the Wushan Goddess, watched the back of the foreign man with vigilance.

The old man gasped and stuffed a crystal into her hand. His voice—no, perhaps it was just his final thought as he lay dying—"Take my memory, the Head Venerable will believe your words, leave this place."

Luo Qi was stripped out of the memory. He eagerly wanted to find the relevant memory, but the more anxious he became, the less he could retrieve it.

(End of chapter)