Chapter 678: The Ancestor's Gift (67)

Du Zhengyi woke from a dreamless, deep sleep; his sense of hearing returned first, and his auditory nerves captured tiny sounds.

These environmental sounds were too well-suited for a Mage's ears—too faint, too singular. In other words, the sounds had been filtered and adjusted, adjusted to be more suitable for a Mage. Just like the Qionglin.

He snapped his eyes open. The room was decorated simply, with Crystals storing Magic Energy embedded cautiously into the walls. This was a familiar place: the Qionglin infirmary.

He could not sense many people around him; within the distance of a room, there was only one person, and that person was walking toward him with quick steps. He turned his head in that person's direction and saw Ma Jiang's calm face, both familiar and unfamiliar.

The act of turning his head was strenuous. This bed was very comfortable, conforming to every part of his body and supporting him lightly, but as soon as he left this bed, gravity felt as if it were expanding a hundred or a thousand times over.

"Slow down, your body has just undergone a major repair... or rather, you have just come back from the dead, and your brain is trying to regain control of your body. To a certain extent, your brain has realized that your body is largely regenerated, and there is a slight rejection. But it doesn't matter; I see you've always been less than fastidious, eating and drinking anything."

"Am I still alive?" Du Zhengyi asked vaguely, his throat feeling as if it were opening up again.

"That's right." Ma Jiang gave an affirmation to his judgment.

He was actually still alive.

He touched his abdomen with difficulty; there were no scars. Had Ma Jiang's Healing Magic improved to this extent? He still remembered his situation at the time; it was certain death.

When he followed the steps to keep a breath of life in himself, he hadn't thought too much. It was just that the Magic World often had twists and turns; he had to cooperate with such a contingency to provide help for whoever might be able to save him in the future. The situation at the time was urgent, and there was no time to think carefully. The regrets of how many living people he had let down, how many things were left unsaid, and how many debts he owed others—there was no time to think of any of it.

"Doctor, has your progress already become this great?" Du Zhengyi asked at an inopportune time.

"Heh, it's all the greatness of Magic," Ma Jiang said with a forced smile, using a new round of Healing Magic on him to collect data. "Recovering quite well."

"I thought my Yajian would be torn apart and devoured before my body died," Du Zhengyi said.

"I always thought so too," Ma Jiang nodded, withdrawing the general Healing Magic and beginning to cautiously conduct a basic surface probe of Du Zhengyi's Yajian. "Clearly we were both wrong. We have limited understanding of this type of magic attack on the Yajian. We originally thought that the weaker your body was and the more scattered your primary Yajian, the more dangerous you would be. But the actual situation seems to be that when you were truly about to die, your brain made that judgment, and then the whole system prepared to die very peacefully."

Du Zhengyi had nothing to say, so he had to continue asking, "Then why am I starting to get a headache now?"

"You've come back to life; the brain's activity has triggered everything that should be triggered—the good, the bad, it's all here," Ma Jiang said.

"Fine." Du Zhengyi was somewhat indifferent. He ignored Ma Jiang's dissuasion and insisted on sitting up. Blood surged upward, and his eardrums felt as if they were being poked by an awl. "Why am I here? Where is Luo Qi?"

"Who?" Ma Jiang asked him calmly.

Du Zhengyi raised his head, observing Ma Jiang's face. If this were a joke, Ma Jiang should immediately spray out Luo Qi's crimes like exploding popcorn, then deliver a final verdict that he didn't know any damn Luo Qi. There were too many things Luo Qi might have done after he lost consciousness; if Ma Jiang wasn't fiercely lodging a complaint, it was too unlike him.

As it turned out, Ma Jiang just looked at him calmly. "Who are you asking about?"

"Doctor, am I still alive?" Du Zhengyi also asked calmly.

Upon hearing this, Ma Jiang intended to perform another shallow Yajian diagnosis on him.

Du Zhengyi raised his hand to signal that it was unnecessary. "Am I currently in the 'return of the light' phase of my body, using my last bit of strength to create hallucinations?"

Before Ma Jiang could answer, Du Zhengyi ruled out this possibility himself. "It wouldn't be like that. If it were such precious time, I wouldn't dream of a doctor. Who would want to dream of being examined by a doctor at the final moment of their life?"

"I thank you, truly rational, as expected of you," Ma Jiang said through gritted teeth. "Then who would you dream of at that moment?"

"None of your business," Du Zhengyi said. "Where is Luo Qi?"

"Du Zhengyi," Ma Jiang called his name, his voice steady. "Who is Luo Qi?"

They stared at each other, seeing the answer to the question in each other's facial expressions.

"Oh, someone has tampered with my memory," Ma Jiang said. "I can feel it, I just don't know what was taken away."

It had happened after all.

"Are you accepting this so well?" Du Zhengyi stood up.

"Because the person who deleted the memory didn't allow me to have emotions regarding this part. The name Luo Qi doesn't sound like a man or a woman; is it a girl?" Ma Jiang said. His expression was more sluggish than usual, unable to even produce a feeling of helplessness. "I don't suggest you stand up; your ears are bleeding."

"I have to be quick."

"You've been in a coma for fourteen days, brother. No matter how quick you are, it's already slow. I advise you to sit down," Ma Jiang said.

"What else do you remember? Do you remember things from the last few months?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"Of course I remember."

"How did I survive? Did your medical skills suddenly receive divine instruction?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"That was the magic of the Seal Land; I don't have that much ability. Now that Seal Land is gone; the entire Seal Land was wiped away. It's truly terrifying." Ma Jiang said while thinking. He shivered suddenly when he said it was truly terrifying.

He recalled that scene. They were at a very high place, looking down from above. They were moving rapidly, and everything behind them was dissolving, twisting, and compressing. At the last moment, they escaped the terrifying gravity. That huge Seal Land shrank into a ball and finally disappeared, leaving behind only that wasteland. It was as if nothing had ever happened, as if nothing had ever existed.

"What magic of the Seal Land?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"An injured Seal Beast... blue eyes... judging by the bloodstains, it ran into the transparent coffin itself, and when it appeared again, its wounds were healed. We... someone recklessly dragged you into the same type of coffin too. I almost thought there was no hope. Even if you could come out of it again, no one knew if you would turn into a Seal Beast... or white bones... don't be angry, you look very normal now, and your brain is normal too," Ma Jiang said.

"Who discovered this method? Who dragged me into it?" Du Zhengyi looked at Ma Jiang, seeing a blankness in the latter's eyes.

"I get it," Ma Jiang said dryly. "He is the memory that was wiped away."

"Besides those of us who already knew each other, do you remember any new people I met with you in the last few months?"

"I've forgotten more than one?" Ma Jiang understood Du Zhengyi's hint.

"Then do you remember Guan Xinyue?" Du Zhengyi waved away the doctor's Healing Magic. "Don't remember? This one is a girl. You clearly have feelings for her; if I'm not mistaken, you were counting on having a chance to gain her favor after she grew a few years older."

He said this maliciously, venting his annoyance, and walked out.