Chapter 688: The New King

Du Zhengyi encountered Zhou Quan in the hallway before he even reached the office. Zhou Quan was being surrounded by several Mages who were complaining to him; he was handling them with a good temper, but when he suddenly looked up and saw Du Zhengyi, his face instantly piled up with doubled guilt and obsequiousness. "Oh my, Du Mage, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I made a mistake in my haste today and even troubled you to come up here specifically to find me."

As he spoke, his pace quickened. He broke free from the entanglement of those few Mages, hurried to Du Zhengyi's side, apologized repeatedly, and offered to take him into the office to revise the work task list.

Du Zhengyi's reputation for being someone not to be trifled with was a household name in Qionglin. That Zhou Quan had been sought out by this Plague God after making a mistake was truly pitiable. Furthermore, these few Mages were also unwilling to provoke Du Zhengyi, so they became much more reasonable, consciously putting their own matters aside and no longer blocking Zhou Quan.

Zhou Quan apologized loudly and fussily, while Du Zhengyi followed him into his office with a cold face the entire way.

Once the door was closed, the exaggerated look on Zhou Quan's face vanished, his posture straightened a bit, and he more casually invited Du Zhengyi to sit.

His office was very small, as if it had been forcibly partitioned off from the suite offices of the Great Mages, but it was an independent office nonetheless. Du Zhengyi could feel the flow of a tiny shielding Magic here, ensuring privacy.

In the office, there was a desk piled with miscellaneous items, an office chair behind the desk, and on the shelves behind that, a mess of Magic Crystals and old stacks of paper. In front of the desk was a sofa chair that looked reasonably comfortable; since few visitors who came here stayed for long conversations, this sofa chair was likely kept for his own rest. A simulated window beside the sofa displayed a forest scene, and in front of the window was a small tea table with a half-dead green plant on it.

Perhaps following Du Zhengyi's gaze toward the green plant, Zhou Quan let out an "Oh" and sloppily tossed a handful of Sunlight onto the top of the plant. "Du Mage, please sit. Would you like tea? Coffee? Milk tea? Or... would you like some alcohol?"

Du Zhengyi sat down on the sofa. "No need."

Zhou Quan still efficiently produced a cup of tea for him. "You've seen it; the death notices for Xiang Qian and the others have already been publicly issued."

Du Zhengyi nodded. "Thank you for the notification."

"A small matter, not worth mentioning." He sat down at his own desk, casually generated a file, unfolded it to take a sloppy look, and went straight to the point. "I'm sure I quite like Luo Qi. I created a separate file for Luo Qi, written in great detail. When I cleared time to read it, I discovered that I had linked you to Luo Qi's file. So I came directly to you to talk about it; perhaps it can save time."

Zhou Quan looked at the file again, as if wanting to confirm one last time that he had chosen the correct person to communicate with.

He put down the file and looked at Du Zhengyi. "I heard your body has just recovered its health; you might not know yet, but the Grass Market has a new owner."

Du Zhengyi immediately had a very bad premonition.

"They have a new king, and the new king calls himself the Great Tabby Cat King." Zhou Quan looked at Du Zhengyi. "I searched for the Great Tabby Cat King in my private files, and when I opened it to see the subject of the file, it was the Luo Qi file again."

Du Zhengyi finally knew why the title "Great Tabby Cat King" had appeared on the work order. He recalled Luo Qi's contact with Shi Xiansheng, right there in that messy little barbecue shop, right under his own nose, where Luo Qi and Shi Xiansheng had communicated behind his back. Afterward, that brat had been honest with him about Shi Xiansheng gifting him a knowledge base, but he had only been honest about a small part; he hadn't mentioned much about being crowned at the barbecue shop.

"I don't want to dig up secrets," Zhou Quan said cautiously, observing Du Zhengyi's reaction.

There was no subtle change in expression on the face of the Qionglin War God; he sat there expressionless, without any micro-movements either.

Zhou Quan was somewhat disappointed, but he didn't care too much; this was a situation he could have anticipated. Picking up scraps from Du Zhengyi was impossible. "I know this world may have already undergone earth-shaking changes; a hurricane is already sweeping through our world. I don't have the ability to judge what the outcome will be, nor do I know who is on the side of justice, who is the instigator, or who is the helpless victim. But my past self urged me to pass the news to you as soon as possible."

"I am willing to pay for this information," Du Zhengyi said calmly.

"Of course, I definitely want a reward," Zhou Quan said, then smiled again. "However, things have developed to this point, and it's already too serious. I have a premonition that money is no longer important. So you don't need to pay first, and you don't need to worry about me asking you for a favor in the short term. I'm a bit too scared to worry about that. Time is limited, so I'd better get straight to the point. In the dozen or so days you were unwell, I summarized a few points of information from the reports of the Venerables that you might want to hear."

He took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "First point: you were supposed to have sacrificed yourself heroically. But Luo Qi used some method to save you. They judge that Luo Qi used a method from the long-lost Ancestor Era. They don't understand how Luo Qi used it, only that the item of the Progenitor Mage that Luo Qi used has been destroyed, which makes Luo Qi highly suspicious. Second point: before Luo Qi went missing, a massacre occurred around you. Except for Luo Qi's friends, everyone else died, which makes Luo Qi extremely suspicious. I originally thought Luo Qi killed them, but from some scattered reports, I sensed that the scene was very bloody. In any case, Mind Mages kill very elegantly; the scene does not fit the characteristics of a Mind Mage's killing. But finally, and most importantly, the Head Venerable wiped our memories. The Head Venerable's reason for doing this doesn't seem to be to protect Luo Qi; otherwise, Luo Qi wouldn't have run to the Grass Market and become a person on the fringes of the gray area of the Mage World from then on. So I think it's mostly because Luo Qi grasped some secret, went on a killing spree in some sense, and became a scandal of the Magic World. Or perhaps, Luo Qi came into contact with a secret of the Magic World, and that secret itself is a scandal."

After finishing these words, Zhou Quan stood up. "Alright, Du Mage, you have to go. The relationship between us isn't that deep; if we were behind closed doors talking about official business, we should be finished by now."

Du Zhengyi stood up; he understood what Zhou Quan meant. If they delayed too long, someone in Qionglin would grow suspicious.

"Thank you," he said in a low voice.

Zhou Quan opened the office door for him, smiled, and said in a low voice, "I hope you can figure out what all this is about."

Du Zhengyi also hoped he could truly figure out what all this was about. He knew someone must be watching him now; he should act more normally. This might be the reason Luo Qi wasn't contacting him. He had been too anxious before; the possibility that Luo Qi might get lost in the Mental World was too high, high enough to make him anxious.

But now it seemed Luo Qi was holding on. He could still manage the basic administration of the Grass Market, which showed that his sanity was not only normal but that he could also think at high speeds.

Judging from the information provided by Zhou Quan, a massacre had indeed occurred at the time, but for some reason, it seemed Luo Qi could control this massacre, at least ensuring the scope of the massacre did not extend to his friends. He couldn't figure out what kind of situation this was; Luo Qi was just a Mind Mage, he had no means of physical defense. This also made him look more like the perpetrator.

Getting involved with the Grass Market was not a good thing. Now he felt that Shi Xiansheng must have gone mad before he died to grab onto Luo Qi, this straw, to pass on his authority. But he found himself surprisingly calm in dealing with this matter. Perhaps it was because he himself should have already died, and even should have caused Luo Qi's death, but the outcome had been reversed by Luo Qi; this "second chance" made his state of mind somewhat different for the time being. Or perhaps it was for a more realistic reason: because Luo Qi needed to handle the complex and realistic problems of the Zhouqiao Grass Market, Luo Qi was so busy he didn't even have the chance to think too much. He might be entangled in the most boring reports of the mundane world, and wouldn't even have time to have a mental breakdown. Then, what Shi Xiansheng stuffed into Luo Qi would have to be looked at from two sides.

He even developed a new perspective: would Luo Qi be more stable if he were entangled in the office and bound to complex interpersonal relationships? This was a path completely opposite to that of the Highland Mages—busy, vulgar, high-energy consumption with low output, yet it was better for maintaining physical and mental health because Luo Qi simply didn't have much time or energy to explore his own mental world. If possible, get married sooner and form a family, let him transition into another kind of intimate relationship, and slowly fade himself out. Perhaps he had spent too much time with Luo Qi, and the closed environment without many outsiders had made them too intimate; this kind of binding itself was not suitable for Luo Qi's physical and mental health.

Since he hadn't been able to return to Qionglin and be recognized by the mainstream of this world, converting to the fringe society could also be considered a choice. When a person has no other way, they must always face reality and make trade-offs.

He even thought somewhat rebelliously, why didn't he ask the clownfish at the time who his wife was? Anyway, he didn't seem to intend to go find his wife; it would be better to let Luo Qi meet her sooner.

He thought aimlessly in his mind and walked into the Qionglin restaurant with an expressionless face. There was no help for it; he still had to eat, as that looked most like a normal person.

Perhaps because many people had been called back to Qionglin today, the restaurant was crowded at this moment. When he walked in, some people looked up at him a few times, but most people chose to ignore him as usual. He walked into the restaurant in silence, and a sentence or two of idle chatter drifted into his ears.

"The Wushan shops near our place have all closed."

"The ones near our place too. I heard all the Wushan entrances have been closed."

Du Zhengyi frowned.