Chapter 696: The Tracker

Du Zhengyi stepped through that quaint gate, and his eyes were immediately assaulted by the deafening noise. The retro Western-style shelves were densely packed with merchandise; high-saturation red and blue were the main themes here. Countless rabbits glared at customers from glittering afternoon tea tableware, heart-shaped spoons hung across an entire shelf, dolls danced in circles amidst flowers and rabbits, and a military band played flutes silently in the corner.

He saw his own tense face reflected in several brass Western mirrors; his shoulders were hunched, terrified that one careless move would brush a few teacups off those overflowing shelves.

"Alice Sweet Afternoon Tea Set, the perfect choice for a girlfriend." An Alice in a blue dress spun out from somewhere, smiling as she blocked his path, holding a gaudy box in her hands.

"No... thank you," Du Zhengyi said with difficulty.

He glanced at his phone; Luo Qi's WeChat message had not arrived. When he looked up, he saw the "Alice's" eyes were slightly stagnant, as if she had received some kind of instruction. She put away her commercial smile, ignored Du Zhengyi, and walked behind him.

His heart tightened, and he hurriedly turned his head, just in time to see "Alice" touch the black earpiece hanging on her ear. So the order had been sent through the earpiece; he breathed a sigh of relief, only for a new sense of unease to arise. "Alice" stopped a middle-aged man and shoved the tray in front of him again.

Unlike the formulaic sales pitch from before, this time "Alice" blocked him very firmly. It was difficult for the man to take even one more step forward; he was trapped at the entrance by the cute yet stubborn "Alice" and the excessive display of fragile goods. She was not an ordinary human, and the flaws in his identity as a Mage were even more apparent. No normal middle-aged man would voluntarily walk into this shop, and given that he was also a Mage, he was tailing him.

Outside the shop door stood an anxious-looking middle-aged woman. She could see the scene inside through the open door, and after enduring for less than a minute, she walked in eagerly. Her gaze passed over the man who was likely her husband, showing disdain for the interior decorations and merchandise, and locked onto Du Zhengyi with urgency.

"Ma'am, would you like to try our perfume?" Another "Alice" suddenly turned out from behind a life-sized rabbit butler. Her footsteps were light, and her blue dress swept gracefully past a pile of porcelain. One hand pressed against her earpiece, while the other held a perfume bottle and sprayed it at the woman several times.

Instantly, a thick, murky scent of citrus, leather, and musk exploded in the shop. Du Zhengyi retreated sharply; this perfume's scent would be considered heavy-duty even in daily human use, and a Mage's keen sense of smell could barely withstand it. The woman began to sneeze, choked to the point that tears welled up. The man covered his face with his sleeve and stepped back, bumping into a shelf; porcelain fell with a clatter, shattering all over the floor.

Du Zhengyi's phone vibrated at this very moment; Luo Qi's WeChat had come in.

"Take the shop's back door."

He continued walking forward, found a gap between a floor-length mirror and a shelf, and turned sideways to squeeze through. Another door appeared before him. Stepping out, he realized he had arrived in a new, sloping alley.

"Go up ten meters, enter the fabric shop on the right."

Du Zhengyi walked up the slope, "They don't look like elites from the Qionglin."

When Du Zhengyi walked into the fabric shop, Luo Qi finally replied to the WeChat.

"Mm."

"Mm?" Du Zhengyi said in surprise, "You're feeling a bit melancholy? That's not like you."

He had already grasped that he should continue through the fabric shop; he roughly understood the shop model here. Almost all shops had front and back doors, each facing two different alleys, and the alleys spiraled up the hillside like a maze.

The fabric shop was several times larger than the Alice shop from before, consisting of a courtyard complex. A courtyard was sandwiched between the front and back storefronts, and giant swaths of blue cloth were hanging out to dry in the yard. The shop was crowded with human tourists who were excitedly picking out dolls and cloth bags, while even more girls were taking photos amidst the blue cloth in the courtyard.

He carefully avoided the cameras, and as he walked along the edge of the courtyard, he realized there were two small storefronts on the east and west sides of the yard. The pulses of Magic in the rooms pricked at him slightly—harmless, but distinct enough to be impossible to ignore. The indigo curtains hanging at the doorways blocked his view, with a cat face dyed onto the corner of the fabric.

"Keep moving forward, brother, you won't be interested in the little bits of Magic in those two shops." Luo Qi's voice message came through with a soft, laughing breath, "I'm not melancholy at all."

Du Zhengyi realized it then; Luo Qi might not have used a Sandbox at all. He likely didn't trust the Sandbox, his memories of the Sandbox probably weren't good, and he wouldn't be willing to stuff himself into that kind of space again. He had adopted a different method, scattering the Grass Market and mixing it into the human street market, using human society as a shield for the Grass Market.

Seemingly in response to his train of thought, Luo Qi gave one more direction and then suddenly said, "Brother, did you know humans have the word 'sandbox' too? When they deal with computer viruses, they put the virus into a sandbox. Recently, when they train some dangerous AI models, they also use sandboxes. Don't you think it's possible we borrowed the word from them?"

Du Zhengyi did not answer.

"True. Sometimes I think you probably already thought of that," Luo Qi said in a low voice, likely because he hadn't answered.

"Luo Qi, how long has it been since you slept?" Du Zhengyi asked suddenly.

Luo Qi did not answer him, which was also a kind of answer. Du Zhengyi sighed.

An acquaintance was waiting for him on the street; he should have expected that when Luo Qi inherited the Zhouqiao Grass Market, he had also inherited his old captain.

"Not planning on a second retirement?" Du Zhengyi walked toward him and nodded in greeting.

Wan Pei was always happy to see Du Zhengyi regardless of the time. The old man reached out a hand to pat his shoulder and looked around vigilantly. "Your little friend said you were in danger and asked me to come pick you up. I quite like my current job and don't want to retire. The kid has more vitality than the old geezers who ran the Grass Market before, and my scope of work has broadened." As he spoke, he led him to continue circling the alley toward the top of the hill.

"I'm not in any danger; those two didn't look like tough guys. Where is he?"

"He isn't here. The people from the Qionglin have been looking for him, and he won't stay in the Grass Market waiting for them to come. But he should be trying to figure out who is tailing you right now. Those two were here yesterday, too; we didn't pay much attention then, but since they followed you the moment you arrived today, that's different," Wan Pei said.

"How has it been here lately?" Du Zhengyi asked again. From his current height, he could already see the river water. Perhaps the river had changed course, or perhaps the Yangtze River today was not as wide as it once was; the Gudu was no longer by the river, and one had to climb the mountain to see the distant water.

"Not bad. Now that the Grass Market has merged with the human market, you can stroll around when you have time; it's become more interesting. Yesterday, a talking marmoset escaped from the cat cafe, loudly cursed a string of profanities in front of the humans in the outer shop, and then went insane and laughed out loud. There was also a Mage clerk with a smaller brain capacity than the marmoset who grabbed the wrong crystal and sold a Magic Crystal to a human as a Luck-Bringing Yellow Crystal," Wan Pei said.

So that was the kind of "interesting" it was.

"And then?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"That human's brain was affected; after he went home, he started writing formulas frantically and even claimed he had become a mathematician. Fortunately, the Grass Market manager hired by Luo Qi is very capable and can solve problems in both the human and Mage worlds, so I think it will gradually get on the right track," Wan Pei said.

"How did these Grass Market members accept Luo Qi?" Du Zhengyi asked.

Wan Pei was silent for a moment, "No one can refuse a Mind Archmage. Whether they are willing or not, he has many ways to achieve his goals. Everyone's desires and fears are as clear to him as stones in a fish tank. It's not that he has no enemies, but as far as I can see, no one has been able to guess what his true purpose is, so they can't effectively deal with him. You shouldn't have come here, Du Zhengyi; don't let people remember that you are his friend."

"What about you? What did he threaten you with?" Du Zhengyi asked in a low voice.

"Me? I don't need threats to follow him. Many people are like that, Du Zhengyi; it's not just you who thinks Luo Qi is interesting," the old man joked, teasingly looking at Du Zhengyi, "Although you are the one with the best eye for talent, others have also realized that the future Luo Qi will be a hot commodity."

Du Zhengyi did not take the bait on his joke. "I was only in a coma for a dozen days, why does it feel like a century has passed? I feel like I can no longer keep up with the changes in this world."

"Maybe it's because you weren't willing to look closely at this world before. Zhengyi, this world changed a long time ago, and Luo Qi's appearance is everyone's hope. Our world has been dying little by little, and everyone has had enough. Whatever Luo Qi can bring us—hope or destruction—it doesn't matter, as long as it's not this suffocating anymore," Wan Pei said.

"What did Luo Qi do?" Du Zhengyi asked. What Wan Pei said sounded as if Luo Qi had already declared war on Pei Shu.

Wan Pei's expression was somewhat complex, and Du Zhengyi lost his patience, "No matter what you all think, inciting a kid to be a 'star of hope' and lead a rebellion is too outrageous."

Wan Pei looked at Du Zhengyi in surprise, "He is not a kid, Zhengyi. I have never seen anyone who can handle personnel as ruthlessly as he does. The old geezers running the Grass Market didn't want to give up power; they had to accept the successor appointed by Shi Xiansheng, but they hoped Luo Qi would mind his own business and keep everything as it was, with them in charge. As a result, they were all backstabbed by their own subordinates. Luo Qi replaced the entire staff in one week. It's not hard for a Mind Archmage to see who has ambition and who can be used, but to make those bastards all sit at one table and be affectionate with each other—Zhengyi, this is not something a person can do with just Mind Magic. In that week, many people disappeared; I don't want to ask where they went."

They were both silent for a while; Wan Pei's smile was gradually replaced by gloom. He hesitated for a moment before speaking: "I won't hide it from you; you must have guessed that many people want to use clever methods to make Luo Qi disappear, too. Mind Mages are terrifying, but not invincible. From what I checked afterward, the methods they thought of to deal with a Mind Archmage were very clever. But they all failed, and Luo Qi's retaliation was merciless. In the Grass Market, the Great Civet Cat King is the new legend. Some say he has top-tier Battle Mages by his side—isn't that talking about you? But we all know you were in a coma in the Qionglin the whole time. Come to think of it, he acts like he has a whole team of Battle Mages; do you know how he does it?"

Du Zhengyi shook his head. He remembered seeing Yan Hao that day, but quickly dismissed that point. He had an even more uncomfortable conjecture—he suspected that two Luo Qis had reached a cooperative relationship, but he was unwilling to continue guessing.

They walked up the stone path; the road became narrower here, and the deep eaves of Jiangnan blocked the Sunlight above their heads. A Mage child took some Dragon Beard Candy offered by a human clerk at a roadside shop, and Du Zhengyi couldn't help but glance at it.

"Your hometown isn't far from here," Wan Pei noted, "Luo Qi said so."

Du Zhengyi looked at him in surprise, so angry he laughed. "He's busy killing and burning, and you two still have time to chat?"

"Luo Qi wasting his precious time chatting with me is to fish for information about you. With us, he doesn't use Magic, only little tricks. He does seem sincere and cute when he does that; sometimes I end up saying a bit too much," Wan Pei said, "Do you want some Dragon Beard Candy? This is also a benefit of the Grass Market moving here; many Mages can enjoy the pleasures of the human world while they're at it. Recently, they've even been bringing their kids along when they visit the Black Market."

Du Zhengyi shook his head.

Wan Pei's gaze followed the bouncing Mage child, as if lost in memory. "I still remember when you were small, kept by Pei Shu's side. He was your teacher and your guardian. But he was too busy; he was so busy making the Qionglin his home that you practically grew up in the Qionglin. Pei Shu didn't have that much time to take care of you, so we all took turns helping out. I told Luo Qi that you were like a puppy raised on the milk of a hundred families when you were little. The look on Luo Qi's face when he heard that was like a puppy that had been kicked. You can't blame yourself for always thinking he's a child; Luo Qi really is a very complex person."

"If he really is complex, then that turns out to be a good thing," Du Zhengyi said.

Wan Pei looked at him in confusion; Du Zhengyi wanted to say more but stopped, and in the end, he only shook his head.