Chapter 77: The Coffee Shop on the Street Corner

It is 5:30 in the morning, and the city is still bleary-eyed.

The coffee shop on the street corner has just opened for business. A man pulls his umbrella shut at the entrance, punctual as he is every day. He looks to be about thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, which seems a bit too old compared to the young girls in the shop. However, he remains very charming; his hair is always slightly messy, and he has a pair of deep, gentle eyes. When he smiles, fine lines appear around them, but that only accentuates his middle-aged charm. Whenever he walks into the coffee shop, there are always two girls who giggle because of him.

Today he is wearing a casual suit, and the material of the shirt underneath is of very high quality. He carries a black briefcase in one hand and a long-handled umbrella in the other. He has walked through the road filled with rain and snow, yet his leather shoes are not stained with a single speck of mud or water. A coffee shop girl rushes over to take the umbrella from his hand and helps him place it in the umbrella stand at the door.

He thanks her repeatedly and walks to the cash register. The girl behind it smiles nervously, excited that she can remember what he eats every morning, so she can say that one sentence that makes them seem intimate. "Latte, scrambled eggs, biscotti, the usual?"

He smiles gently, his eyes faintly revealing a hint of the kind of flattered look a young boy might have, though he keeps it perfectly measured. For the girls, being able to take care of him even a little bit is enough to make them happy for two hours, until the end of their first shift.

The man habitually sits down in the booth seat near the floor-to-ceiling window. The food is quickly delivered by the coffee shop girl herself. He takes out a book he has been reading recently and places it on the table. It is a bestseller, written by an Israeli historian with a great sense of humor. He picks up his coffee, his fingers unconsciously stroking the line of text on the cover once: *Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind*.

He taps his fingers lightly on that line of text. If the boy who recommended this book to him were still here, what would he say? He opens the pages, slowly sipping his coffee, observing the coffee shop through the swirling aroma of the coffee. At 5:30 in the morning, he is usually the first customer here, and by the time he finishes his meal, at most two or three other customers will have arrived, all of them humans.

But today, across from the counter, a Mage is already sitting at a small table. It is a young man with an expressionless face and gloomy eyes. His body has a peculiar posture, and he is cautious even when picking up his mug; those are the characteristics of someone who has used Reinforcement Magic. For the time being, he cannot quite gauge how much strength he currently has, so he is extra careful whenever he touches anything fragile.

He might be a registered Execution Mage, or even a Battle Mage.

On the other side of the coffee shop, with the counter as the dividing line, is a small table area where three other people are sitting, all appearing to be human. A man on a business trip has his laptop open, yet he is zoning out, not knowing what kind of blow he has encountered. At a small table by the window sit two older women who took a wrong turn looking for a place to rest; they decided to just go with it and ordered two cups of coffee they couldn't drink, starting to compare whose son is more successful. They get more and more into it, and their voices grow louder and louder.

The man withdraws his gaze and refocuses his attention on the book. He knows that someone has been following him for the past few days; perhaps someone thinks he will be attacked, or perhaps someone thinks he is the criminal. He drinks half a cup of coffee but does not touch the food.

Just then, the coffee shop door is pulled open again, and icy rain is swept in by a strong wind, wetting the floor from the entrance to the counter. Someone else coming to the coffee shop this early? The man cannot help but look up. Today feels like something is destined to happen; everything is unusually abnormal.

A very thin girl enters, pulling the door with both hands to fight against the wind and rain. She uses all her might to shut the door in a bad mood, then turns around. The man sees her pale complexion; she is as gloomy as the weather outside, and negative charges are crackling around her.

Her gaze sweeps across the man's face, not noticing at all what he looks like or if he is charming. Those things have nothing to do with her; her heart is entirely occupied by anxiety and worry. What on earth happened to Luo Qi? She bad-temperedly guesses that he must be dead, which is why those idiots refuse to tell her anything. This is all because she is not a Mage. If she hadn't been born a human but a Mage, she would beat those idiots to a pulp, including Luo Qi!

She does not see that in the booth by the window, the coffee cup in the man's hand has been knocked over onto the table. The coffee flows off the wooden surface and drips onto the leather seat opposite.

She is full of anger, melancholy, and anxiety. She looks around the counter for a while but has no appetite. However, she still buys a bear claw pastry and a vanilla latte. She is in a low mood right now and has two hundred and fifty reasons to need to ingest some sugar.

She wraps the bear claw pastry in a thick paper bag and seals it, carries the paper coffee cup in her hand, and walks toward the door. She angrily pulls open the coffee shop door, pulls the hood of her coat up, and plunges back into the wind and rain outside.

The man by the window stands up abruptly. The Mage sitting in the center of the coffee shop is instantly alerted and turns to look at him. The man hesitates for only a split second before making up his mind. He rushes out of his seat, pulls open the door, and chases into the wind and rain, not even taking his umbrella.

The girl in the shop chases after him and shouts a few times, "Mr. Luo, your umbrella!" but fails to stop him. She turns back in frustration, only to collide with yet another man running out of the shop.

The girl is knocked to the ground and screams. The man cannot help but look back at her and asks her perfunctorily, "Are you okay?" Before finishing, he is about to leave.

The girl screams and grabs his pants, "My leg won't move, you can't leave!"

The business man who was zoning out nearby comes to his senses, hears the sound, and rushes over to help the girl stop the man who bumped into her. The two chatting older women are startled and both stand up. One of them, who is usually unforgiving, takes one look and starts shouting about calling the police, muttering, "You bump into someone and don't even know how to say sorry? What is wrong with young people these days?"

The Mage is anxious to get out, but for some reason, it is as if everyone in the coffee shop has suddenly rushed out. All the customers and all the staff surround him. In broad daylight, it is impossible for him to break free.

On the street outside the coffee shop, Luo Ruian strides quickly through the icy rain. The girl with the bear claw pastry and coffee is right in front. He focuses all his attention; the girl is still a thorough human, and her surface Yajian is entirely filled with Luo Qi—there is no possibility of any misunderstanding—his own son's face appears many times in the girl's Yajian.

He quickens his pace. The Mage following him will always find a way to catch up; that small obstacle won't hold him for long. He must catch this girl as soon as possible, but just as he reaches two steps behind her, the girl suddenly stops.

He subconsciously stops as well. The girl just looks left and right, then turns into a shop by the side of the road.

He looks up; it is a twenty-four-hour bookstore. This opportunity is much better than making contact with her on the road. Perhaps the Mage tailing him will arrive soon.

He slips into the bookstore.