Yang Qing pushed aside thoughts of future siblings and children as his mind soon beca occupied with another matter, one far more present.
Ren Shu had said he suspected the kidnapper might have acted because of their family. With that in mind, Yang Qing parsed through everything he had uncovered so far to see if there was anything he might have overlooked that supported the theory.
After digging through his mories, his thoughts settled on the enigmatic painting from the Velvet Orchid Teahouse. Of everything he had collected or interacted with so far, it was the only thing he felt might hold ties to the kidnapper. Not to ntion, his old friend Senior Bu Zhou had hinted, albeit indirectly, that the painting might warrant a closer look. The shrouding water jade turtle believed it could be heavily linked to Yang Qing’s case, though he had not explained in what way. That was understandable, given that the Assistant Dean had made the statent purely from intuition.
But it was precisely that intuition that prompted Yang Qing to give the painting a closer look, both then and now.
"Senior Bu Zhou did ntion sothing when I was in Hebei..." Yang Qing said thoughtfully, bringing up the matter with Ren Shu.
"Him?" said Ren Shu, looking surprised as he raised one of his brows slightly. "He ca to Hebei?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yes, he did. Though technically, it wasn’t his real body that was there. He projected part of his consciousness through a fragnt of his shell that he had given ," Yang Qing explained.
Bu Zhou had a reputation within the Order for never leaving its grounds. In fact, it wasn’t even just the grounds; he had never set foot outside the Institute—at least, not his real body. Co to think of it, Yang Qing wasn’t even sure where his real body was located, as all he had ever dealt with, even during his days at the Institute, were clones of him manifested through spells or plates of his shell.
Bu Zhou was a highly paranoid being, hence Ren Shu’s surprise at hearing that he had left the Order’s grounds.
"Still, even for a projection, that’s quite a lot for soone like him," said Ren Shu, still in disbelief. "Bu Zhou. Outside. I thought I’d never see the day. Who would have expected that? He must really favor you to do that." Ren Shu looked at Yang Qing aningfully. "What did you give him?" he asked curiously as he narrowed his eyes, bringing his teacup closer to his mouth and creating the illusion that he was wearing a teacup mask.
"Nothing much, just a bamboo shoot broth," Yang Qing remarked offhandedly as he leaned back in his chair.
"You’ll jump at any opportunity to brag, won’t you? You just can’t help yourself," said Ren Shu as he shook his head, clearly not buying Yang Qing’s story.
"I’m serious. All I gave him was bamboo shoot broth," said Yang Qing, his tone rising as he tried to defend himself. For once, he was being entirely truthful, yet Ren Shu didn’t seem convinced.
"I’m not lying. It really was just bamboo shoot broth," Yang Qing repeated, his voice rising even higher, desperation creeping into his tone.
"Sure," said Ren Shu. Though he said it, his tone sounded more like that of an adult humoring a child to keep them from crying.
"The one ti I’m not lying," Yang Qing muttered poutingly under his breath, crossing his arms. He was seriously considering taking a page from Mao Mao and start walking around with recording talismans to capture every interaction he had. "Does my word an nothing nowadays?" he softly followed in indignation before moving to deal with the injustice in the best way he knew how.
"Senior Bu Zhou said one of the paintings might be heavily tied to my case," Yang Qing continued as he inhaled the jujube tea in his cup before refilling it, shooting Ren Shu a defiant glare as he did so. He emptied the second cup in the sa manner before going on, "The painting looked like this," he continued.
Casting a spell, Yang Qing vividly projected the painting he had seen. "This was the painting," he said, gesturing to the image floating above the table. "I resonated with it and it started moving, and also..." He paused briefly to take sothing from his storage ring.
"I got this tile from it," he said, showing the go tile pressed between his fingers before passing it to Ren Shu.
"Mmh," Ren Shu muttered in amusent as he fiddled with the go tile like it was so intriguing specin. "Bu Zhou was right," he said as he gently pressed the tile, which seed to trigger sothing on it, because Yang Qing saw countless minuscule scripts and runes suddenly appear across its surface.
"Translocating array, concealnt array, tree branching arrays that conjoin with others, thought transmission array, a couple of defensive arrays, another for eavesdropping... Don’t worry, it has distance constraints, and I doubt they would have activated it. With a soul like yours, you would have felt it if it had been triggered," said Ren Shu when he saw Yang Qing’s raised brows at the comnt.
"All those arrays are in there?" Yang Qing asked, unable to hide the disbelief in his tone as he pointed at the tile. "I only detected the translocation and thought transmission arrays. Though the eavesdropping one, even if I didn’t detect it, I felt it was likely there," he added. That suspicion was one of the reasons he had summoned Senior Bu Zhou.
Flipping the tile to one side, Ren Shu said casually, "The other arrays were dormant, and they’ve been covered beneath triple layers of concealing scripts. Given the quality, this is ancient script." He paused to point at certain markings on the tile for Yang Qing to see.
"Mythical races have their own language through which they draw the power of the world. These scripts here and here carry that aura. If these other arrays had been activated—say the eavesdropping one or the defensive one- the scripts would have worked to conceal them... Actually, there are even a few offensive ones in there, and one of them targets the soul," said Ren Shu, his eyes shining with intrigue.
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