"But the Professor turned down my request."
Xiao Xiao lifted his head and looked into the distance. It was evening; the Sun had already sunk behind the office building, and the whole sky exuded a dusky yellow air. "He not only rejected my application, he even suggested I give up this unrealistic idea. Professor Yi said, if I don’t want to spend the rest of this sester lying in the school infirmary, I shouldn’t go doing Divination on sothing this dangerous; this isn’t sothing little wizards like us who haven’t even graduated yet are allowed to pry into... Besides, he told to observe the school carefully."
"Observe the school?"
Zheng Qing instinctively looked left and right—this was dinner ti: students who hadn’t eaten yet were hurrying along, those who’d eaten their fill were strolling leisurely, chipmunk-cheeked squirrels crouched on branches, skin-and-bones Grass Spirits hid behind bushes. As the setting Sun declined, the sky looked like a cake sared with orange jam, giving off a lazy, peaceful flavor—in the midst of this harmony, he didn’t notice anything unusual. "...Observe what? Observe where? What in the school is worth observing?"
"Nothing is worth observing."
Xiao Xiao raised a finger and waved it in front of Zheng Qing’s eyes. "That’s also sothing I only suddenly realized just now while eating, when I saw those three Witches co up to hit on you... There really is nothing worth observing, so even three Witches flirting with a Warlock becos interesting..."
"No anomaly is the biggest anomaly?" Zheng Qing stroked the black Gem Cat, muttering, starting to grasp the unspoken implication behind the Doctor’s words.
Xiao Xiao let out a soft sigh. "It’s already been more than a month into this sester. Don’t you feel that the campus is unusually peaceful this year? Em, to stress this, I’m talking about the ’First University,’ not about ’you’... The First University has four colleges—well, now it’s five—and among them two colleges are practically mortal enemies. In past years, students from Jiuyou and Alpha would get into conflicts several tis every month, but this stretch of ti, everyone’s been very quiet... And the Silent Forest, if you rember the scale of last year’s silent resurgence, you should realize how feeble this year’s silent resurgence is."
"Doesn’t that Hunting team of the Northern District Wizard that had an incident count as an anomaly?"
Zheng Qing frowned, rapidly searching through the big and small accidents of recent weeks in his mind. "And last week on the Forbidden Magic Festival, the sandbox trap in the North District, and that giant Green Snake..."
Xiao Xiao shot him a strange look out of the corner of his eye.
Zheng Qing gave a dry cough.
"All the anomalies are converging on the crows."
Xiao Xiao sumd up his view in a single sentence, his voice lowering even further. "And anomalies that have nothing to do with the crows have almost completely disappeared."
Diviners are best at drawing out the hidden threads—pulling the most valuable clues from tiny, seemingly insignificant details in daily life, then weaving them into a result.
Zheng Qing understood this principle and trusted the Doctor’s judgnt.
The two of them fell silent and walked slowly toward the dormitory.
"Let give an inappropriate example."
Xiao Xiao weighed his words and slowed his speech, as if to match his pace. "When a dangerous Fire Dragon is moving through the Silent Forest, every patch of forest it passes through will beco unusually quiet, because any disturbance might draw a baptism of dragonfla. This kind of silence is like two wrestlers locked in a clinch; they don’t necessarily want to slam the other to the ground, but they definitely don’t want to be the one pinned underneath... You can imagine a huge vortex at the center of a storm, constantly devouring disturbances from all directions. Everyone wants to find so force outside the vortex to pluck themselves out; no one wants to get sucked into it at a ti like this. Except you. Whether you like it or not, you’ve already been dragged into the vortex."
Zheng Qing forced a very reluctant smile.
"That’s not an example."
He half-jokingly quipped. Seeing that Xiao Xiao’s face remained expressionless, he reined in his smile, let out a heavy breath, and muttered, "I really didn’t make any noise, but I’ve been sparkling the whole ti... that kind of glow you can’t hide at all... Can you imagine a clump of iridescent light in a pitch-black forest? It’s very hard for the Fire Dragon not to notice it."
He was using Xiao Xiao’s first example to describe his own situation.
The Diviner of the Yuzui Hunting Team frowned.
"Color of Star." He answered succinctly.
"What?" Zheng Qing didn’t understand what the Doctor ant.
"Color of Star, a Magical Creature from the depths of the universe. When it moves, it looks like a shimring, formless patch of color flowing around."
Xiao Xiao patiently explained. "Under normal circumstances, it looks harmless to people and animals, but when it’s feeding, it can easily drain all the life force within a radius of twenty miles... I rember you saw it in the Black Prison, didn’t you? No impression at all?"
"What does that have to do with what we’re talking about?"
"Weren’t you asking to imagine a clump of iridescent light? Color of Star couldn’t be more suitable. You have to beco a Color of Star." Seemingly sensing Zheng Qing’s confusion, Xiao Xiao pushed up his glasses and threw him another question. "Do you know why the mighty Giants beca an endangered race?"
"Why?"
Zheng Qing unconsciously weakened a little—ever since just now, every sentence from the Doctor seed to be leaping around, making it hard to keep up with his rhythm, and that inexplicably made Zheng Qing feel stupid.
"Because their performance didn’t match their worth, that’s why they beca endangered."
Xiao Xiao’s tone was very serious. "As Humans born strong, they were content with savagery and ignorance, content with wrestling Fire Dragons, content with fighting in Beast Skins and swinging wooden clubs... That’s the greatest blasphemy against Human wisdom. You’re the sa. If you don’t display abilities that match your status, in the end you’ll be swallowed by the big vortex."
"It’s not like I want that either..." Zheng Qing had no idea why the topic had suddenly turned so serious; clearly he’d just wanted to talk about things related to the crows.
Xiao Xiao stopped again and looked at Zheng Qing seriously.
"A few days ago I read a sentence in a book," he patted the black notebook hanging at his waist without opening it, obviously having morized that line very well. "When life gives you a lemon, don’t eat it with a frown; squeeze it into lemonade. Take the sourness and bitterness that life gives you, like lemons, and brew them into sothing as sweet as lemon soda."
Zheng Qing narrowed his eyes at his own Diviner.
He felt that Xiao Xiao was sounding more and more like a proper, orthodox Diviner.
"That chicken soup line is authentic enough, but it’s useless. My purine level is high; I’m past the age of loving at broth."
Zheng Qing kept the Diviner’s warning in mind, but on the surface he put on a breezy, cloudless look. "But that attitude of yours also reminds of a line... Humans are like this: rather than being comforted by others, they prefer to comfort others, as if that lets them gain so sort of psychological upper hand—, soone who’s graduating in a few months, needs you, a current student, to tell how to eat lemons?"
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