Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Art of Time and Space

The young Yixin stood frozen where he was. He watched his elder brother pass by his side, and he felt it with painful clarity: that brother was utterly чужд to him. There were no tears on his face, nor any expression at all; around him clung only a coldness like the night itself.

And so he left home, never to return.

Yixin lay on the ground, torn and bleeding beneath the entangling vines, tears spilling out in unwilling grief.

The tower stood empty now. Night had fallen back into silence. A bright moon hung high overhead, and only the plaintive wind wandered over the rooftop.

Heiyu stood there in a daze, not knowing how to comfort him.

After Lingxi moved away, the vines binding Yixin gradually loosened. He was covered in wounds, yet the pain in his heart surpassed all else.

The scar buried in his heart for so many years had been torn open again today, and blood was flowing from it anew.

Heiyu helped Yixin back, with Lingxiaolei accompanying them. The journey was silent. Yixin’s spirits sank to the lowest depths.

Back in Yixin’s dormitory at the academy, Heiyu briefly bandaged his wounds before leaving the room and closing the door.

Shenzai Guo was already waiting on one side of the corridor, holding a snow-white spirit rabbit in her arms, with Lingxiaolei standing nearby as well.

“Brother Heiyu, what happened?”

Seeing Heiyu come out, Shenzai Guo hurriedly asked.

“Shh.” Heiyu motioned for them to keep quiet. After all, they were still outside Yixin’s door, and speaking of Yifeng was the greatest taboo.

Originally, Shenzai Guo had heard that Heiyu had returned from the frontier wall and had come to greet him, but she had not expected them to run into trouble on the way, with Yixin getting injured.

The three of them walked down the corridor. After a while, Heiyu lowered his voice and asked Lingxiaolei, “This Yifeng—do you know him well?”

Lingxiaolei had picked up a bit of gossip about famous people, and so she said, “Yifeng, like you, has half human blood and half demon blood, and wields dark power. I only heard that he used to attend this academy too, and was called a prodigy. He graduated when he was only thirteen.”

“Thirteen? Isn’t that about the same age as Huolongguo?”

Among the students of that cohort, aside from Shenzai Guo, the rest had all entered at around fifteen.

“Yes. Later he went to take the entrance exam for the advanced magical academy in the Divine Realm, but he didn’t make the cut. After that, for some reason, he was expelled from the continent—maybe because of his dark power.”

“Expelled?”

“It means he can never set foot inside the frontier again. For example, some criminals, if they’ve done something atrocious, are exiled by the Pantheon beyond the frontier wall.”

Heiyu thought of the so-called Villain Villages he had seen near the wall, where the people were all irredeemable criminals.

“So you people of the Crimson Flame family don’t even know your own affairs, and you’re asking me?” Lingxiaolei shot him a look. “Isn’t he your elder brother?”

“How would I know? By the time I came to the Crimson Flame family, he was already gone.”

“Sigh. Too bad my book on the theory of the three realms is gone. Looks like I’ll have to investigate it myself again...” She tugged at her hair in misery.

“It’s getting late today. Let’s all go back and rest,” Heiyu said.

“Brother Heiyu, see you in class tomorrow,” Shenzai Guo said, waving her little hand. She obediently walked off into the distance with Lingxiaolei.

After Heiyu returned to his dormitory, he extinguished the lamp. The dormitory building was also very quiet; most people were already asleep.

He lay on his back and, in the moonlight, took out the little book Yifeng had left him to examine it. The latter half had been torn away, and he had no idea what kind of content it had contained.

“Space-time magic... Yifeng... what kind of person is he, really?”

He speculated.

Suddenly, without any warning, an image flashed through his mind. On the day he had gone berserk by accident, the city lord just happened to be away from home, and Yixin had sent a vicious punch crashing toward him.

His flames pierced through the bedroom wall, and the courtyard was left in ruins. Heiyu, growing faint and losing consciousness, lay helplessly in the yard and saw Yixin walking toward him step by step, intending to kill him.

That was the first time he had ever seen someone possess such an expression. In Yixin’s eyes was true fury, and a bone-deep killing intent.

At the same time, he understood why he had thought of that scene. That look in Yixin’s eyes was exactly the same as the look he had worn when he saw Yifeng today. Full of hatred, full of despair.

“Perhaps I’m just too much like Yifeng...”

At last, Heiyu found the reason Yixin disliked him.

“So when I lost control that time, Yixin hated me so much...”

With a sense of melancholy and many unanswered questions, Heiyu finally fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, as Heiyu came out of the dormitory, he walked while looking through the magical book written by Yifeng. He had just reached the section on spatial transference when, no matter how hard he thought about it, he could not understand it.

He recalled the opening lines, which said that only those who possessed the “primal force,” unlike the nine major magical systems, could decipher this spell. What did “primal force” mean? Did I even have any primal force at all?

He muttered as he walked. If he couldn’t decipher it, Yifeng would not have given him the book, would he?

He remembered that at the time Yifeng had called him the “child of the devil.” Did that mean he knew about him? Could it be that he even knew he possessed dark power?

Thinking of it this way, Yifeng became even more unfathomable.

And in the forest, he had also been the one who took Xiaoyu away. Yet no one knew where he had brought Xiaoyu.

This time they had met him again atop the tower, and both times he had been with Manager Ling. What was their relationship? Why did Yixin hate him so fiercely? If he had been exiled, then why had he returned here... Countless questions circled in his mind.

“Sigh, no point thinking about it for now...”

As he repeatedly turned the book over, he discovered that beneath the title on the cover there was another line of handwriting, the ink already faint: this spell carries the risk of irreversibility; use with caution.

Heiyu’s heart tightened. Both thrilled and wary, he felt a shiver of excitement. “Looks like even if I learn this spell, I can’t use it lightly...”

The teachers who had gone out to support the battlefields around the forest outside the city and the Apocalyptic Volcano had returned, and beginning today, the academy’s classes resumed as normal.

Heiyu entered the teaching building and climbed the stairs all the way to the top floor, where his classroom was located. Just as he rounded the corner, he heard the pig-thunder voice of a stout matron:

“Heaven-sent miracle doctor! Truly a miracle doctor sent to save us! Thank you so much, please, you must accept this!”

Heiyu stood rooted to the spot and saw Bai Shengye gripping the doorframe with one hand, his body leaning back desperately as though in excruciating misery, while his other hand was being firmly clasped by the enthusiastic woman.

“Wait, stop touching me! Madam, we can discuss this properly!...”

He struggled hard to pull his hand free, but instead the woman only clutched him tighter, seizing his wrist and arm as well.

“Thanks to you for curing my son’s illness! You must accept these two baskets of fruit!”

Bai Shengye wore a pained expression as he reluctantly took the two baskets of fruit.

“I-I understand... let go!!”