Qu Zhu's face was as taut as a bowstring; in that instant his eyes truly flickered with light, but as he looked straight back at the aged face before him, the light froze back into solid ice.
"No," he said.
————
Qu Zhu stubbornly pressed on with his investigation.
Pei Ye watched him, becoming more direct as he sifted through the vast sea of information. He no longer methodically searched the shelves, nor did he wander inch by inch across the land; he began to seek out ancient tomes, pinpointing specific sites to visit, and occasionally, when he left the valley, he would always return with more books and Magic Artifacts.
His eyes grew brighter and brighter until, after the last complex calculation, the man gazed at the perfectly looping result and slowly stood up from the clifftop at the mountain pass, quietly observing the valley that encircled him like a ring.
"So it is a formation," he murmured.
...
