The moment Xie Yu got to work (4K)

[The book that was no longer lonely (Void Magic) (Affection 100) panted:]

[You're going to leaf through me until I can't close properly anymore...]

If a book was left open all the time, its bound spine would gradually lose some of its elasticity. Even if it was closed again, a gap would remain, seemingly a sign that the book was no longer brand-new.

Xie Yu reached out, intending to try pressing the book flat, but it stopped him.

[Don't stop, don't stop, keep turning. As long as you can learn something, don't worry about me, really. You're so gentle... Don't go easy on me. Books are meant to be leafed through.]

[The older, more worn and dog-eared you make me, the more I like it. It's proof that I've been read, a sign of my worth.]

"All right, then." Xie Yu sighed and stroked the book. This batch of books had such strange personalities.

On his side of the room, he cast spells and recited incantations, practicing his proficiency with Void Magic and feeding the defective void structures to those who wanted to eat them.

He was relaxed and at ease, paying no attention to the world outside.

When he grew tired of casting, he rested and played with the Sealed Artifacts on him.

On the other side of the room, Yize was busy.

At first, he had watched Xie Yu, observing how this genius practiced magic. But after hearing phrases tumble from Xie Yu's mouth like "I'm going to wear out your little pages from turning them," "You can't sneak bites out of each other right in front of me!" and "You still have the mind to fuse while I'm watching you? What do you mean, you're even more excited?" Yize had been forced to look away.

If he listened any longer, Yize suspected his work efficiency would drop by ninety percent. Every time Xie Yu said something, his brain would freeze for anywhere from several seconds to over ten, and sometimes he even needed Fry to interrupt and prompt him before he came back to his senses.

This child probably knows I'm listening in and is using this subtle method to distract me... Yize rubbed his brow and gradually immersed himself in his work, no longer looking over to see what Xie Yu was doing.

He needed to deal with the connections between the Education Bureau and the Brown Family across the entire province, severing them all in one stroke. Anything involving personnel was the most complicated sort of work. He had to consider the repercussions and resistance within the organization, carrying out inspections while also reassuring people.

At present, he had the authority of the head of the Inspection Department, as well as the power to allocate additional resources that Xie Yu's appearance had brought him. He encountered little resistance in handling these matters.

The internal review was work that had to be done anyway.

All he was doing today was speeding up the review so it could be completed as soon as possible, destroying the Brown Family's tentacles and reducing its value.

If there was any great pressure, it came from the domain of fate.

Yize had always vaguely felt that dark clouds lingered over his head, as if something were watching him. But the feeling was indistinct, manifesting only as the occasional dryness in his eyelids or an accidental bite of his tongue.

As if someone were watching him.

The sunshine outside the window was bright, yet a sudden downpour seemed imminent.

At one moment that afternoon, as sunlight streamed through the windows of the king suite, Yize suddenly felt a heaviness. Some oppressive weight of fate had grown heavier all at once, like millions of tons of rain clouds bearing down over his head.

Xie Yu walked over and said:

"The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll just told me it has an amazing ability."

"What ability?" Yize put down his pen.

Xie Yu said:

"It can learn about the past fates of objects to some extent. Inanimate objects, things without life."

Yize tapped his fingers on the desk and said:

"Inanimate objects have no fate. Their traces exist only through their connections to people. Even divination can only reveal where their paths intersect with human fate. Life is the driving force. Ordinary things have no past and no fate, only traces."

This was his area of expertise, and he spoke with certainty.

"But it says it can. Isn't that right, Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll?" Xie Yu cupped the pendant around his neck and lightly tapped its forehead.

[Can I? Master, I don't think I knew I could... Oh, I understand. Master, you want to go out and have fun.]

The one who could see the past of things and talk to them was Master himself!

After Permanent Animation, the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll could see everything Xie Yu did. Though it didn't know what the many things said to Xie Yu, it heard everything he said to them. It was certain its master was neither a madman with a mental disorder nor someone suffering from delusions.

It listened loyally, remaining devout.

So the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll gathered the sound of the wind into a whisper and squeezed out a single word using its barely adequate ability to recite incantations:

"Yes."

Yize was shocked. He didn't know whether he should first be shocked that a Sealed Artifact could talk, or that an Abnormal State in the domain of fate could do something beyond divination.

"For example, Miuan Brown stayed at this hotel, in this king suite, five years ago," Xie Yu said.

"The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll told me. You can try checking."

[Hey, I was the one who told you that. How come someone else gets the credit?]

[A tall hotel (Affection 100) said aggrievedly:]

[What the hell does that speck of a talisman doll know about Miuan Brown? A little thing like that would probably drop to its knees and call a Magister master the moment it saw one.]

[I'm different. I'm not afraid of Magisters at all. I've seen a hundred Magisters naked in the bath. They have no secrets from me. Nobody understands Magisters better than I do.]

[Go ahead and give it all the credit. I don't mind one bit.]

Xie Yu smiled apologetically at the hotel ceiling.

He had carefully considered everything he said to Yize. Giving the credit to the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll was also the safest approach; at least it would be easier for Yize to believe.

[All right, you smiled at me, so what else can I say? Humans are so tiny and cute (^з^)-☆]

Yize's expression changed slightly. He seemed to react to the name Miuan Brown, and his eyelid twitched again.

"Fry, find a way to check..."

He called Fry over. Yize could no longer obtain an accurate answer to this matter directly through divination.

"Five years ago, after Wig Brown's teaching accident, Miuan Brown met with Saidaiyang, the president of the Pine Nut Chamber of Commerce, and the woman who was mayor at the time, right here in this king suite," Xie Yu added.

"The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll's ability is amazing. It couldn't possibly have witnessed this, yet it spoke with great certainty. It said it saw the past fates of the things inside this hotel."

"For example, this chair."

[A quiet metal-backed chair (Affection 20): Sit on me again. I don't mind.]

"Or this carpet."

[A beauty-loving wool carpet (Affection 40): Take your shoes off, quick. I mean, your shoes will get me dirty. It's not like I love the things wrapped up inside them!]

"Or this desk you're using."

[An honest solid-wood desk (Affection 10+1): I'm just a desk. Nothing like the previous guest stripping naked and lying on top of me ever happened. The traces were wiped clean long ago. There's no way you could discover anything.]

"Would you like to know their past fates? I can ask the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll to take a look," Xie Yu said with a smile.

Yize wavered a little. Xie Yu had risen to the status of "a trustworthy fellow" in his mind, or perhaps strange things happening around Xie Yu were no longer worth finding strange.

He was inclined to believe Xie Yu, but he still couldn't quite believe the "truth" Xie Yu was trying to explain. He mused:

"Could an Abnormal State in the mental domain have driven your Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll mad? Given it delusions? Has the Sealed Artifact turned into a deranged artifact?"

"Can we trust what a deranged artifact says?"

Sure enough, convincing a Magister isn't easy...

Xie Yu's original idea had been to use his own ability to win things over, then have the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll reveal some of the information.

The doll could recite incantations, so it could talk. That would provide a plausible explanation for his ability and let him use it plausibly when needed.

After winning over the hotel and hearing what it had to say, Xie Yu realized that as long as he won over enough objects, he had a chance of knowing "everything," in the literal sense.

No one in the world lived in a vacuum. Whether an ordinary person or a Sage, everyone always had objects of one kind or another around them: the clothes they wore, the houses they lived in, the beds they slept in...

That meant he had a chance to peer into everyone's secrets.

He was not limited by magical strength or constrained by divination and mental probing.

Everything that existed left traces.

Xie Yu squeezed the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll, telling it to prove itself.

The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll played along and said, "Talking is tiring. Please hold me."

[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 said happily:]

[Master's big hand is wrapped tightly around me. Let me think. I need to create some mental fluctuations and pretend I'm communicating with you. Then you can say whatever you want.]

[Will that work?]

"Yes." Xie Yu nodded. That was exactly what he meant.

He reached out and held the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll, putting on an act of sensing something.

He didn't know whether he could pull off a little trick in front of a Magister, but after spending two days with Yize, Xie Yu felt it wouldn't matter much even if he failed in front of him.

The current Yize was literally standing on the same front as him.

If he wanted to try these little tricks, now was the best time, and Yize was the lowest-risk choice.

Xie Yu looked at Yize and asked with concern:

"The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll says it glimpsed your robe's past fate. You haven't slept in several days. You didn't sleep last night, or the night before... I didn't realize my arrival would cause you so much extra work. Thank you for all your hard work."

[The frail Sacred Destiny Golden Sun Robe (Affection 30) said sleepily:]

[Huh? Did I tell you that? Did I? I can't remember... But Yize really has been working hard, and so have I. Yawn~]

"..." Yize frowned.

Xie Yu certainly wasn't capable of spying on him. Whatever magic was used for spying, it was unlikely to escape a diviner's perception of fate, especially the act of spying itself.

Unless Xie Yu was a diviner of a higher level than him, but even then, he should have sensed something. Being spied upon was always the event a diviner was most sensitive to.

It meant one's fate was being observed, that one's fate had become part of someone else's fate. At some point in the future, the other party would use that spying as a weapon against them. The act of spying itself meant that fate had changed.

Xie Yu hadn't spied on him. Yize was certain of that...

But...

Yize looked out the window. The sunshine was still bright, so why did he always feel such gloom, such heavy fog?

As if rain and lightning were about to fall and a fierce wind was about to rise.

Did this mean he was being spied on? By a higher-level being, perhaps one of an even higher level... The other party's mastery of the domain of fate was so great that they had even erased the sensitivity he should have possessed, letting him grow accustomed to the feeling, until Xie Yu happened to mention it just now and he caught a glimpse through the surface.

At least a Saint, perhaps even a Sage.

But he was not the core, not the center where that gaze converged.

"We have to leave here."

Yize was about to speak, but he abruptly came to his senses and realized he couldn't say that. The moment he did, the center of that gaze would shift to him.

"Interesting. The combined effect of Abnormal States of fate and of mind and soul?" Yize looked gently at Xie Yu, put aside all his objections, and spoke encouragingly.

Seeing that his efforts had worked, Xie Yu immediately nodded and began explaining how all this made sense:

"I think so too. This combination is quite rare among Sealed Artifacts. The Abnormal State in the domain of fate makes the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll very sensitive to past fates, while the power related to mind and soul lets it glimpse more subtle details and even form actual fantasies. But under the influence of the fate Abnormal State, those fantasies might happen to be close to the real past..."

He hadn't just been practicing magic all afternoon; he had also been thinking this over.

[A loyal solid-wood cane (Affection 100) heard your words and suddenly grew melancholy:]

[...Through the connection of blood relatives, slowly treating them in a gentle way that changes the fate of the whole family... Just like when we first met.]

[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 no longer knew what to say:]

[Yes, yes, that's how amazing I am... Am I? Master, please stop. I'm scared.]

If it was too amazing, it would be snatched away and taken for painstaking study. Fine needles would pierce its surface and delve into its soul, and this person and that would run their hands all over it... The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll remembered the Chapter of Teleportation's life as a Sealed Artifact. It sounded like hell.

"That makes some sense." Yize gently closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure himself. What Xie Yu said could be right or wrong, and it was difficult to prove or disprove. Even though there was no similar precedent in the field of magic, he didn't want to argue or dwell on the question now.

Fate was urging him to leave.

The king suite was no longer safe or private.

"Minister Yize, it's true. The check-in records from five years ago are gone, but the lady at the front desk remembers that Miuan. She said the fellow was unpleasant, very, very unpleasant, and that he did stay in the king suite five years ago." Fry worked efficiently.

Although there was no written record, only a verbal statement, Yize felt it was enough.

"What an amazing ability," Yize said. "How do you want to use it?"

Even Xie Yu hadn't expected things to go so smoothly. He had thought he would have to say a lot more to Yize.

"If it's safe, I'd like to go back and take a look at the wooden house at Kaiming Clinic. Since Roman Brown and the others went there, I'm worried Mr. Kaiming's belongings might have been damaged. I'd also like to look into their movements."

The wooden house's Affection had suddenly reached 100. Although he had learned from Yize that it had something to do with the Brown Family, he had yet to investigate the exact reason.

He wanted to hear what [the book-loving three-story wooden house] had to say.

"All right, I'll go with you." Yize nodded immediately, a golden light flashing in his eyes.

"Now... is a safe time. And the place you chose feels very safe to me as well."

Yize needed to leave the king suite.

The oppressive feeling of being watched by a higher being might have been bearable while he was unaware of it, but once he noticed, even breathing became difficult. The frustration and agitation in his heart tormented him.

Xie Yu rubbed the Chapter of Teleportation on his chest and said happily, having prepared in advance, "I've talked to it. It can teleport two or three people together; we just need to feed it a few more void structures."