Chapter Twenty

-Yu Shaohan-

Xiao Lan finally replied to my message, but her reply was so cryptic that I couldn't understand a single word.

Never mind, it doesn't matter. I squatted in the corner, listlessly picking at a small twig I'd picked up from somewhere.

The branches traced crooked arcs on the ground, and I stared blankly at the indeterminate patterns. My brain raced, trying to figure out what Deng Xiqi was up to. The howls of the cursed spirits behind me gradually subsided, and I guessed that Miss Mingming and the others had almost finished dealing with it. Sure enough, not long after, I heard Youyou call me: "Miss Yu, let's go."

But I can't leave! I just found a tiny bit of Deng Xiqi here, and I'm not willing to let her go like this! I covered my head and kept crying out, "Ouch, ouch!"

"What's wrong?" Seeing that I didn't react for a while, Youyou looked straight at me. He frowned. "Are you not feeling well?"

I sat down on the ground, clutching my chest and groaning, "I don't know why, my chest just started hurting for no reason... I don't think I did anything, did I?" Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Miss Mingming and the withered old man were both looking at me. I quickly used my acting skills, "Ouch, it hurts so much! It hurts so much I can't walk... You guys go ahead, I'll rest here for a while..."

Miss Mingming walked over and looked me up and down for a moment. Her beautiful eyes swept over me, and I inexplicably felt that she could see right through me: "Should we call a doctor?"

I think I acted quite well; I even conveyed the cold sweat on my forehead with great emotion. But if the doctor really comes, I'm not sure I can escape his sharp eyes.

"No need, no need." I shook my head like a rattle drum. "It's an old problem... I'll be fine after I rest for a while."

Miss Mingming gave a meaningful "Oh," and only then did I belatedly realize that my two sentences seemed somewhat contradictory.

"Then let's go first." Miss Mingming turned around decisively. "You'll be able to catch up by yourself after you've rested, right?"

"Yes, yes!" I nodded vigorously, almost swearing with three fingers raised, "I'll definitely catch up after I've rested!"

Led by Miss Mingming, the group of sorcerers finally all left. I breathed a sigh of relief, watching their figures disappear around the street corner, then immediately jumped up from the ground, dusted myself off, and exclaimed, "Hahaha, done! That's so cool of me!"

I remember clearly the direction Deng Xiqi fled in. Ghost cultivators can't teleport, and that girl is naturally a bit dim-witted; she always chooses to sprint straight away, unlike me and Xiao Lan who took the winding mountain road. I took out the tracking talisman hidden in my sleeve, tossed it into the air, and the yellow talisman "whooshed" towards the alley where Deng Xiqi had just disappeared.

"Want to play hide-and-seek with me? Who do you think I am? You're still too green, Mr. Chair~"

I hummed a little tune as I chased after her, and just as I passed the wall where Deng Xiqi had been laughing foolishly, I caught a glimpse of a line of unusual blood-red words in the corner of the wall.

"...?"

I stopped, bent down, and struggled to make out the words. The words, written in a brownish-red color, were on a dark wall... almost invisible unless you looked very closely.

"What is this? cos30°, sin45°, tan60°... trigonometric functions?" Deng Xiqi, who always hated arithmetic and was an arithmetic idiot, actually stood in front of the wall with trigonometric functions written on it and laughed out loud with her hands on her hips. Am I crazy? Is she crazy? Or is this actually a fake world of lunatics?

I pursed my lips and gave up trying to figure out what the special meaning of this series of trigonometric functions was—although you might not be able to see it, I am actually a genuine math idiot.

I took out my phone and snapped a picture, capturing this string of mathematical characters that I never wanted to see again.

Let's continue tracking Deng Xiqi.

The tracking talisman continued to drift aimlessly in the air. I followed behind it, feeling the atmosphere growing increasingly eerie. As it burrowed deeper into the alley, piles of garbage half a person's height lined the walls, and a stench assaulted my nostrils, almost making me gasp. "Seriously?" I rubbed my arms, holding my breath, feeling goosebumps all over my skin. "Why did you come to such a creepy place, Mr. Bench? Don't you think this is a bit too scary?"

Finally, I passed through that annoying alley and came to a deserted warehouse. I breathed a sigh of relief, watching as the tracking talisman suddenly veered sharply and slammed against the warehouse's iron door. Just as I touched the doorknob, I heard Deng Xiqi's booming voice from inside, carrying that familiar, youthful exuberance: "Listen up! I've laid a trap outside! Don't even think about escaping, don't even think anyone will come to rescue you—you! You can only leave by solving the math problem I've given you and obtaining the Pythagorean theorem sword!"

I:"……?"

Something's not right, something's not right, something's extremely not right.

Without thinking twice, I burst through the door. The iron door slammed against the wall with a clang. I rushed in, talisman in hand, but the sight before me made me freeze for a moment, then I was furious.

Deng Xiqi was standing on an overturned iron bucket, waving a mop handle like a sword. A crooked circle was drawn on the side of the bucket in chalk, and inside sat our classmate, the long-absent Yigu Youtai. He sat awkwardly on the ground, with a tattered piece of cardboard in front of him, on which was written in red paint: "Solve sin30° + cos60° = ? to win the Pythagorean theorem sword (PS: One hour time limit)"

"So! So it was you who kidnapped Yi Gu!" In an instant, old and new grudges surged into my heart. I cracked my knuckles. "If you hadn't kidnapped Yi Gu, we wouldn't have gotten such a severe scolding from the Ye'e Righteous Path! Oh right, speaking of which, it seems that our encounter with the Monkey King at the Panxing Sect is also related to you in some way..."

Deng Xiqi trembled at my yelling and fell off the metal bucket with a thud, the mop handle crashing down in front of Yigu Youtai. She scrambled to her feet, dusting herself off as she stubbornly protested, "No, no, no, no! What kidnapping! This is called 'strategic detention'! What do you know!"

"Oh." I gave a forced smile. "'Tactical detention'? That's impressive. I don't really understand it, but..."

I walked over and pinched her ear hard: "Ya'e Zhengdao and Gojou Wu are practically turning the entire Tokyo upside down looking for Yigu. Xiao Lan and I get scolded by Ya'e Zhengdao every three days on average... And you, you're keeping us here doing elementary school math problems?"

"What kind of elementary school math problem is this?" Deng Xiqi retorted defiantly while groaning in pain. "This isn't an ordinary arithmetic problem! This is a 'mathematical barrier' that can buy time! Think about it, with the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons causing such a ruckus, Xia Youjie definitely won't have time to deal with anything else—but as long as Yigu Youtai is still in my hands, he'll be distracted! By the time he finishes this problem, the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons will be over!"

My anger was extinguished by a bucket of ice water that seemed to fall from the sky. Suppressing my rage, I tilted my head in confusion and slowly typed a question mark: "Wait, what does this have to do with Yigu? If he's going to be distracted, it should be with Gojo Satoru, why would he be distracted by Yigu for no reason?"

Deng Xiqi's focus was different from others. She broke free from my "iron hand" gripping her ear: "Huh? You know Xia Youjie? And who is Wutiao Wu?"

"..."

There were so many things to complain about that I couldn't find the right words. I rolled my eyes and said, "Okay, okay, we'll talk about how you knew the Monkey King and who Gojo Satoru is later, since it's a long story. Right now, my focus is on why you kidnapped Eto.

"It's a long story."

Deng Xiqi snapped her fingers, and the Ghost Bride appeared, standing firmly guarding the door. Deng Xiqi pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, "Don't you know? It's because Yi Gu You Tai has Rika, a rare top-level sorcerer, and Xia You Jie wants Rika."

"And I have inside information that Xia Youjie's most cherished person is Yigu Youtai. They used to be classmates and were so close they could share a pair of pants!"

I:"……?"

I swallowed hard: "...Don't you think that Yi Gu and the Monkey King are not the same age? Two people with such a big age gap...why would they be...classmates?"

Deng Xiqi blinked, her thoughts starting to wander: "I get it." She clapped her hands excitedly: "Oh, oh, oh, oh! This is what they call an age gap, right?"

"..." I rolled my eyes to the sky, demonstrating my utter disbelief. "Fine, you can guess whatever you want from here."

"Let me guess what you're thinking... So you think that as long as you keep holding onto the Ekigami, Xia Youjie will give up the Hyakki Yagyō for Rika?" I pondered, stroking my chin, following Deng Xiqi's train of thought. Although from our normal perspective, this logic is a bit too absurd, upon closer inspection, it seems to fit her chuunibyou (delusional) thought process quite well.

Deng Xiqi nodded vigorously, pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket, and shoved it into my hand: "Look, look! This is a relationship diagram I drew! Xia Youjie → wants Lixiang → Lixiang is on Yigu → so Yigu = Lixiang = Xia Youjie's target! As long as I hide Yigu well, his plan will fall through!"

I unfolded the paper, on which were drawn three crooked little figures in red pen, labeled "Xia Youjie," "Yigu," and "Lixiang," connected by an arrow. Next to the arrow was written "Because of this, therefore, scientific reasoning."

"I'm really speechless." Looking into Deng Xiqi's bright eyes, I couldn't explain myself. "Your thought process is still the same as always, absurd yet tinged with naivety... Never mind, that's not the point. So, according to your calculations, where is Xia Youjie now?"

Deng Xiqi shook her head vigorously: "I don't know."

I almost laughed out of anger. "Don't you know?" I crossed my arms and kicked him in the butt. "You didn't know and you still dared to kidnap someone? What if your idea is completely wrong? Wouldn't your 'tactical detention' become a complete joke?"

"No, no, no, no, that can't be." Deng Xiqi said confidently, "My relationship diagram is logically sound, comparable to the top secret of the sorcery world! He's definitely pacing around anxiously in some corner, debating whether or not to come and save Yigu Youtai!"

Haha, is this the top secret of the sorcery world?

"Then what about doing math problems?" I started to ask all the questions that had been bothering me, "And how did you meet the Monkey King, where did you hear the 'rumor' from, and what just happened..."

"If you see me, run away!"

The anger I had barely suppressed resurfaced. I stared at her with a smile, reached out, and with my "ruthless iron hand," grabbed her ear again.