Chapter 50 The Magic Circle Reappears, Now in Bishop of Reims’ Hands

Chapter 50 The Arcane Sigil Reappears in Bishop Lans' Hand

A strange connection...

Yu Xing stared at the man in the surveillance footage. She definitely didn’t know him, yet he kept crossing paths with her. Bai Qinghe implied it wasn’t a coincidence—there must be some connection between them.

Could it be...?

It hit Yu Xing like a lightning bolt. She abruptly looked up at Bai Qinghe. "I got it!"

Bai Qinghe tensed, and the others instinctively leaned closer, waiting for her next words.

"He’s probably a stalker," Yu Xing pointed at the man in the video.

"...What?" Bai Qinghe wondered if he had misheard.

"He's a pervert. He's stalking me. Actually, he... might be a deranged predator who targets innocent girls." The more she spoke, the more plausible it seemed. She urged Bai Qinghe gravely, "I recommend arresting him as soon as possible, or else something horrific could occur."

After she finished, she noticed the five people in the room staring at her blankly, their expressions indescribable.

Yu Xing realized something. "Was my guess wrong?"

Bai Qinghe had been in a grim demeanor, but now he couldn’t even describe how he felt.

Su Wenmo ran a hand through her dreadlocks and said in an extremely complicated tone, "Your thought process is really..."

"Actually, it’s somewhat reasonable," Li Sen chimed in.

"But if that were the case, would we even need to come to her?" Su Wenmo slapped Li Sen’s shoulder heavily and asked Yu Xing, "Do you know what we do? Could you at least try guessing in the direction of our profession?"

Yu Xing suddenly understood. "He’s related to Pollutants?"

"Exactly!" Su Wenmo was relieved that Yu Xing’s logic had finally returned to normal.

But now Yu Xing was confused. She looked at the man and asked, "So... is he sent by Pollutants to assassinate me?"

"..."

Su Wenmo gave up. She felt she couldn’t keep up with the younger generation’s thinking anymore.

Bai Qinghe had been considering whether to tell Yu Xing about the Pollutant Source being intentionally deployed to Happy Restaurant. He wasn’t sure if it was related to her.

But he couldn’t dismiss it as mere coincidence.

Yet, he worried that if he was wrong, telling Yu Xing might panic her—after all, deliberate contamination had never happened before.

After hesitating, Bai Qinghe decided against telling her. First, it was currently need-to-know intel. Second, there was no direct evidence linking it to Yu Xing.

"I see," Bai Qinghe nodded. He decided not to disturb Yu Xing further, allowing her to study peacefully in the church for a while.

Unfortunately, his team didn’t fully grasp his intentions. Su Wenmo had been hellbent on recruiting Yu Xing into their squad. Seeing their leader about to leave, she suggested, "We’ve identified the 07C174 Pollutant Source and are about to investigate. Yu Xing, want to come? After all, 07C174 was kind of discovered by you."

Yu Xing didn’t reply—technically, she and her friends had found it together.

Bai Qinghe frowned, but his obtuse squad didn’t notice his displeasure. They badgered Yu Xing, "Yeah, come along! We’ll grab lunch too. The captain can treat—he just got his bonus."

Originally, Yu Xing wasn’t interested, but *free food*...

Having endured the church’s ascetic diet for so long, she really craved a change. So she agreed. Just as Bai Qinghe was about to refuse, a blast rocked the building.

"What exploded?!"

Su Wenmo was the first to rush out, with Yu Xing and the others close behind.

They had been in the church’s reception hall, but the sound seemed to come from the sanctuary. When they arrived, they found a crowd of monks gathered inside.

The air was thick with an acrid smoke—like something had exploded.

Yu Xing covered her nose, puzzled. The church only had statues and candles—nothing explosive.

"What happened?" Su Wenmo elbowed through the crowd.

Before Yu Xing could squeeze in, church medics rushed in with med-bots.

"Clear the area! Clear the area!" The crowd parted at the doctor’s command, revealing two injured men on the ground. One was a stranger with short hair; the other was Bishop Lans.

Beside them lay a smoldering, half-destroyed device—oddly shaped, almost like a giant burning broomstick-shaped contraption.

Bishop Lans was injured but conscious. Half his face was covered in blood, and he couldn’t move as the med-bots lifted him.

Someone nearby explained, "This guy was experimenting with a hovercraft. It spun out of control mid-flight, flew over the church, and shattered through the sanctuary’s skylight—right onto the bishop."

Su Wenmo blurted, "It hit the bishop? Talk about the worst luck imaginable..."

Yu Xing, overhearing this, felt a pang of sinking guilt. *This can’t be my fault, right?*

Just then, she felt someone’s gaze. She looked up and met a pair of golden eyes.

Bishop Lans, being carried away by med-bots, was staring at her. His golden eyes, usually piercing, now blazed like molten gold against his bloodied face.

*Why is he looking at me?* Yu Xing turned away uneasily.

---

The explanation soon emerged—and Bull Warrior was to blame.

Yu Xing, hearing this in Bai Qinghe’s car, was dumbfounded. "What does Bull Warrior have to do with this?"

Li Sen shot back, "Do you even know who Bull Warrior is?"

*Of course I do...*

But she had to *play dumb*. She feigned ignorance with an exaggerated head shake. "No clue. Who is she?"

"You haven’t been scrolling feeds since last night?" Su Wenmo was shocked. What teenager didn’t browse the internet?

"Uh..." Yu Xing fidgeted. "I was with my grandma last night, and I came to the church early this morning—"

"Then you missed a lot." Su Wenmo pulled up a video on her device. "This was recorded last night."

Yu Xing stared at the video, her cheeks growing hotter as she watched. The person in the video was her—last night when she rode the broomstick to District D.

“No one knows who this person wearing the Bull Warrior Mask is, so everyone calls her Bull Warrior based on her mask,” Su Wenmo patiently explained to Yu Xing. “Last night, she flew to District D and neutralized the pollution source, averting a disaster across the Seven Cities.”

“Footage of her flying in the sky was posted online and quickly spread like wildfire,” Li Sen said with mixed emotions. “She suddenly gained a lot of fans, including some privileged youths. The one who crashed into the church earlier was one of Bull Warrior’s fans. He tried to replicate her broomstick flight mechanism to emulate his idol. But he rushed it, and the device was poorly made, which is why it fell during the maiden flight and struck the Bishop.”

Yu Xing: “...”

So this really was her fault?

Yu Xing felt even more guilty, lowering her head to hide her expression.

“It’s strange, though,” Su Wenmo mused, rubbing her chin. “The church clergy said Bishop Lans usually stays at the altar serving the Moon God statue. No one knows why he left it today and stood in the most exposed spot of the temple, which is why he was struck.”

Yu Xing didn’t understand either and could only attribute it to the Bishop’s bad luck.

“Bishop Lans is really unlucky,” Chen Cang joked to Yu Xing. “It’s like he was hit by your Divine Skill.”

Yu Xing: “...”

“Huh? Why do you look so pale?” Su Wenmo asked with concern.

“Heh,” Yu Xing deflected. “Probably because I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Since the surveillance footage from yesterday clearly captured the pollution source’s face, they quickly identified her through facial recognition.

“Her name is Yang Wei. She was originally from District B. A few months ago, her parents and husband died in a pollution incident. Her family went bankrupt, forcing her to leave District B. She’s been renting in District C ever since,” Su Wenmo said, pulling up Yang Wei’s profile, which included old photos of her.

In the photos, Yang Wei appeared vibrant and at ease, her complexion rosy and demeanor relaxed—completely different from the emaciated and unkempt pollution source Yu Xing had seen at Happy Restaurant yesterday.

The car stopped in an old residential area in District C. After getting out, Su Wenmo said, “This area is marked for demolition, but there are still many people living here. The developers have tried several times to tear it down, but the residents mounted collective resistance. I heard it faced compulsory demolition next month.”

The place was indeed dilapidated, with cracks spiderwebbing across most of the buildings.

The population density here was high, making demolition costly, but the profits afterward would be even greater—walled-city real estate was always exorbitantly priced.

Yu Xing was puzzled. “Why resist? Don’t they get compensation for demolition?”

“They do,” Su Wenmo replied, leading the way. “But only the property owners get compensated. Seventy to eighty percent of the residents here are renters. If they leave, they won’t find housing this cheap anywhere else.”

Li Sen sighed. “District C is the most economically vibrant area in the Seven Cities, with the most employment prospects. Many people from District D come here to work. They can’t afford good housing, so they end up in these aging tenements.”

“Places like this are becoming rarer,” Chen Cang added with melancholy.

Yu Xing thought of her brother. He had also come from District D to work in District C—could he be living here too?

Come to think of it, the guidance counselor from Seventh Middle School had promised to help find her brother and get him a proper job. It had been almost half a month—why hadn’t there been any updates?

The environment in the neighborhood was terrible, almost indistinguishable from District D.

Cracked roads, children scrounging through refuse by the roadside—some playing, others fighting over scraps.

Memories from the original host surfaced in Yu Xing’s mind. This was the life she had lived as a child—spare time spent picking through trash, fighting with other kids over scraps.

So many years had passed, and Yu Xing had grown up, but the children here were still living the same way.

Su Wenmo led them through a maze of alleys to a building. A paunchy middle-aged man was waiting downstairs and hurried over when he saw them. “You’re finally here!”

“He’s Yang Wei’s landlord,” Li Sen whispered to Yu Xing.

Yu Xing found the landlord perversely entertaining. People in this world underwent prenatal gene-editing before birth, so why hadn’t obesity been edited out? Some still ended up with this morphology.

“I haven’t been back here in ages,” the landlord said as he led them. “I live in District B now. These buildings are all structurally unsound. If you hadn’t contacted me, I wouldn’t have come—it’s dangerous.”

He took them to the elevator, which took forever to arrive.

The landlord scowled. “Six households share one elevator here. It’s excruciatingly sluggish.”

When the elevator finally arrived, several garishly attired men and women stepped out.

This was Yu Xing’s first time seeing people like this since arriving in this world, and she found herself gaping.

A man with dyed rainbow hair and a crop top flashed Yu Xing a coquettish look as he passed, slipping something into her collar.

Yu Xing pulled it out—a calling card featuring the same man in a salacious pose, along with his contact details, rates, and name: “Little Waist.”

“That can’t be his real name, right?” Yu Xing wondered aloud.

Suddenly, a hand snatched the card from her. Bai Qinghe tore it to pieces, frowning. “Don’t touch this kind of thing.”

Yu Xing was taken aback, then thought Bai Qinghe was overstepping protective boundaries of her, a minor—especially since her brother was in the same profession.

The landlord let out an unpleasant chuckle, his tone laced with contempt. “This place is full of people like that. The one you’re looking for—Yang something—lived here alone without a proper job. She might’ve been in the same trade.”

Bai Qinghe herded them into the elevator and snapped, “No one asked for your opinion. Keep your mouth shut!”

The landlord stiffened but didn’t dare protest—these people weren’t to be trifled with.

Yang Wei lived on the 20th floor in a 200-square-foot apartment. Walking through a hallway littered with trash, they reached her door. The landlord, beads of sweat forming, fumbled for his keys. “Where is it? I thought it was this one…”

Suddenly, the neighboring door creaked open, revealing the careworn features of a woman.

Taken aback by the assembly, the woman instinctively withdrew, then ventured another glance after a moment. Seeing them still fumbling with the lock, she whispered, “Looking for Weiwei?”

“Yes,” Su Wenmo turned to her. “Do you know Yang Wei?”

“We’ve been neighbors for a few months,” the woman said, edging forward tentatively now that Su Wenmo seemed approachable. Her threadbare garments draped loosely on her frame.

She pointed at Yang Wei’s door. “Weiwei hasn’t been back for days.”

“Really?” Su Wenmo smiled. “Do you know where she went?”

“No,” the woman hesitated before adding, “Maybe she went to have the baby.”

Su Wenmo and Li Sen shared a meaningful look. “You mean she’s at the hospital?”

“No, definitely not,” the woman gave a vehement shake of her head. “The hospital wouldn’t take her.”

“Why not?” Su Wenmo was perplexed. “How could a hospital refuse a pregnant woman?”

The woman made a vague motion at her own stomach. “Hers… wasn’t a normal baby. They said it was tainted at conception. Not a normal child. The hospital wanted to terminate it, but she refused. She stayed here alone to see the pregnancy through. But even if she gave birth in a hospital, they’d eliminate it immediately. She didn’t want that, so… maybe she went to a clinic instead.”

Yu Xing remembered the abnormal child the pollution source had given birth to last night. Such children weren’t permitted to live in the Federation. With resources scarce within the walls, the Federation wouldn’t waste them on non-viable births. These pregnancies were usually selectively terminated. Even if carried to term, hospitals would directly eliminate the newborns by mandated protocol.

Just then, the landlord's relieved voice came through, "It's open! Finally got it open!"

The door swung open, and Yu Xing caught a whiff of a very familiar scent.

"What in the world?!" the landlord roared in fury. "Who turned my place into this mess!"

Yu Xing was about to peek inside when Bai Qinghe held out his arm to stop her. "The smell inside is awful. Stay out here," he said.

With that, he led the others in. Yu Xing, too curious to resist, couldn't help leaning against the doorframe to sneak a look. What she saw made her eyes widen in shock, her mind going blank.

Now she knew why the scent was so familiar...

Inside Yang Wei's home, though small, the space was neatly organized.

Yet, in this very home, blood-drawn intricate patterns covered from the floor to the walls and even the ceiling. These patterns combined to form something resembling a magic circle.

Yu Xing recognized it immediately—she had seen it in the original owner's room and in Sister Xiu's room as well. Xiao Li had mentioned it was a summoning-type array, a single-use ritual that would deactivate upon success.

The blood had dried to a dark brown, clearly having been there for quite some time.

The landlord kept cursing Yang Wei, furious that she had ruined his property like this. "How am I supposed to rent this out now?!"

"Enough!" Su Wenmo snapped impatiently. "This place is scheduled for demolition anyway. Who cares if it's rentable? Stop getting in the way and get out!"

The landlord was shoved out, and Yu Xing seized the chance to slip inside.

The apartment was cramped, and with six people inside, it felt tiny.

Bai Qinghe and the others stared grimly at the blood-drawn patterns. Su Wenmo documented them using her device, while Chen Cang examined them and concluded, "This was drawn with human blood."

Yu Xing's pulse raced. She moved closer to Bai Qinghe and asked, "Do you recognize this? What is it?"

She had long wanted to ask Bai Qinghe about this array but never found the right moment. She couldn’t miss this opportunity today.

Bai Qinghe studied it with utmost seriousness before shaking his head. "I don’t know."

"You don’t know?" Yu Xing was stunned. "You're in the Divine Chosen Team!"

Bai Qinghe sighed helplessly. "As you said, I'm on the Divine Chosen Team—not divine myself. Humans don’t know everything."

This supernatural incident had left too many unanswered questions, and the deeper they dug, the more mysteries they uncovered.

The group left Yang Wei’s home with their minds buzzing with questions. Before parting, Bai Qinghe made sure to warn Yu Xing not to speak of today’s events to anyone.

Back at the church, as Yu Xing passed through the empty sanctuary, it suddenly struck her. Weren’t they supposed to treat her to a meal? How come she was sent back without eating anything?!

Yu Xing slapped her thigh in annoyance.

It was class time, and the training grounds were bustling with students learning to use Divine Skills under their teachers’ guidance.

The atmosphere had been harmonious, with everyone chatting while practicing. But the moment Yu Xing appeared, the whole training area went quiet. All eyes turned to her—including those of the instructors from the Divine Chosen Team.

Yu Xing felt a chill under their scrutiny and hurriedly stuck close to the wall as she walked. She spotted Da Ya, who was killing time in the shade, and whispered, "Why are they all staring at me?"

"No one knows who started it," Da Ya said, "but everyone’s talking about one topic now."

"What thing?" Yu Xing asked.

"About how Bishop Lans bullied you," Da Ya replied. "Everyone’s discussing how the bishop mistreated you."

Yu Xing: "What?!"

Yu Xing was shocked. "Why would they think that? The bishop didn’t bully me at all!"

"Yeah, I know. Not just me—Miao Yuanjin and Zhao Lan know too." Da Ya shrugged. "No clue where this rumor came from."

Yu Xing pulled at her hair, feeling the weight of the curious gazes still fixed on her. She was completely frustrated...

"Oh, by the way, Bishop Lans has recovered from his injuries," Da Ya said. "Are you going to visit him?"

"No way!" Yu Xing was too annoyed to even think about visiting any bishop.

"Wow, you're cold." Da Ya clutched her chest theatrically. "If the bishop liked me, I would—"

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow. "You would what?"

Da Ya thought for a moment, then chuckled awkwardly. "Actually, I wouldn’t do anything either."

She suddenly lowered her voice, leaning in close to Yu Xing’s ear. "Honestly, the bishop gives me... inhuman vibes. I wouldn't dare get any ideas around him."

Then she shot Yu Xing a meaningful look. "I really admire you, though. You actually held his hand—skin to skin, no less."

Yu Xing: "..."

She had clearly said they shook hands. Now it had escalated to hand-holding?!

"What?! Hand-holding?!"

A shocked voice rang out from behind them.

Yu Xing and Da Ya spun around to see Ruan Xue standing there, gaping.

"Yu Xing, you held hands with Bishop Lans?"

Ruan Xue’s mouth hung open in shock.

"What are you doing here?" Da Ya demanded, both shocked and angry.

Ruan Xue stammered, "I—I was just... at my follow-up appointment. I broke my arm recently..."