As the morning light swept over the ruins of Mirror Lake, Pi Yanlin was crouching beside a pile of rubble, using a blade of grass to poke at an ant attempting to crawl into a stone crevice.
"Ah Lin?" Gu Qinghuan’s Silver Chain chimed softly behind her. She crouched down to look him in the eye, a fragment of crushed crystal caught in her hair. "You’ve been staring at the common folk for nearly half an incense stick’s time."
Pi Yanlin did not look up, the tip of the grass blade following the ant’s turn. "Their eyes have brightened, but they are too uniform in their brightness." He suddenly reached out, drawing a crooked line in the mud with the grass. "Yesterday, that vegetable-selling grandmother, trapped by the Illusion Array, smashed her basket and was ready to fight to the death with a thug over some greens. This morning, when she passed by with her basket, a ruffian bumped into her and knocked it over, yet she was the first to busy herself apologizing to him." He pressed his fingertip heavily into the end of the line. "It’s as if someone has pulled the temper right out of them."
Chapter 138