When a piston is placed in mid air, and a block is placed on top of that piston which is powered by a redstone signal. The piston will not retract when the powered block is broken and no redstone circuit is nearby
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Isn't this just a form of QC?

Shouldn't be. If it were, the piston would retract once you broke one of the blocks next to it and gave it a block update.
This is in fact QC. See MC-108.