Legend Management Bureau Chapter 125

[ … words ]

“Make friends…” Chada stared blankly for a moment. “Sir, are you hitting on me?”

“Hitting on you?!” Du Yu was taken aback. “Does anyone even use that kind of excuse to hit on someone?”

“In my experience, there are always people who want to ‘make friends’ with me, but you are the first to use my daughter as an excuse,” Chada said, a hint of disappointment in her voice. “Please don’t make fun of me, especially not by using my daughter’s name. It’s incredibly rude, and it breaks my heart. You ‘gods’ will never understand the emotions of us living beings.”

Du Yu paused, quickly realizing what she meant. “Are you misunderstanding me? When I say ‘make friends,’ I don’t mean just paying lip service to make you think I’m a good guy. I genuinely want to help you. In our country, we have a saying: ‘Promises must be kept, and actions must yield results.’ If I didn’t think I could pull it off, I wouldn’t have offered. This has nothing to do with gods or mortals.”

Chada finally grasped his meaning. “Are you saying you are truly willing to save my daughter, and you don’t want anything in return?”

“Yeah.” Du Yu nodded. “Is that so hard to understand?”

“Yes, no…” Chada grew flustered for the first time. “I mean… I never imagined this was even a possibility.”

Earlier, seeing Chada eating human flesh had triggered painful memories for Dong Qianqiu. However, upon hearing her tragic story, she felt profoundly moved. There was an old saying: women were fragile, but mothers were strong. Those words could not have been more fitting for Chada.

“Is this a good idea?” Dong Qianqiu whispered to Du Yu from the distant Legend Management Bureau. “I don’t know the laws of the British celestial realm, but bringing a dead person back to life will definitely have some sort of butterfly effect.”

“Sir…” Chada said, her voice trembling. “You won’t go back on your word, will you?”

“Traveling to the past to save one person shouldn’t be too hard for me. It’s just lifting a finger.” He turned back to look at Shiranui Asuka and Ramla. “If you were in my shoes, you’d be willing to help too, right?”

Ramla lowered her head slightly and replied, “Goethe once said, ‘Those who forget today will be forgotten by tomorrow.'”

Du Yu stared blankly. “Sister Ramla, Chada and I might have a cultural difference, but with you, I feel like there’s a massive generational gap. Can you say something I can actually understand?”

“The past cannot be forgotten,” Ramla stated clearly. “Chada, if you alter this segment of the past, you will surely be cast aside by the gods.”

Asuka thought for a moment before chiming in. “Our laws dictate that we cannot alter anyone’s past without authorization, so I probably won’t be able to help Senior Chada this time.”

“That’s fine. If they won’t help, I will.” Du Yu then spoke to Dong Qianqiu, “Sister Qianqiu, could you ask the Queen Mother of the West if doing this breaks any of our laws?”

Dong Qianqiu was startled for a moment, then turned to look at the Queen Mother of the West.

Naturally, the Queen Mother of the West had heard Du Yu’s request. She pondered for a moment before speaking slowly, “The laws of our celestial realm only apply to the Nine Provinces of Huaxia. What happens in other domains falls outside my jurisdiction.”

Dong Qianqiu immediately relayed the Queen Mother’s exact words to Du Yu. Hearing this, Du Yu nodded and turned to Chada. “I’ve checked with my boss, and she has no objections. You can rest easy.”

Chada’s eyes lit up with sheer hope. She grabbed Du Yu’s hands tightly and asked, “Sir, can you truly help me? Can you really let me see my little Casey again…”

“Yes, but I need to ask you a few questions first,” Du Yu said. “First, how did your daughter die? She wasn’t killed by some Almighty Golden Immortal, was she? Because if she was, my hands are tied.”

“What is an ‘Almighty Golden Immortal’?” Chada looked at Du Yu in confusion. “My daughter was killed in a regular car accident.”

“That works.” Du Yu nodded. “Second question. Are there any precedents for this in the laws of your British Empire? This kind of transnational historical alteration won’t make me an international fugitive, right?”

“Well…” Chada looked troubled as she explained, “I don’t want to lie to you, sir. There has never been a similar situation in the past. We have always had very little interaction with ‘foreign controllers,’ so nothing like this has ever happened.”

Hearing this, Du Yu fell into silent thought. Even if he did break British laws, those foreigners probably wouldn’t dare come all the way to Huaxia territory to arrest him, right?

“But as I told you, sir, in our country, while private ‘history-altering transactions’ are illegal, they are tacitly permitted. I can pay you a sum of money. It doesn’t matter if you charge a low fee. That way, at most, it would be considered ‘hiring a foreign controller,’ which shouldn’t cause any problems.”

“Fair enough.” Du Yu nodded. “I don’t need your pounds or pence. I can’t exactly spend them in the Underworld anyway, so just consider me paid. By the way, regarding this ‘Jack the Ripper’ business, what is our next step?”

“Our next step…” Chada glanced at the ink and envelopes that Du Yu and Shiranui Asuka had bought. “I need to write a letter to the police station to provoke them, making this case appear much more ‘heinous’ in nature.”

“Good grief.” Du Yu shook his head helplessly. “So you’re the one who wrote the taunting letters to the police from ‘Jack the Ripper’? Suddenly, I feel like this killer was a bit wrongfully accused.”

“Yes…” Chada shook her head with a sigh. “It can’t be helped. Sir, you and Miss Shiranui should rest for a bit. I’ll finish writing this as quickly as possible, and then we can travel to the next point in time.”

“No need.” Du Yu shook his head. “Let Asuka rest here by herself. Open a portal for me; I’m going to save your daughter right now.”

“What?” Chada exclaimed. “Right now?”

“What’s wrong?” Du Yu asked, puzzled. “Is it a bad time?”

“N-no… I mean, is that really okay, sir?” Chada asked in astonishment.

“Why are you wasting time with all this nonsense?” Du Yu replied. “Give me the detailed rundown of the situation and a photo of your daughter. I’ll head over right now and be back in a few minutes.”

As if terrified that Du Yu might change his mind, Chada hurriedly recounted the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death.

Listening to the story, Du Yu could not help but shake his head in sympathy. Chada’s daughter had died in 1993. Six-year-old Casey had been playing on the street when she was struck and killed instantly by a drunk driver. At the time, Chada was in a nearby public phone booth reporting to her superior. In a single moment of distraction, she watched her daughter die right before her eyes. Grief-stricken beyond words, Chada had attempted to travel back in time to save her daughter on numerous occasions, only to be stopped time and time again by other controllers under the pretext of ‘the risk of running into her past self.’

Her superior told her that if she wanted to save her daughter, she could hire company employees to go on her behalf. Going herself would be a severe violation of British law. However, this ‘hiring fee’ came to a staggering one hundred million pounds. To secure that single glimmer of hope for her daughter, Chada was forced to work herself to the bone day and night.

“Your boss is absolute scum,” Du Yu remarked. “Wringing you dry like this.”

“Wringing me dry?”

Du Yu did not answer her, but instead continued to ask, “Do you have a photo?”

“I do!” Chada reached into her coat, pulled out a pocket watch, and handed it to Du Yu.

Du Yu opened it and found a small, circular photograph pasted inside. It showed a chubby-cheeked little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, looking incredibly adorable.

“So cute,” Du Yu could not help but mutter.

“Really? Let me see!” Shiranui Asuka reached out to snatch it.

“See what? Back off.” Du Yu raised the pocket watch out of Asuka’s reach. “You’re not even going. Why do you need to look?”

After carefully returning the pocket watch to Chada, Du Yu said, “Alright, I’ve got all the details down. Let me go.”

Chada wanted to say something more, but seeing the resolute look in Du Yu’s eyes, she simply offered a slight nod. Golden light flared around her hand as she traced a few circles in the air, manifesting a portal. On the other side of the glowing gateway lay a bustling, vibrant street.

Du Yu was just about to step through when Dong Qianqiu suddenly cried out, “Wait!”

“Huh?” Du Yu paused. “What’s wrong, Sister Qianqiu?”

“I…” Dong Qianqiu hesitated for a moment before saying, “Du Yu, I don’t mean anything by this… I just want to know, how are you going to get back?”

“Hmm?” Du Yu paused to think. Right! A portal was opened on this side for him to travel to the past, but how was he supposed to get back?

He hurriedly relayed this concern to Chada. Hearing this, Chada also looked completely horrified and said, “I’m so sorry, sir! That was my oversight. I’ll write a letter to ‘myself’ right now to explain the situation. When the time comes, show the letter to ‘me,’ and she will open a new portal for you to return!”

Du Yu nodded. “Yeah, that’s a better plan.”

Using the red ink that Du Yu and Asuka had bought, Chada hastily scribbled a letter and handed it over. Du Yu took it and glanced at the page. The entire thing was a sprawling mess of English letters without a single Arabic numeral in sight. Du Yu only recognized a few basic words and could not make heads or tails of the meaning. However, his brow soon furrowed slightly, as if struck by a sudden realization.

“Is there a problem?” Chada asked.

“No, it’s nothing.” Du Yu tucked the letter into his coat. He remained silent for a moment before looking at her. “Chada, you need to understand something. If what you told me is the truth, then I genuinely want to save your daughter.”

“Yes… What do you mean by that?” Chada’s expression grew visibly complicated.

“In China, we have a saying: ‘A word to the wise is enough.’ You know exactly what I’m trying to say.” Du Yu gave Chada a deeply meaningful look, then stepped through the portal without looking back.

“You…!” Chada seemed to want to stop him, but the portal snapped shut the instant Du Yu passed through. The space was dead quiet, as if nothing had happened at all.

Dong Qianqiu silently activated a dual-screen monitoring mode. On one side was Du Yu in 1993, and on the other was the legend of Jack the Ripper in 1888.

After Du Yu left, Chada did not immediately start writing the provocation letter to the police. Instead, she stood there, as if pondering something deeply.

“Senior Chada… is… is something wrong?” Asuka asked cautiously.

“It’s nothing,” Chada shook her head and replied. “I just almost lost myself for a moment.”

She slowly stood up, looking at seemingly no one in particular, and spoke in a clear, loud voice: “Ladies and gentlemen from the Huaxia Heavenly Court, let’s make a deal.”