Legend Management Bureau Chapter 186

[ … words ]

Du Yu slowly returned to the Legends Livestream Room. Most of the various immortals had already left. At this moment, only one woman remained, leaning back in her seat, fast asleep.

Although she wore a mask, she looked incredibly exhausted.

Du Yu was just about to wake her up when he noticed a single tear slipping from her slightly closed eyes beneath the mask.

“With this parting, we shall never meet again…”

Goddess Houtu’s lips moved slightly as she murmured those words.

Seeing the sorrow lingering at the corners of Houtu’s eyes, Du Yu felt a pang of sympathy. He could not bring himself to wake her. Instead, he quietly sat down beside her.

He studied the woman before him. ‘Goddess Houtu really is a strange immortal,’ he thought. ‘Others don’t need to eat, but she does. Others don’t need to sleep, but she does.’

Not only that, but her temper was straightforward and blunt, completely unlike an immortal who had severed all worldly desires and emotions.

Furthermore, her memory was terrible.

“Brat, I am warning you in advance. Although Houtu was close with Xing Tian, whether she can help you with this matter depends entirely on her own willingness. If she doesn’t want to bring it up, you are not allowed to press the issue. Otherwise, I will make you pay.”

“How bizarre…” Du Yu muttered to himself. “Does the Queen Mother of the West actually care about Goddess Houtu that much?”

While Du Yu was lost in thought, Houtu woke up.

She looked at him in confusion and asked, “What are you trying to pull, kid? Why are you sneaking around sitting next to me?”

“Huh?” Du Yu was startled. “Boss, what kind of person do you take me for? I’m just sitting here. I didn’t do anything.”

“Forget it.” Goddess Houtu slowly stood up. “I actually had something to ask you. It was… uh… it was…”

She furrowed her brows and muttered, “Oh no…”

“Oh no?” Du Yu looked at her, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t remember why I was looking for you… Kid, did I just fall asleep?”

“Yeah.” Du Yu nodded. “You were sleeping so soundly that I couldn’t bear to wake you.”

“Crap, crap!” Houtu exclaimed anxiously. “Without those little demons keeping an eye on me, I actually fell asleep…”

After she spoke, she kept rubbing her forehead in a rather comical manner, as if trying to dig something out of her own head.

“Boss… are you alright?” Du Yu asked softly.

“N-nothing’s wrong…” Goddess Houtu looked a bit flustered. “I need to head back right now…”

“Ah!” Du Yu grabbed her arm. “Boss, don’t leave just yet! I still have something to ask you.”

“You have something to ask me?” Houtu shot him a suspicious glare. “What is it?”

“Uh…”

Du Yu was at a loss for words. Recalling what the Queen Mother of the West had just told him, he figured that Goddess Houtu definitely had some sort of history with Xing Tian. It was highly likely to be the kind of tragic romance often seen in TV dramas, so he had to word his question very carefully.

“Boss… well, are there any ancient Gods of War that you happen to know?”

Houtu thought about it seriously before replying, “No.”

Du Yu offered a wry smile. ‘You really were hurt, weren’t you?’ he thought. ‘You’re just pretending not to know him.’

“I heard about someone named Xing Tian. Boss, do you know him?”

“Xing… Tian?” Goddess Houtu pondered for a moment, searching her memories. After a long while, she shook her head. “Never heard of him. Who is that?”

“Huh?” Judging purely by her expression and demeanor, she definitely did not look like she was hiding anything. It seemed she genuinely did not know Xing Tian.

“Boss, think harder! Xing Tian! Have you ever heard the poem line, ‘Xing Tian dances with his shield and axe’?!”

“Xing Tian… dances with his shield and axe?” Houtu sounded slightly irritated. “I don’t care what he ‘dances’ with! Even if he was dancing with my relatives, I still wouldn’t know him! Kid, you know my memory is terrible. Are you here just to mock me? Of all the things to ask, you ask about the ancient era? Who could possibly remember that far back?”

“But… the Big—I mean, the Queen Mother of the West said you knew him, and that you two were very close…”

“I was… close with him?” Upon hearing this, Houtu’s expression finally shifted. She narrowed her eyes and fell into deep thought.

Right at that moment, the Queen Mother of the West slowly walked in and observed the two conversing.

“Ah! Big Cat, you’re here!” Du Yu said urgently. “Why can’t Goddess Houtu remember this? Hurry up and help me jog her memory. What other traits does Xing Tian have?”

The Queen Mother of the West gave Houtu a complicated look and asked, “Houtu, do you really not know Xing Tian?”

“Little Yao, I… I don’t know. I can’t remember…” Goddess Houtu grabbed her hair, her face twisted in agony.

The Queen Mother of the West seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Houtu, stop thinking about it. I remembered incorrectly. The one who was close to Xing Tian wasn’t you, it was Fuxi.”

“Fuxi?” Houtu turned her head to look at her. “So… I didn’t forget anything, right?”

“That’s right.” The Queen Mother of the West nodded. “Go back and get some rest.”

Du Yu was completely dumbfounded. Why did Big Cat suddenly change her story?

Her complexion highly unnatural, Goddess Houtu hurried out of the room and headed toward Mount Bugui.

Watching Houtu disappear into the distance, the Queen Mother of the West turned to Du Yu. “Brat, drop this matter immediately. You are forbidden to mention what happened today to anyone. Do you understand?”

“I don’t understand!” Du Yu shot back bluntly. “Why are you suddenly telling me to drop it? Just a moment ago, you said Goddess Houtu and Xing Tian were very close…”

“I misremembered, alright?” she snapped. “Why are you so disobedient? Do you not know what I’m capable of?”

“Big Cat, putting Xing Tian aside for a moment, Goddess Houtu is seriously ill. As her bestie, shouldn’t you do something about it?”

“Bestie?” The Queen Mother of the West paused, visibly bristling. “What bestie?! That term is far too frivolous! Houtu and I have simply been friends for thousands of years…”

“Isn’t that just a best friend?” Du Yu asked. “I’ve asked around, and everyone says her condition is because her ‘brain capacity’ has maxed out. But looking at her today, that doesn’t seem right… Is there some hidden truth behind all this?”

The Queen Mother of the West slowly turned her head to stare at him. “Brat, if I told you, would you be able to help her?”

“Uh…” Du Yu did not dare agree recklessly. After all, the person asking was the Queen Mother of the West.

“There are probably only two or three people in the entire Immortal Realm who know about this. It isn’t just related to her amnesia, but also to Xing Tian. For thousands of years, I haven’t been able to come up with a good solution. It has always been a heavy burden on my heart.”

“Well…” Du Yu felt deeply conflicted. He was immensely curious, yet afraid to ask. After some thought, he said, “Big Cat, you have to tell me the whole story first, and then I can help you think of a countermeasure. But I’ll say this upfront: this is a tragic love story between an Immortal Realm powerhouse and an ancient God of War. I might not be able to fix it.”

“That is fine. If there is a viable plan, I will be the one to act. You only need to use your brain.”

“That’s perfect,” Du Yu said. “I’m all ears.”

“Sigh… It is a long story.” The Queen Mother of the West sighed softly. “Put simply, Houtu and Xing Tian were indeed incredibly close. It’s a pity that both of them were fierce, battle-hungry warriors who understood nothing about the delicate intricacies of romance. In the end, neither of them ever confessed their true feelings.”

“After one particular parting, Xing Tian never returned. From that point on, Houtu was like a lost soul. She spent her days doing nothing but fighting and slaughtering, even discarding her last shred of feminine grace. During that ancient era, merely the mention of her name would make enemies tremble in fear.”

Du Yu nodded and asked, “But what does this have to do with her amnesia?”

“The problem lies in her obsession. Since Xing Tian perished in mutual destruction with his enemy, Houtu had no idea who to seek revenge against. She could only vent her burning hatred onto others. Her murderous aura was so overwhelmingly thick back then that if she had kept going, she inevitably would have fallen into demonic corruption. Originally, the Flame Emperor wanted her to rule over the oceans, but because of that terrifying demonic aura, she was ultimately assigned to rule the Underworld.”

“Good lord…” Du Yu was stunned. “So Goddess Houtu was almost the Dragon King…”

The Queen Mother of the West slowly walked out of the room, and Du Yu followed her.

“Brat, did you know the Underworld wasn’t originally such a dark and eerie place? It was precisely because Houtu went there. Unable to find anyone else to slaughter to vent her anger, she simply wandered across those vast lands all day. The boundless Yin energy radiating from her cursed the Underworld to an eternal night, and it has never seen the sun since.”

Du Yu was suddenly confused. He interrupted her, asking, “No way, Big Cat… Goddess Houtu’s cultivation base is at most an Immortal Realm powerhouse. How could she have that kind of massive influence?”

“An Immortal Realm powerhouse?” The Queen Mother of the West scoffed coldly. “Do you honestly think I would passively allow a mere powerhouse of the Immortal Realm to call me ‘Little Yao’ without consequence?”

“Uh…” Du Yu thought about it. She was right. Even the Supreme Lord Laozi, despite his exalted status as a Heavenly Sovereign, had to respectfully address the Queen Mother of the West as ‘Your Majesty’.

“Houtu’s cultivation base is actually even higher than my own. However, all of her power is currently occupied doing ‘something else’.”

“Something else?”

“Correct. It is being used to resist the effects of Meng Po’s Soup of Forgetfulness.”

“Ah?!” Du Yu jumped in shock. Meng Po actually played a role in this too?

“In order to forget Xing Tian and cleanse her demonic heart, Houtu once stood by the banks of the River of Forgetfulness. With her feet on the Homeland-Viewing Terrace and her back against the Stone of Three Lives, she drank eighteen consecutive bowls of Meng Po’s soup.”

Du Yu gasped involuntarily. He had heard that a normal person only needed to drink a single bowl to wipe away all memories of their past life, yet Goddess Houtu chugged eighteen bowls in a row? Was she trying to get drunk enough to fight the tiger on Jingyang Ridge?

“Others may not know, but how could I be unaware?”

A look of deep concern crossed the Queen Mother’s face. “Day and night, she uses her magic to fight the effects of the soup. She cannot afford to slack off even in the slightest, which is why she hasn’t been able to close her eyes for thousands of years. Just a single moment of carelessness, and the soup will take full effect.

“What’s even more ridiculous is that if she encounters a powerful opponent and is forced to draw upon her cultivation to fight, she becomes unable to fend off the soup’s effects, accelerating her memory loss. Given all this, apart from living in seclusion, where else could she possibly go?”

Du Yu shook his head helplessly. It turned out that there were some things you never wanted to forget, even if you downed the Soup of Forgetfulness.