Legend Management Bureau Chapter 442

[ … words ]

The “Terminator” before him sat down in confusion, staring coldly at Du Yu.

“Who exactly are you?”

Du Yu smiled faintly and replied, “With your intellect, you should have guessed my identity long ago, right?”

“You… are me?” the “Terminator” asked.

“Correct.” Du Yu nodded. “I am you, but I have now become ‘Time’.”

“‘Time’?” the “Terminator” paused in surprise. “Why did you call me here?”

“I am going to tell you a story,” Du Yu said slowly.

“A story?”

The “Terminator” narrowed his eyes, contemplating for a moment, and replied, “Alright.”

“A long, long time ago, there was originally no Great Pivot in this world, nor did the Legend Management Bureau exist.”

“Everything has to start with the ‘First Du Yu’, whom I call the ‘Original Du Yu’.”

“This Original was not a Great Pivot either, but a very ordinary person.”

“He became a Ghost at a young age. Even after descending to the underworld, he remained full of vigor. He didn’t look like he had died of illness, but rather suffered a Wrongful Death.”

“After he died, he did not choose to Reincarnate. Instead, he stayed in the underworld and became a Ferryman. Of course, he did not belong to the Black and White Impermanence, so his operation was illegal. He was what the Underworld Messengers called an unregistered ‘black-car’.”

“One year, the Immortal Being from Fusang, Shiranui Asuka, traveled to China for a visit. She accidentally crossed paths with this Original Du Yu who operated the ‘black-car’. Perhaps a series of hilarious misadventures unfolded between them, but they eventually fell in love.”

“From then on, A’xiang stayed in China and lived together with this ordinary black-car driver. Those few years were probably the happiest days of their lives.”

“Perhaps due to A’xiang’s influence, or perhaps driven by his own true nature, the Original Du Yu—who spent his days breaking laws and violating disciplines in the underworld—unexpectedly perished together with an Evil soul in mutual destruction.”

“Normally, the story should have ended right there.”

“The world would simply be left with an extra wisp of a shattered soul, and another heartbroken woman.”

“But as fate would have it, the story did not end.”

“The so-called Shiranui Family is actually a lineage descended from the three thousand youths who accompanied Xu Fu on his voyage to the east. Although Xu Fu never found the elixir of life, he discovered half of a secret scroll named the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula. He had a vague feeling that this item served as a type of ‘elixir of life’. Since it possessed the power to reverse cause and effect, it could naturally alter the past. If he could fully comprehend the contents of the formula, it would surely guarantee the First Emperor’s immortality.”

“Unfortunately, with the limited power of a single person, it was incredibly difficult to grasp such an abstract concept as the ‘laws of time’. Therefore, up until the moment Xu Fu died, he failed to completely understand the records within the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula. He passed this task down to the Shiranui lineage and left behind a final decree: if anyone could decipher the text, they were to go back and reshape the First Emperor’s Legend.”

“The story that followed… is truly worth pondering. Over the past two thousand years, did the Shiranui Family truly fail to comprehend what was written in the formula?”

“I don’t think so.”

Du Yu reached out and pointed at the words carved into the back of the chair.

“If they hadn’t deciphered it, they wouldn’t have forged this stone chair, nor would they have carved these words. The phrase ‘respectfully dedicated’ was meant as a way to claim credit and show loyalty to the First Emperor or Xu Fu.”

“I have every reason to believe they deciphered everything written within the formula.”

“And as to why the Shiranui Family never actually stepped forward to reshape the First Emperor’s Legend, there are only two reasons. First, they discovered that the person who invokes the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula would be imprisoned for all eternity. After all, they only possessed half of the scroll, and it did not detail any method of escape.”

“Second, they realized that even if they could successfully reverse cause and effect, it was impossible to artificially extend a person’s natural lifespan. At most, they could preemptively avert a few accidents. After all, the inevitable process of growing old and dying could never be altered, no matter how much cause and effect was reversed.”

“Trading an eternity of time just for the sake of someone who was destined to die anyway was simply not worth the cost. Thus, they continuously claimed to have ‘failed to decipher it’.”

“But as luck would have it, a silly young girl was born into the Shiranui Family.”

“She believed she had unlocked a mystery no one else had ever solved, completely unaware that she had merely stumbled upon a secret her family had been fiercely guarding for generations.”

“She thought her family members were trying to hold her back, but she never realized they were actually trying to protect her.”

“Thus, keeping it a secret from her family, she stole the chair and activated the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula entirely on her own.”

“She created a Cave of Time, permanently imprisoning herself within it, and became the very first ‘Time’.”

“This reckless young girl… just to save a man who wasn’t even considered a saint, sacrificed herself to become an immortal, indestructible eternity.”

“But she never anticipated that time, which was originally just a single ‘Thread’, would shatter and expand like the Big Bang the moment she made that choice, tangling together to form an enormous web.”

“She managed to save the Original Du Yu, but as a direct result, he was transformed into a Great Pivot. After all, he became an existence that was never supposed to remain in this world. I originally thought You Si was the very first Great Pivot in existence, but I was wrong. You Si was merely the first Great Pivot within our specific timeline.”

“The moment a Great Pivot is born into the world, it sparks a massive chain reaction, spawning thousands upon thousands of other Great Pivots.”

“The Legend Management Bureau was established against this very backdrop.”

“Since the Original Du Yu became a Great Pivot, it stood to reason that the second-generation Du Yu would also become a Great Pivot.”

“From the exact moment the second-generation Du Yu suffered a Wrongful Death, he already possessed the innate constitution of an Operator.”

“He found himself inexplicably capable of traveling through time, believing himself to be the most special existence of all.”

“Little did he know, he had already been abandoned by the world.”

“I call the second-generation Du Yu the ‘Original Creator’ because he burned through countless generations of Du Yus for a single purpose: to ‘create a Time’.”

“But why is he the ‘Creator’? And why would he go to such lengths to create ‘Time’?”

“I once witnessed a vision of a certain ‘Creator’. After ordering the Ashamed Brothers to assassinate Du Yu, he personally opened a Portal and stepped into a vast desert.”

“Let’s make a bold guess. What exactly was he searching for?”

“There is a massive probability that he was traveling through various periods of time, desperately searching for Mahakala’s lair. If he could wipe him out in advance, it would be the perfect way to force everything back onto the right track. But why did he ultimately become the ‘Creator’ instead?”

“What in the world could be more important than killing Mahakala?”

Sitting across from Du Yu, the “Terminator” frowned slightly upon hearing this and replied, “Because he found A’xiang.”

“Correct. You really are the smartest one out of us all.” Du Yu nodded. “I believe he failed to locate Mahakala. Instead, he accidentally stumbled upon the second half of the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula somewhere along the way, learning the exact method to enter and exit the Cave of Time.”

“Just like Xu Fu from all those years ago, he believed he had mastered everything. He arrogantly assumed that with the Reversing Cause and Effect Formula in his hands, he could completely overturn the desperate situation right in front of him.”

“But what he completely failed to anticipate was that upon entering the Cave of Time, he would discover the person who had been sitting withered inside for hundreds of thousands of years… was actually A’xiang.”

“And A’xiang never expected that the one who finally came to save her after all that time would be Du Yu.”

“Yet, the devastating truth was that they weren’t in love with each other. They were both desperately in love with completely different versions of each other from alternate timelines.”

“How incredibly ironic is that?”