Legend Management Bureau Chapter 226

[ … words ]

Everyone turned to look at Shiranui Asuka.

“Asuka, do you have a plan?”

Shiranui Asuka pulled a bronze mirror from her clothes.

Qu Xi recognized this item. It was the Yata no Kagami, the exact mirror Asuka had used to monitor Izanagi during his legend.

“As long as you give me an item belonging to Senior Du Yu, I can capture his current image,” she declared.

“Du Yu’s things?” The group stared in surprise.

“Yes, I need to channel my magic through an item connected to Senior Du Yu.”

This stumped everyone. Although the things Du Yu had done were not erased, everything directly related to him had vanished completely.

“Uh…” Shiranui Asuka glanced around at them. “You don’t have a single thing?”

They had finally found a solution, only for it to fall through. Where could they possibly find an item belonging to someone who completely ceased to exist?

At that moment, Ying Ning seemed to suddenly remember something. She looked at the troubled group and asked, “Would something Du Yu bought and gifted to someone else work?”

“It will!” Shiranui Asuka exclaimed. “As long as Senior Du Yu bought it himself, it should work perfectly!”

Ying Ning slowly brought out her vessel as a Vengeful Spirit—the cracked Green Brush.

“I don’t know if this counts, but it is indeed the only thing Du Yu bought that didn’t vanish.”

The others did not know what had transpired between Du Yu and Ying Ning in the past, but Shiranui Asuka had no choice but to treat it as a last-ditch effort and accepted the Writing Brush.

She gripped the brush in her left hand and the mirror in her right, muttering an Incantation under her breath.

Listening closely, it was rather strange. Despite being from Fusang, the words Shiranui Asuka chanted were the Nine-Syllable Mantra from the ancient Chinese text ‘Baopuzi’: Lin, Bing, Dou, Zhe, Jie, Zhen, Lie, Zai, Qian.

As soon as the nine words were spoken, the Yata no Kagami flashed with brilliant light. A projection shot out from the mirror, casting directly onto the wall.

The figure appearing on the wall was none other than Du Yu.

He wore an earnest expression, currently working hard on a factory processing line.

Just as he had said before, prior to entering the Legend Management Bureau, he had just been an ordinary workshop employee.

“Wow, it actually worked!” Even Shiranui Asuka shrieked in surprise, showing that she hadn’t been entirely confident they would be able to see him.

“Du Yu is living a perfectly fine life right now…” Qu Xi muttered to herself, her eyes fixed on him across the screen.

Since that was the case…

They watched as Du Yu fluidly sorted the goods on the conveyor belt in front of him. He stood up to readjust the machine’s parameters before sitting back down. Who knew how long he had lived days like this? Could this kind of assembly line work truly utilize all of his abilities?

Everyone noticed that his eyes lacked their usual vibrant spark, as if he was lost in thought.

“Miss Shiranui, can this projection be traced back to the past?” Zhan Qisheng asked.

“Of course it can.” Shiranui Asuka nodded. “This is the Yata no Kagami, after all!”

She cast another spell, and the projection on the wall began to rapidly rewind. Looking closely, however, Du Yu’s days consisted of nothing more than commuting straight between his home and the factory.

He was an orphan without any relatives, so he rarely went out after work.

He repeated the exact same routine day after day, making the group momentarily think the image had frozen.

The footage continued to rewind until one particular day when Du Yu was heading home from work. The moment he stepped onto a bus, Qu Xi let out a loud shout.

“Stop!”

Shiranui Asuka blinked in surprise but immediately paused the timeline on that specific day.

“Sister Qu Xi, did you discover something?”

Qu Xi gave a subtle nod. On this very bus, both Du Yu and Zhou Zhuangshi had appeared at the same time.

Logically speaking, this day was the date of Du Yu’s death.

Yet, there was no sign of Qu Xi on the vehicle.

“I will tell you all right now how Du Yu originally ended up at the Legend Management Bureau,” Qu Xi stated.

“On the bus that day, Du Yu tried to give up his seat to this man, Zhou Zhuangshi. Originally, Zhou Zhuangshi should have accepted, sat in Du Yu’s seat, and eventually met a tragic end in a car crash. Unfortunately, Zhou Zhuangshi spotted me in the back of the bus that day. He rejected Du Yu’s offer, came over to me instead, and trailed me all the way home. As a result, Du Yu was the one who lost his life in the crash… That is a story for another time, so I will not get into it now. In short, Du Yu died in Zhou Zhuangshi’s place, making his passing a Wrongful Death.”

After finishing her explanation, Qu Xi pointed at the screen. “Look, this time ‘I’ did not appear, so the events have completely changed.”

Sure enough, everyone stared at the display.

Upon seeing Zhou Zhuangshi board the bus, Du Yu stood up to offer his seat, and Zhou Zhuangshi accepted.

Now seatless, Du Yu stood off to the side by himself. A few minutes later, a large truck suddenly lost control. It skidded sideways at a forty-five-degree angle, its front left side crashing flawlessly into the middle of the bus—striking the exact seat Du Yu had previously occupied.

Only this time, the one who perished was not Du Yu, but Zhou Zhuangshi.

Du Yu looked back at the horrific scene in absolute terror.

He knew that if he had not stood up just moments ago, he would be the dead one now. A wave of immense guilt instantly washed over his face. Hadn’t he just gotten a man killed?

However, the incident ultimately caused no lasting ripples, simply fading into a minor interlude in Du Yu’s otherwise dull and monotonous life.

“This is where the problem lies,” Zhi Nv said, nodding after listening to Qu Xi and observing the events on the screen. “For whatever reason, Qu Xi did not show up there. This single, minuscule change directly triggered an entire series of subsequent events.”

Although they now understood what had transpired in Du Yu’s ‘past,’ they still could not intervene without finding a proper solution.

“Qu Xi, where did you go that day?” Zhi Nv turned her head to ask. “And why were you on that bus to begin with?”

“I…” Qu Xi paused. She had almost forgotten that detail herself. Her mind had been so overwhelmingly occupied by those painful memories that she had never once considered the reason for her presence there. She pondered carefully before answering, “I was a senior in college and needed to find a place for my internship. I remember that my interview had just finished and I needed to go home. That specific bus went straight to my house.”

“So that is how it is,” Zhi Nv said with a slow nod. “It seems the Saint did not interfere with Du Yu, but with Qu Xi. But how on earth are we supposed to go back…”

Shiranui Asuka let out a cheeky laugh. “Didn’t I already tell you, Senior Zhi Nv? I have a plan!”

“You have a solution for this, too?” Zhan Qisheng and the others were dumbfounded. “You aren’t Chada. Can you really bring all of us down there with you?”

“Yep!” Shiranui Asuka patted her little waist pouch. “When I returned to Fusang this time, I told the elders I wanted to stay in China, so they gave me a wonderful treasure.”

In no time, she began pulling several massive rocks right out of her tiny pouch.

“Seniors, this is my Anywhere Door!”

“An… Anywhere Door?” Qu Xi gasped. “Isn’t that a prop from a cartoon? Yours doesn’t even look anything like it!”

“Cartoons are purely fictional, but mine is the real deal!” Shiranui Asuka stacked the large stones one by one. “Actually, my elder brother intended for me to use this Anywhere Door only for traveling back to Fusang. It can only be used a single time.”

Zhan Qisheng blinked. “It can only be used once?”

“That’s right… Its function is quite similar to Senior Chada’s Portal. The only difference is that it has no limit on the number of people teleporting at once, but it is strictly limited to one round trip.” Shiranui Asuka flashed a bright, carefree smile. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll just walk back to Fusang next time.”

The group watched helplessly as Shiranui Asuka arranged the ‘Anywhere Door,’ but the door made of stones remained completely inert.

“Huh? How does this thing even work…” Shiranui Asuka scratched her head. After all, it was her very first time assembling the Anywhere Door herself.

“Just give me a second, everyone…” Shiranui Asuka whipped out her Mobile Phone and scrolled for a bit until she found a contact. Zhi Nv curiously peeked at the screen, noting the traditional characters that read ‘Shiranui Jin Jianglang’.

“Hello, hello! Brother Jinjianglang! How do I use that Anywhere Door you gave me? Ah, no, no, no, the seniors in China aren’t bullying me, and I’m not trying to come back to Fusang either. There’s just a special situation that requires my attention.”

Under the guidance of ‘Brother Jinjianglang’ on the other end of the line, Shiranui Asuka tapped and struck the Anywhere Door from left to right. Finally, she chanted a short Incantation. Soon enough, the Anywhere Door hummed to life, glowing with warped, twisting light.

She asked a quick follow-up question on how to pinpoint the exact time of descent before hanging up.

Breathing a long sigh of relief, Shiranui Asuka cheered, “Perfect! Let’s kick off ‘Operation Save Senior Du Yu’ right now!”

“Wait!” Zhi Nv intervened, stopping them in their tracks. “Miss Shiranui is using a one-time Portal. This is an incredibly rare opportunity for us, so we must formulate a proper plan in advance. After all, we only have one shot at this.”

“A plan?” The others looked over at her.

“Before discussing the plan, there are two questions I must first clarify with all of you,” Zhi Nv said. “First, the Saint could not possibly want to kill Du Yu for absolutely no reason. A major event must have occurred. If we adamantly insist on saving Du Yu, that major event will inevitably still happen. Are you prepared to face the consequences?”

The group hesitated, suddenly realizing that this situation was far graver than they had initially thought.

It was fortunate that Zhi Nv was there, using her meticulous mind to organize the operation. Without her, they would have been stumbling around blindly like headless flies.

“I accept,” Qu Xi declared. “No matter how disastrous the consequences may be, we are willing to shoulder them alongside Du Yu!”

Hearing this, the others nodded in unanimous agreement.

“Good. The second question.” Zhi Nv’s expression grew exceedingly stern as she continued. “Our objective this time is to ‘kill Du Yu,’ while the Saint’s objective is to ‘save Du Yu.’ Looking at it from this perspective, we are the villains, and the Saint is the hero. Do you possess the unyielding resolve to execute Du Yu without looking back?”