Legend Management Bureau Chapter 237

[ … words ]

After the two slowly ascended into the sky above the Underworld, Xie Yujiao finally asked, “May I ask where your destination is?”

“The Jade Pond,” Du Yu replied without a second thought.

“The… Jade Pond?” Xie Yujiao failed to react for a moment. In her memory, there was no such place in the Underworld, but she quickly realized something was wrong. “Are you talking about the Jade Pond Wonderland on Kunlun Mountain?!”

“Yep. Driver, hurry up and get us there.” Du Yu curled his lips and said to Xie Yujiao, “I’m a local, so don’t try to take the scenic route. I won’t pay you if you take a detour.”

Hearing this, Xie Yujiao’s face filled with confusion, and she couldn’t help but mutter to herself,

“Strange… Can people actually book a room at the Jade Pond nowadays?”

“Hmm? What did you say?”

“N-Nothing…” Xie Yujiao awkwardly formed a hand seal, changed their direction, and steered the flag to fly rapidly through the air.

Along the way, Du Yu almost fell over multiple times, yet he maintained a deliberate, moderate distance from Xie Yujiao. This distance made her feel even more awkward.

‘Is he someone with wicked intentions but no guts?’

“Hypocrite…” Xie Yujiao cursed softly.

“What?”

Du Yu kept feeling like Xie Yujiao was speaking, but she consistently claimed she hadn’t said a word.

After a full day of travel, the two arrived at Kunlun Mountain.

Just as Xie Yujiao was about to press down on her magical treasure to descend, Du Yu stopped her.

“Hold on!” Du Yu said. “Don’t land yet. Let’s fly directly to Queen Mother of the West’s sleeping quarters.”

“How can we do that?!” Xie Yujiao cried out in agitation. “What kind of place do you think this is? Even a Great Luo Golden Immortal has to hike up the mountain here! I don’t have spare lives to throw away accompanying you to your death.”

“Oh, just don’t worry about it!” Du Yu urged. “I’m doing this for our own good.”

Xie Yujiao didn’t understand at all. He was clearly ordering her to violate celestial decrees—how was that for their own good?

“Xie Yujiao, you’re an Array Master, right? Do you have an array formation that can conceal our auras?” Du Yu asked thoughtfully. “It would be best if we could sneak into Queen Mother of the West’s sleeping quarters without anyone noticing.”

“Are you insane?!” Xie Yujiao was completely baffled. “I don’t even care what you want to do to me anymore, but why must you specifically choose Queen Mother of the West’s sleeping quarters? Are your fetishes really that bizarre?”

“What in the world are you talking about?!” Now Du Yu was having a hard time understanding. “Our whole purpose for coming here is to go to Queen Mother of the West’s sleeping quarters! Otherwise, why would I go through so much trouble to bring you along?”

“You…!” At that moment, Xie Yujiao suddenly wanted to push Du Yu right off the magical treasure and let him fall to his death.

“Stop dawdling! Do you have an array formation to hide our auras or not?”

Xie Yujiao finally compromised. For the sake of her family, she had already given up her purity; what did her life matter now?

“I do…”

“Hurry up and set it up, then! We’re not stopping halfway!” Du Yu declared. “I need to get inside quickly. If we delay, there will be problems.”

“Let me be clear first. This array formation can fool ordinary Immortal Beings at best. It absolutely won’t deceive Queen Mother of the West.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” Du Yu nodded. “We don’t need to fool Queen Mother of the West, just the other Immortal Beings. Getting past the outside is child’s play; the real main event for you starts once we’re inside Queen Mother of the West’s sleeping quarters.”

With an ashen face, Xie Yujiao pulled out four small flags and planted them around the magical treasure. The four small flags emitted faint fluctuations of spiritual energy, linking together in a harmonious glow. The auras of the two were completely concealed by this small array formation. Without the cultivation base of a Heavenly Venerable, it would be extremely difficult to detect their presence.

Before long, the two bypassed all the paths up the mountain and flew directly to the vicinity of the Jade Pond at the summit.

Although they saw quite a few Immortal Beings below them during the flight, none of those immortals would ever imagine that someone would be outrageously bold enough to fly openly through the skies above Kunlun Mountain. Thus, not a single one bothered to look up.

The two arrived at the entrance to the Jade Pond and finally landed the magical treasure.

Before them was a massive suspended palace. Below it lay the Jade Pond, swirling with immortal mist, and above it was Queen Mother of the West’s boudoir. The entire room faintly shimmered in the reflection of the pond’s mist. Du Yu had been here once several thousand years ago, but it seemed to have been renovated many times since then and now looked completely different.

“Strange. Why aren’t there any guards around here?” Du Yu asked in confusion.

“Guard who? Queen Mother of the West?” Xie Yujiao was also a bit puzzled. “How many people in the entire Immortal Realm do you think would dare to attack her?”

“Ah! Never mind, let’s just go inside first!” Taking large strides, Du Yu marched straight toward Queen Mother of the West’s boudoir.

“Ah!” Xie Yujiao cried out. “Are you really going in?!”

Du Yu turned around and said to her, “What exactly are you hesitating for?! We’re already here, all that’s left is to go inside! Relax, this was all agreed upon beforehand. There won’t be any problems.”

Xie Yujiao looked like she was about to burst into tears. “I know you agreed upon this with the Old Ancestor… but, but didn’t either of you think to ask if I was willing?”

“Eh?” Du Yu paused, realizing she had a point. He had only told the Seventh Lord that he needed to borrow her, but he had never actually asked her personally.

“That’s my fault!” Du Yu chuckled sheepishly. “I’m really sorry. I was so caught up in my own rush that I completely ignored your feelings. I’ll formally ask you now: are you willing to help me?”

“Uh…” Xie Yujiao realized that having this kind of question asked so frankly made it even harder to answer. Should she say “yes” or “no”?

If she said “yes,” this was a man she had only met two or three times. Not only did she know absolutely nothing about him, but her family’s opinion of him was also very mixed. The Old Ancestor treated him with great care and affection, yet the younger generation all called him a pervert.

If she said “no,” she had already followed him all the way here. Wouldn’t she just be shooting herself in the foot? Besides, if she refused him, how would she explain herself to the Old Ancestor?

“Du Yu.” For the first time, Xie Yujiao called him by his name. Her expression was completely serious, as if she had made a monumental decision, and she spoke slowly, “I can agree to this. However, since we belong to different eras, I hope you can respect my beliefs. There is one thing you must promise me.”

Du Yu felt that her tone was a bit odd, but given the situation, he was indeed at fault first. It was only right to grant her a request, so he said, “Miss Xie Yujiao, ask for whatever you want. As long as it’s within my power, I will definitely agree.”

Xie Yujiao nodded. Du Yu’s current behavior was decent enough; at least in her eyes, he was acting like a normal man.

“If I go in there with you, you cannot abandon me. I don’t care how many other women you have by your side, but you must treat me well. From this day forth, I will share in your life and death, your honor and disgrace.”

Du Yu blinked, his brain effectively crashing.

A light breeze blew past, making the atmosphere even more awkward.

After a long while, Du Yu finally snapped out of it and reached up to rub his forehead.

“Let… let me just untangle your logic for a second…” Du Yu said awkwardly. “Are you saying that if you go in with me… I have to… I… the two of us will…”

Du Yu really couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He clearly just wanted the girl to come here and set up an array formation, so why had she suddenly made such a fatal demand?

Was she suddenly proposing to him out of nowhere?

Du Yu looked at the girl in distress. Although she wasn’t a world-toppling beauty, she was definitely the fresh, elegant, and charming girl-next-door type.

She obviously wouldn’t have trouble finding a husband, so why was she throwing herself at him like this?

“I… this… actually I… you…”

Du Yu stammered, unable to form a coherent sentence, because he truly didn’t know where to begin. Xie Yujiao seemed like a very thin-skinned girl; now that she had openly made this request, would it really be okay to reject her outright?

Seeing Du Yu’s reaction, Xie Yujiao’s expression suddenly darkened. She asked coldly, “Are you truly just a cynical philanderer… just as the other brothers and sisters in my family claimed?”

“Hey?!” Now Du Yu was truly offended. “What kind of logic is that…? Just because you help me once, I have to spend the rest of my life with you… I really don’t understand this kind of setup. I know we’re from different eras, but isn’t this cultural gap a bit too massive? Am I a philanderer just because I won’t agree to marry you? I’ve always been curious—how exactly do you people define a philanderer anyway?”

“You modern people naturally wouldn’t understand!” Xie Yujiao sighed and said, “To you, it’s just ‘helping you once,’ but in my eyes, it’s a monumental matter concerning my virtue and reputation. Just one incident like this is enough to have a massive impact on my life! I grew up reading the Biographies of Exemplary Women, so my mindset is certainly different from yours. If you won’t agree, I naturally won’t force you. I’ll just consider this a case of misplaced trust!”

Du Yu furrowed his brows. He actually had heard of the Biographies of Exemplary Women. In Volume Two of the Biographies of Exemplary Women, there was a story about a Widow whose arm was touched by a male stranger; to protect her chastity, she swung a knife and chopped off her entire arm.

That was an era where “having one’s sleeve brushed or arm exposed was a loss of chastity.” Although the content recorded in such stories was no longer considered acceptable, if Xie Yujiao had truly grown up in that era, she probably had deeply ingrained conservative beliefs.

“How should I put this…” Du Yu said with a frown, having finally come up with a countermeasure. “Miss Xie Yujiao… while I don’t want to agree to your terms, I also don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. After all, you only came here to help me. If you go back and take your own life, I won’t be able to absolve myself of the blame… I don’t really know how much virtue you’ll lose from our interaction this time, but I will definitely compensate you. If you don’t mind, just stay by my side for now. If you ever change your mind one day, you are free to leave.”

Hearing Du Yu say this, Xie Yujiao’s complexion finally softened a little.

“As the old saying goes, the husband is the guide of the wife. Since you are willing to agree, I will never go back on my word for the rest of my life,” Xie Yujiao declared resolutely.

“The husband is the guide of the wife? You… you really are a strange girl…” Du Yu could only give up on arguing with her, leading her step by step into Queen Mother of the West’s boudoir.