Legend Management Bureau Chapter 35

[ … words ]

“Huh?” The crowd looked at the two of them, unsure of what was happening.

The eyes of the two people before them were identical, filled with murderous intent and exceptionally cold. Although their heights were different, their tone, demeanor, and even movements were exactly the same. An inexplicably eerie atmosphere began to spread.

Dong Qianqiu stared at the unbelievable scene on the screen, her mind filled with questions.

“Du Yu… what… what are you doing?!” Just as Dong Qianqiu expected, Du Yu gave no response.

Bai Qi was briefly stunned, but he quickly snapped back to reality and ordered his subordinates, “These cultivators have likely succumbed to cultivation deviation. Kill them immediately.”

As soon as his voice faded, Du Yu flashed in front of Bai Qi, appearing in the exact same manner Zhongli Chun had just moments ago.

Bai Qi had been observing for quite a while and had completely underestimated the man’s martial prowess, leaving his reaction half a beat too slow. Before he could even raise his weapon to block, Du Yu threw a punch, smashing fiercely into Bai Qi’s nose and sending him flying. With a crisp crack, Bai Qi’s nose was likely broken.

The soldiers finally recovered their wits. Raising their weapons, they thrust them toward Du Yu. Seeing this, Du Yu suddenly employed his ghostly footwork, dodging the strikes coming from various tricky angles. Seizing the opportunity, he snatched a spear and instantly pierced through more than a dozen men.

The soldiers relentlessly pursued Du Yu, but he treated them like a group of children, leisurely toying with them. Despite being surrounded by thousands of men, Du Yu wielded a single spear, sealing throats with every thrust before vanishing again, remaining completely untouched.

“What in the world is…” Dong Qianqiu stared at the screen in disbelief. She suddenly snapped out of her daze and ordered the staff, “Pause the soul-extraction equipment! Get the tech department here immediately!”

Du Yu leaped lightly, landing beside Zhongli Chun. He looked at her with a complicated expression, then coldly asked, “Can you still move?”

Zhongli Chun nodded. For some reason, she felt a familiar aura coming from Du Yu.

“Good. Then let the two of us slaughter our way out together.” Du Yu deliberately emphasized the words “the two of us,” for reasons unknown.

Du Yu helped Zhongli Chun up. Both of them now gripped a spear, sending a chill down the spines of the Qin soldiers. With a sharp whistling sound tearing through the air, both vanished from their spots.

They were like two reflections in a mirror, perfectly mirroring each other’s exact movements.

Screams of agony suddenly erupted one after another among the Qin ranks. The soldiers were thrown into sheer panic, desperately trying to counterattack, but they couldn’t even see where the enemy was. All they felt was their comrades falling around them, one by one.

Dong Qianqiu waited for the tech department to arrive and hurriedly ordered them to analyze the current situation.

Based on Dong Qianqiu’s description, the tech department realized this was a difficult puzzle to crack. What did it mean that a gust of eerie wind blew past, and Du Yu completely transformed into another person?

The tech department staff analyzed the data for ages and consulted various records, but they had no idea what caused this phenomenon. It was completely unprecedented in the history of the Legend Management Bureau.

“This feels… as if two Zhongli Chuns have appeared at the same time…” a colleague from the tech department hit the nail on the head.

“Two… Zhongli Chuns?” Dong Qianqiu seemed to suddenly realize something. She immediately dropped her work and sprinted out of the hall, rushing all the way back to her office. Right now, the answer to this mystery could only be found on one person.

“Zhongli Chun… what exactly did you do…” Dong Qianqiu said through gritted teeth.

…

Bai Qi lay on the ground, watching his elite troops being mercilessly slaughtered. He couldn’t help but turn pale with fright. Did the Qi army actually possess two figures of such terrifying prowess?

On a battlefield where military strategy and tactics determined victory, were these two actually using their overwhelming martial strength to annihilate an entire army all by themselves?

If that was the case, what was the point of war? What was the point of conscription? What was the point of fighting for this world?

The military strategies he had studied since childhood and the experience he had accumulated along the way all felt like a complete joke.

“Who… who exactly are you two?” Bai Qi stammered as he looked at them. This was perhaps the closest he had ever been to death since he first began his military campaigns.

“I am the Queen of Qi, Zhong Wuyan,” Zhongli Chun stated quietly.

“And what about you?! Who are you?!” Bai Qi’s hands trembled as he pointed at Du Yu. “Why have I never heard of someone as powerful as you!?”

“Me?” Du Yu gave a cold chuckle and said,

“I am just… a fierce ghost guarding the eight directions.”

…

Dong Qianqiu slumped into her office chair, tears streaming down her face.

Where was there any sign of Zhongli Chun here?

On the ground, there was only Du Yu’s coat, which had accompanied Zhongli Chun all these days, and a scroll spread out across the floor—the “Eight Directions Ghost Record”.

In the direction of the Gate of Death on the “Eight Directions Ghost Record,” there was a bloody signature. It looked as if someone had recently bitten their finger and signed their name right there. From then on, the signer would protect the owner of the “Eight Directions Ghost Record,” guarding the Gate of Death, trapped in eternal servitude without reincarnation, until their soul completely shattered and dispersed.

“Zhongli Chun…”

Dong Qianqiu slowly picked up the “Eight Directions Ghost Record,” sobbing uncontrollably.

“Didn’t you cross that river…? Weren’t you going to go to so many places with Du Yu…?”

The only things left in the room were a dazed Dong Qianqiu and that cold name on the “Eight Directions Ghost Record.”

…

One thousand years ago.

The seventh level of the Eighteen Levels of Hell, the Hell of the Mountain of Knives.

“Little Sister Dong, you absolutely have to help me this time,” Horse-Face said to Dong Qianqiu with a distressed expression. “Otherwise, I really won’t know what to do!”

“Fourth Master, we’ve only known each other for barely half a day. Please do not address me so intimately,” Dong Qianqiu said expressionlessly. “It makes me feel like I am being harassed.”

“Ah! Little Sister Dong! As long as you can help me handle this prisoner, I will call you whatever you want me to call you from now on.”

Dong Qianqiu looked up, and the scene before her was too gruesome to look at.

Amidst a towering mountain covered entirely in blades, a tall, naked woman was bound to a stone pillar. Her entire body was pierced with knives. The agonizing pain seemed to have already numbed her, leaving her face completely devoid of expression.

The woman raised her head, shot a cold glance at Dong Qianqiu, then looked at Horse-Face and said, “What cruel torture is it today? Bring it on.”

“Little Sister Dong, look at this! This woman’s resentment is far too deep. No matter how much we punish her, we can’t scatter her soul. It’s almost as if she practiced some soul-strengthening technique when she was alive… But the bizarre thing is, her soul is incredibly pure, not at all cluttered like the ordinary three immortal souls and seven mortal forms.”

Horse-Face looked anxious. He sneaked a glance at Dong Qianqiu and noticed that she didn’t seem to understand what he meant. He had no choice but to get straight to the point. “Therefore, Little Sister Dong, please have your Legend Management Bureau travel back in time to help me deal with her. At the very least, figure out how she became like this, so I can find a way to resolve it…”

“The earliest would be a hundred years from now,” Dong Qianqiu said as she adjusted her glasses. “Zhan Qisheng’s upcoming schedule is completely full.”

“A hundred years?!” Horse-Face looked deeply troubled. “Do we still have to keep her locked up here for another hundred years? We’ll die of exhaustion every single day!”

“Fourth Master, what crime did this woman commit?”

“Well… this woman is named Zhongli Chun…” Horse-Face said helplessly. “About a thousand years ago, when crossing the Naihe Bridge, she refused to drink Meng Po’s soup of forgetfulness and publicly smashed Meng Po’s stall. This was an unprecedented incident, and the Kings of Hell were furious at the time. More recently, she ran into my big brother, Ox-Head, on the streets. Just because he accidentally bumped into her while walking, the two of them broke into a massive fight. My big brother was nearly forced to self-destruct his Nascent Soul!”

“Self-destruct his Nascent Soul?” Dong Qianqiu hadn’t expected the seemingly invincible Ox-Head to be pushed to such extremes by a solitary wandering ghost.

“Little Sister Dong, why do you think this woman refused to drink Meng Po’s soup?”

“That indicates she has memories she doesn’t want to forget…” Dong Qianqiu adjusted her glasses. “Since she has suffered enough, why don’t we… just let her go.”

“Let her go…?” It wasn’t that Horse-Face hadn’t thought of it, but he was afraid she would cause more trouble once released. “But what if she causes another disaster after being let out?”

“If she causes another disaster, you just capture her again.” Seeing Zhongli Chun covered in scars, Dong Qianqiu couldn’t bear it. “Fourth Master, she survived the Hell of the Mountain of Knives. You no longer have any justification to continue torturing her.”

“That’s easy to say, but capturing her every time is incredibly troublesome. This time, we lost six underworld emissaries, and my big brother was beaten so badly he had to enter secluded cultivation to recover. Only then did we finally manage to pin her down.”

“To be fair, your priority right now should be rapidly strengthening your own cultivation bases, and then stepping up the training of even stronger underworld emissaries. You can’t just capture this woman and never let her go. If the higher-ups found out, there would be trouble, wouldn’t there?”

Horse-Face was put in a difficult position and replied, “Little Sister Dong, what you’re saying makes sense. Sigh, since we’ve already used every punishment meant to shatter souls and she still hasn’t dispersed, no one can blame us anymore.”

Dong Qianqiu slowly walked toward the woman. “Hello, I am Dong Qianqiu, the newly appointed assistant of the Legend Management Bureau. I am here to help you escape this sea of suffering. May I ask… what is your lingering obsession?”

“Obsession?” The tall woman shot a glance at Dong Qianqiu and replied coldly, “I don’t have such a thing.”

“So you didn’t even realize that you’ve already turned into a fierce ghost…” Dong Qianqiu adjusted her glasses and said, “Then let me phrase it differently. You have wandered the underworld for so long. What is the reason you still refuse to reincarnate to this day?”

The tall woman slowly lifted her head, blood streaming down her cheeks. She spat a mouthful of bloody water onto the ground and spoke slowly:

“I need to cross a river of two thousand years, to find someone.”