Legend Management Bureau Chapter 437

[ … words ]

Du Yu’s eyes flickered and his lips parted slightly, but he was far too stunned to speak a single word.

The voice of Shiranui Asuka on the recording continued to speak:

“Actually, I have never regretted it. I haven’t brought shame to the Shiranui Family, I haven’t disgraced the ‘Divine Fire Shiranui’, and I certainly haven’t failed our ancestor Xu Fu. My only regret is probably… hmm… I’ll never grow any taller. I’ve been sitting here for so long, I’ll probably be this short forever… Ah, alas… no one is bringing me any food…”

“By now… Senior Du Yu should have ‘resurrected’ already, right? Even though the method I used might cause severe consequences, I really wanted to save Senior Du Yu… He should be living happily with some older sister I don’t know right now, shouldn’t he? That’s quite nice… there’s nothing wrong with that… if that’s the case…”

Shiranui Asuka seemed to sob softly for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure.

“But still… I hope he remembers me. What if I manage to leave this place one day? What if I can drift in Senior Du Yu’s Ferry Vehicle again? Speaking of which, I really need to complain about Senior Du Yu… He’s supposedly a professional Ferryman, yet as someone who never gets carsick or seasick, I actually threw up for days after riding in his Ferry Vehicle! Since then, I’ve been scared to death of riding in cars or boats! What kind of service is that? But well, I guess it’s thanks to that ride that I got to know Senior Du Yu, hehe…”

“Ah! I went a little off-topic. Let me think… next, I’ll share a record of my daily life with everyone! I officially announce that this little stone is being renamed from ‘Little Xiang’s Diary Service’ to ‘Little Xiang’s Vlog’! Round of applause, everyone!!”

Silence.

“Sigh… daily life, how should I put it? Sitting here always feels so strange. The moment I close my eyes, I see countless Threads floating in the sky. Inside those Threads are all sorts of bizarre stories. They linger before my eyes, and I always have to comfort them before they leave. But those Threads are quite cute, and I don’t want to lie to them. Sometimes I wonder, is this my ‘job’? Maybe what ancestor Xu Fu left behind wasn’t an ‘elixir recipe’, but a ‘job posting’, hahaha!”

“Little stone…” A rustling sound came from the recording, as if Shiranui Asuka were stroking the stone. “What do you think loving someone really looks like? Is it like this? Brother Jinjianglang tried so hard to persuade me, but I still didn’t listen to him… Am I really foolish?”

“Right! Thinking about it now, I really was so foolish… Why did I have to use the rarest materials to set up that array? After all this time, how is the quality of that array still so good? Honestly, it makes me so mad! Behold my Little Xiang Incantation… Hah! Break for me!”

The other end of the recording fell silent.

This time, the silence lasted for a very, very long time.

It made Du Yu momentarily believe that the recording had ended.

However, that faint rustling sound continued to play intermittently, making Du Yu hesitant to press the stop button.

Almost an hour passed, and even You Si was growing impatient when Shiranui Asuka’s voice finally emerged from the stone once more.

But this time, she was crying intensely.

“I… I… I’m finally leaving! I… even though I wasn’t the one who broke the array, he really came to save me…!! I can leave this place!! I…”

She sounded incredibly agitated, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Three little stones, you’ve recorded my entire life. Now, I’ll let you sit in this chair in my place… You must live up to the words carved on the back of the chair!” A’xiang seemed to fiddle with something else. “Huh? How do I save this? Oh no, oh no, I forgot that the spell I cast was an ‘alarm clock spell’ for wake-up services. Sigh, whatever… No one will see it anyway, so I’ll just set a random timer… Let’s go with… a hundred million years! Little stones, I’m off!”

The recording stopped completely, devoid of any further sound.

Du Yu’s expression had completely changed.

He looked up in horror, enunciating every word clearly as he asked You Si, “What… is this?!”

You Si shook her head helplessly. “Just a bunch of gibberish, I have no idea either. Lingering resentment, perhaps? Or maybe some trickery from a mountain spirit or monster.”

“Are you kidding me…” Du Yu’s entire body trembled continuously. “A’xiang was actually a generation of ‘Time’?!”

Du Yu’s mind was racing, constantly calculating. There was simply too much information in that recording!

He had entertained countless hypotheses, but he had never imagined that A’xiang had also sat here for hundreds of thousands of years.

‘Did she do it to save me?’

‘Why?’

‘Why did she have the qualifications to become “Time”?’

“Right…” Du Yu suddenly snapped his head up. “You Si, quickly, look for the other stones! A’xiang said there were two more stones just like this one!”

You Si shook her head in exasperation. “As expected of ‘Time’, you can actually understand the ravings of mountain spirits and monsters? But I checked just now. Not only are there no ‘words’ on any of the stones, but there are also no fluctuations of Spiritual Energy whatsoever.”

Du Yu froze. In the recording, A’xiang said she placed the stones on the chair before leaving. Could it be…

“They are right beneath me?” Du Yu’s eyes slowly widened. “Doesn’t that make them something no ‘Time’ could ever retrieve?!”

And also…

The words on the back of the chair!

“You Si, check behind me! Are there any words on the back of the chair?!”

You Si let out a helpless sigh and walked behind Du Yu again. She brushed his long hair aside, carefully inspected the backrest, and then slowly said, “It is very smooth here. There is nothing at all.”

“N-nothing?”

Du Yu blanked for a moment. Could ‘the back of the chair’ refer to… the place where the flesh and blood of his own back connected to the stone stool?

Du Yu pondered for a long time before finally speaking, “You Si, is there any way… to get me off this chair?”

“Get you… off?” You Si looked at Du Yu with a trace of concern. “‘Time’, we tried this last time. No matter what method we use, you are trapped in this chair… You said it yourself, your flesh and blood have fused with the chair…”

“Use a blade!” Du Yu exclaimed. “Use your wind blades to slice through the flesh connecting me to the stone stool!”

You Si was stunned, but quickly replied, “Have you thought this through? Your body is entirely connected to the stone stool. The pain of being sliced open will exceed your imagination.”

“It’s fine… Could my situation get any worse than this?” Du Yu stated. “Just cut it.”

You Si nodded. She carefully observed Du Yu’s posture and first took aim at his left arm, which rested on the armrest of the stone stool.

“Five Elements Art! Retrograde Wind!”

A wind blade sliced flawlessly beneath Du Yu’s arm, scraping right along the edge of the stone stool.

Blood instantly splattered in all directions as a surge of agonizing pain erupted.

Du Yu let out a muffled groan. He tried to lift his arm, only to find that the flesh was rapidly regenerating, leaving his arm still firmly attached to the stone stool.