Legend Management Bureau Chapter 440

[ … words ]

“A’xiang’s recording said… ‘You must live up to the words on the back of the chair.’ What exactly does that mean?” Du Yu muttered to himself. “Was ‘Time’ imprisoned here by the Shiranui family?!”

You Si had no idea what Du Yu was talking about, so naturally, she could not interject.

Flames seemed to dance in Du Yu’s eyes as his mind raced at lightning speed.

A bold idea formed in his mind, and a faint smile actually crept onto his lips.

“Just as I said, even the heavens are helping me.” Du Yu slowly turned his head, staring at You Si with an eerie intensity. “I am going to figure everything out.”

“Everything?” You Si blinked. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Xu Fu,” Du Yu declared. “The origin of all these matters must lie with Xu Fu.”

“Who is Xu Fu?” You Si asked.

“In the year 218 BC, Xu Fu led a total of three thousand young boys and girls on a journey eastward across the sea to seek the elixir of life for Qin Shi Huang. It was said that he planned to visit the three mythical immortal mountains of Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou in sequence, but he failed.” Du Yu spoke thoughtfully, carefully organizing his thoughts. “For several consecutive years, he never found any Immortal Deities. According to Legends, he feared the emperor’s wrath, so he took the youths and took root in Yingzhou, never to return home. He called his new settlement ‘Dongying’, and rumors even claimed that he created Fusang. But that narrative is wrong. When Xu Fu sailed east, Fusang already had inhabitants. Xu Fu merely ‘civilized’ them, imparting a level of culture and technology they could never have reached at the time, rather than ‘creating’ them.”

“Ha.” Du Yu scoffed. “Since the moment I died, this is the first time no one from ‘above’ has been watching me. If I had been able to shake off their surveillance sooner, I would have figured this out a long time ago.”

You Si clearly did not fully understand, but she still asked, “But what does this Xu Fu have to do with you leaving this place?”

Du Yu slowly lowered his head, pondering for a moment before glancing at the seat, where two small stones lay quietly.

“A’xiang referred to Xu Fu as her ‘ancestor’, meaning she is highly likely a descendant of those three thousand youths, sharing a continuous lineage with our Hua Xia civilization. She claimed to have built the ‘array’, which gives a high probability that she is the ‘first-generation Time’.” Du Yu pondered further, feeling that his deduction was still missing a crucial piece.

If A’xiang was the ‘first-generation Time’, then who did she replace?

And how did she become ‘Time’ in the first place?

“All the answers should be within those two stones,” Du Yu declared. “Originally, I had a way to erase this place, but that method was far too risky. I did not even have a one percent chance of success. But with A’xiang’s help, my odds of winning should drastically increase.”

Du Yu asked You Si to bring the two stones over. Upon inspection, he discovered that the fluctuations of Spiritual Energy emanating from them were incredibly strong.

It seemed they had been hidden beneath the successive generations of ‘Time’ this entire duration, without anyone ever knowing of their existence.

Just like last time, it only took a trace amount of Spiritual Energy to activate the stones’ power.

A triangle and a square floated into the air.

You Si reached out and tapped one, and that voice she could not understand at all rang out once again.

“Little Xiang’s Chit-Chat, Episode Two!! Ta-da!!”

An opening greeting meant entirely for her own amusement.

Shiranui Asuka could be heard pitching her voice high to ask, “Wow, Little Xiang, how did you manage to steal this chair?”

After posing the question, she reverted to her normal voice and answered, “Ahem, that is a long story. But can you really call it stealing? It is not stealing! This chair belonged to the Shiranui family in the first place, and I am just borrowing it for a bit!”

It appeared she had creatively turned her monologue into the format of an interview.

“But if you do that, won’t Ancestor Xu Fu blame you?” A’xiang asked again in her high-pitched voice.

Immediately dropping the act, she replied normally, “Of course not! Ancestor Xu Fu always hoped that his descendants would be able to decipher the contents of the ‘Formula’ to continue writing the legend for Qin Shi Huang. I am the very first person in all this time to unravel its mysteries! Speaking of which, as the first decipherer in the history of the Shiranui family, Ancestor Xu Fu would definitely praise me!”

“But you did not help Qin Shi Huang continue his legend!”

“Uh, I… well, about that…”

Du Yu never would have expected that A’xiang would actually manage to stump herself.

In this cavern of despair, he revealed a hint of a fond, relieved smile for the very first time.

“That last question doesn’t count… Let’s start over, start over.” A’xiang asked again in her squeaky voice, “Excuse me, Little Xiang, how are you planning to get out of here?”

“That, I genuinely don’t know. The ‘Formula’ passed down by Ancestor Xu Fu is only half-complete. It only recorded the ’cause’, but never mentioned the ‘effect’. However, since Senior Du Yu has already come back to life, it will definitely be a ‘good effect’!”

In the conversation that followed, A’xiang mostly just chattered about her hobbies.

It sounded just like a genuine ‘interview’.

After several minutes passed with no more useful information, Du Yu finally had You Si pick up the second stone.

Soon, another recording began to play.

“Uh… H-hello, hello everyone.”

This was “Little Xiang’s Chit-Chat, Episode One”, and she sounded rather shy.

“I just wanted to find something to chat with to pass the time. I didn’t expect I could actually attach Onmyodo to it…” Shiranui Asuka paused for a moment before her tone suddenly shifted:

“Ta-da! Then let’s do ‘Little Xiang’s Chit-Chat’! Today, our special guest is… Little Xiang! A round of applause, everyone!!!”

Du Yu waited a moment, then heard A’xiang saying, “Clap-clap-clap-clap…”

He smiled faintly and shook his head.

“Little Xiang, may I ask why you are here?” A’xiang asked herself in that pitched-up voice.

“Oh! That is because I need to save someone!” A’xiang answered. “My fianc√©, the person I love most… Hua Xia’s Ferryman, Du Yu, accidentally had his Soul Scattered And Spirit Dispersed!”

“Oho? You are clearly a Fusang native, yet you became the bride of a Hua Xia Ghost?”

A’xiang cleared her throat and replied in her monologue, “Who says I am from Fusang? If you trace my lineage back far enough, I am also from Hua Xia. And who would ever want to marry him anyway… It’s all his fault… It was my first time visiting the Hua Xia Immortal Realm for a tour, and I got tired of walking, so I used my Mobile Phone to call a ride. Who knew I would end up in Senior Du Yu’s black-car! At the time, I thought he was a Hua Xia Immortal Being, so I kept respectfully calling him ‘Senior, Senior’. Who could have guessed he was an absolute maniac! He scared me half to death! No wonder all his peers called him ‘Black-Car Ah Yu’.”

Hearing this, a sudden clarity washed through Du Yu’s mind.

“Then, may I ask, how did this Black-Car Ah Yu get his Soul Scattered And Spirit Dispersed?” A’xiang inquired.

“Ugh, talking about this matter is really just…” A’xiang sighed. “I think it was the seventh year after Senior Du Yu and I met… He picked up a murderer with extremely deep resentment. Senior Du Yu could have chosen not to take him away, but that person was simply too evil. Thus, Senior Du Yu insisted on driving the car straight to Hell to make him face justice. The man actually started wrestling with Senior Du Yu, fighting for the steering wheel, and in the end, it was a total ‘car destroyed and man dead’ situation…”

“Oh wait, I should say, ‘car destroyed and soul turned to ash’…”

After saying this, she felt something was off, as if she had tripped over her own tongue.

“Car bandit and soul scattered…”

“Car destroyed and grave scattered…”

“Car, destroyed, soul, scattered.” Shiranui Asuka enunciated each word deliberately. “Those words are so hard to say together.”