Legend Management Bureau Chapter 78

[ … words ]

“Sister Qianqiu!” a staff member shouted. “Although we can’t receive the visual feed from the legend, it’s confirmed that the legend has ended. Kuafu is dead!”

“Ended…?” Dong Qianqiu revealed an expression of disbelief, but she quickly regained her composure. “What about the operator? Did the operator return?”

“No… we’ve lost contact with the operator…”

“Is that so…” Dong Qianqiu pondered for a mere second before returning to work mode. “What’s the situation with the Taishu?”

“Since the visual feed from the legend was completely cut off, we can’t deduce what Taishu was generated this time.”

“In that case, let’s proceed with the clean-up operations,” Dong Qianqiu said coldly.

“But… what about Zhan Qisheng?”

“Tell the public… he encountered an accident within the legend and his soul dispersed. He has transcended the bounds of heaven and earth, and is no longer within the five elements.”

…

“Part ways?” Yingning did not understand the meaning of his words. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t need to follow me anymore.” Zhan Qisheng shook his head, his expression complex. “The path I am about to take will be extremely dangerous. At best, it will bring disaster to a region; at worst, I will become an enemy of the entire world.”

“Little Zhan… what are you going to do?”

“I want to save as many people as possible,” Zhan Qisheng explained. “Whether they deserve to die or not, I want them to choose for themselves whether to live. I will give everyone the right to choose. Because of me, this world might change for the better, or it might change for the worse.”

“Then… then I can accompany you!” Yingning’s tone was clearly panicked. “If that’s all it is, why must we separate?!”

“I won’t have the time or energy to look after you, Yingning.” Zhan Qisheng sighed. “It won’t be long before the immortals of heaven and earth learn of my existence. If a Golden Immortal or a mighty figure from the immortal realm makes a move, even if I had three heads and six arms, I wouldn’t be able to protect you.”

“But… but…”

“Ever since you joined me, you’ve lost your smile.” Zhan Qisheng’s eyes seemed to brim with tears again. Overwhelmed with grief, he continued, “When I first met you, you were a girl who only knew how to laugh. But now, you grieve because of my sorrow and suffer because of my pain. Even though I don’t know what it truly means to like someone, I know that liking someone definitely shouldn’t make them sad. It should make them happy.”

The jade pendant instantly fell silent, save for a soft, mournful whimper.

Within the pitch-black space of the jade pendant, Yingning shed bitter tears.

“So, the world only wants to see my smile, but refuses to see my heart?”

Zhan Qisheng slowly untied the jade pendant from his waist and hung it on a peach tree.

“Let’s part ways here…”

“Zhan Qisheng!!!” Yingning screamed hoarsely. “What are you doing?! You can’t leave me here!! You promised you wouldn’t abandon me! You haven’t even told me you like me yourself…”

“Yingning, I’m sorry. This peach grove is so beautiful; someone will discover you soon. From then on, you can go and experience a different life. We are four thousand years in the past. You still have so much time left.”

“Zhan Qisheng! Zhan Qisheng!” Yingning cried, her heart shattering into pieces. “You are not allowed to leave! You are not allowed to go anywhere!!”

Yingning materialized into her human form and sprinted madly toward Zhan Qisheng. Yet, the moment she moved too far from the jade pendant, an invisible tether violently yanked her back.

After all, she was a vengeful spirit!

Zhan Qisheng shed a single tear and bit his lip. He realized that not only had he failed to bring Yingning more smiles, but he had also been the cause of her tears.

How wonderful would it have been if Yingning had never met him? She would still be that girl who loved to laugh, unburdened by his existence.

A gentle breeze swept past, and the peach trees swayed slowly. The peach blossoms scattered across the ground like falling blades, as if mocking Yingning’s agonized wails. She cried, she cursed, and then she laughed, screaming into the void.

A heart-rending chorus of sorrow echoed throughout the entire peach grove. The peach blossoms were exceptionally captivating, yet the branches were gnarled and tangled.

An unknown amount of time passed until only a solitary jade pendant remained in the grove, with not a single soul in sight.

A man dressed as a woodcutter approached slowly, glancing around. From a distance, he spotted a jade pendant lying quietly on the ground. Taken aback, he walked over and picked it up.

“Is this… the artifact of that supreme immortal?”

The woodcutter was none other than Du Nanshan, whose life Zhan Qisheng had saved earlier. He muttered to himself, “Why was the immortal’s belonging left behind here? What should I do?”

“Brother woodcutter.”

A voice suddenly echoed from within the jade pendant. Du Nanshan was so startled that he nearly dropped it on the ground.

“Ah?! Who is it?!”

“I am the jade pendant in your hands. I would like you to do me a favor.”

Du Nanshan hastily examined the jade pendant in his grasp, thinking to himself that immortal artifacts were truly extraordinary to possess such sentience.

“Are you the Lady of the Jade Pendant? Please speak… As long as it is within my meager capabilities, I will definitely do my utmost. Do you wish for me to return you to that supreme immortal?” Du Nanshan respectfully placed the jade pendant on the ground and began kowtowing as he spoke.

“No.” The jade pendant vibrated slightly. “I want you to find a very deep lake and throw me into it.”

Although the voice from the jade pendant was gentle, it carried a bone-chilling coldness.

“Ah…? Throw… throw you into the water?” Du Nanshan was stunned. “Why would you want that?”

“As long as you do me this one favor, I promise to ensure the safety of your descendants for generations to come.”

Du Nanshan pressed his forehead to the dirt, lost in thought. After remaining motionless for a long time, he finally made a decision. Since this was an immortal’s jade pendant, it naturally had its reasons for such a request. Not daring to ask further questions, he descended the mountain, rented a small boat, rowed to the center of a massive lake, and tossed the jade pendant into the water.

This was the deepest lake he could find within a radius of a hundred miles.

Yingning watched as she slowly sank to the bottom of the lake, a smile touching the corners of her lips.

“Brother woodcutter, I am sorry. I lied to you. I cannot ensure the safety of your descendants for generations, because even I do not know where I belong or where I am going.”

Du Nanshan kowtowed three more times toward the center of the lake before returning home. He never mentioned this incident to anyone until the day he died, knowing that immortal matters operated on the principle that “the secrets of heaven must not be revealed”.

Meanwhile, Yingning returned to the bottom of the lake. She smiled at the stones and laughed at the fish. Her laughter grew into a manic frenzy, rocking her back and forth until she couldn’t even straighten her waist. She pointed at a turtle in the distance and roared with laughter, then stared at a strand of seaweed, smiling in complete silence.

So, was smiling all it took?

Mr. Pu Songling once wondered why a vengeful spirit that had spent less than a hundred years in the water possessed such an immense amount of resentment.

The reason was actually quite simple. Yingning hadn’t stayed in the water for a hundred years, but for five thousand years.

…

“Cough!” Du Yu let out a loud cough and dropped to his knees. He struggled to raise his head, only to realize that, with the exception of Yingning, Zhan Qisheng, Zhang Jian, and Zhang Qian, everyone else on the battlefield had also been brought to their knees.

“What just happened?”

Du Yu looked at his own body in disbelief. He had vividly witnessed the past of Yingning and Zhan Qisheng. Such a thing had never happened before. He had even seen himself transformed into a fish, swimming past a jade pendant that would burst into insane laughter every time he approached.

‘Is Yingning’s resentment… already strong enough to plunge all of us into a hallucination?’ Du Yu felt a lingering dread. If Yingning hadn’t suddenly retracted her aura, they would have likely been trapped wandering within that illusion for five thousand years.

Zhan Qisheng’s expression was incredibly pale and unsightly.

His lips were blue, and his pupils trembled slightly. After a long silence, he finally spoke. “I… I once went back to that peach grove, but the jade pendant was gone… I thought you had started a new life… I…”

“Hahahaha!” Yingning suddenly pointed at Zhan Qisheng and burst into laughter. “Did you all hear that? He’s so funny! He actually said he went back to look for me…”

Yingning’s face suddenly turned icy. The surrounding air temperature plummeted abruptly, and the ground radiating from where she stood began to slowly freeze over.

“If you were going to come back to look for me, why throw me away in the first place?”

Zhang Jian and Zhang Qian simultaneously ceased their struggle. The current situation was simply too unexpected for them. Zhang Qian had calculated everything, even recruiting Zhan Qisheng, who also wanted to kill Zhang Jian. However, he never anticipated that a green brush would intercept them halfway, summoning a female ghost with five thousand years of cultivation.

Zhang Jian was also somewhat perplexed. ‘Just who exactly is this Zhang Zhen?’ he wondered. ‘Not only does he know a man in black at the True Immortal realm, but he also carries such a terrifyingly powerful female ghost with him?’

“I…” Zhan Qisheng never imagined he would encounter Yingning here. His expression was one of profound agony. “Yingning… whatever you want to do, I will agree to it.”

“Zhan Qisheng, I want your life,” Yingning shouted coldly. With a point of her right hand, an ice sword materialized out of thin air and shot straight toward Zhan Qisheng’s throat.

Seeing this, Zhan Qisheng gently closed his eyes, an expression of sheer relief washing over his face.

“Yingning! Don’t!”

Just as Du Yu roared at the top of his lungs, the ice sword halted in mid-air at the exact same moment. It was unknown whether Yingning never intended to deal a lethal blow from the start, or if she had actually listened to his plea.

A frost-radiating ice sword hovered just inches from Zhan Qisheng’s throat.

Yingning’s body trembled continuously. She bit her lip, her beautiful, delicate face reflecting a profound sense of sorrow under the moonlight.

“Zhan Qisheng, because I am a vengeful spirit, you abandoned me. Because I was once married to another man, you abandoned me.” With every word Yingning spoke, a plume of freezing breath spilled from her lips.

Standing on the sidelines, Du Yu couldn’t help but shiver violently. Within ten feet of Yingning, it felt like a world of ice and snow, prompting him to unconsciously step backward.

“No! That’s not it!” Zhan Qisheng bellowed. “How could you think that? I never cared whether you were a vengeful spirit, or whether you had been married before…”

“Do you know…? Five thousand years is enough time to ponder many questions.” Yingning revealed a smile that made one’s blood run cold. “I once spent a hundred years imagining how I would kill you when we met again. Sometimes, I wanted to pierce you with ice spikes. Other times, I changed my mind and wanted to rip your limbs off with my bare hands.”

A deep sense of defeat slowly appeared in Zhan Qisheng’s eyes. He lowered his head and said, “If you want my life, take it now.”

Yingning paused for a moment, letting out a bitter laugh. “I didn’t expect that even after five thousand years had passed, I still wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Having said that, Yingning traced a circle in the air with her right hand, and the ice sword suspended before Zhan Qisheng reversed its direction.

“I can only blame myself, Yingning, for my own incompetence. Now, it is time to bid this world farewell.”

Before Du Yu and Zhan Qisheng could speak, Yingning pulled her hand back, and the ice sword shot straight toward her own chest!

“Yingning!”

Du Yu and Zhan Qisheng cried out simultaneously, lunging forward with all their might.

A sickening sound of a blade slicing into flesh rang out as the two men materialized in front of Yingning at the exact same moment.

They had both reached out and grabbed the blade with their bare hands, blood streaming profusely down their fingers.

The blade was less than half a foot away from Yingning.