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On the seventh day after Operator Du Yu entered the legend, the entire Legend Management Bureau was in chaos.

It should have been a remarkable day. A super-A-class mission carried out by a complete novice with no experience had reached an extraordinary completion rate of 94%, one of the highest scores since the Legend Management Bureau's founding. And for some unknown reason, the completion rate was still rising.

Yet not a single person in the entire Legend Management Bureau could smile.

Shortly after Youqiong stabbed Du Yu in the abdomen, the Legend Management Bureau lost his video feed.

Nine hundred years ago, Zhan Qisheng had deliberately cut off his own feed, plunging the entire Legend Management Bureau into panic. Nine hundred years later, Du Yu's feed had vanished as well. That feeling, so familiar yet so utterly different, left everyone in the bureau on edge.

"Could Du Yu be... dead?" one employee finally couldn't help asking.

Dead?

Ever since Du Yu's feed disappeared, Dong Qianqiu had sat beside his physical body, silently and carefully cleaning his wound.

Something about Dong Qianqiu at that moment made people's hearts ache.

She had always been meticulous, every strand of hair carefully combed into place. Now her hair was slightly disheveled, her face haggard, and faint dark circles had appeared beneath her eyes against her fair skin.

Dead? How could he be dead? His physical body was still breathing steadily, and he still owed me a cup of coffee. How could he be dead?

Dong Qianqiu blamed herself deeply. If she hadn't insisted on making Heng'e ascend to the sky, Du Yu wouldn't have been hurt, and perhaps he wouldn't have disappeared either.

"Let's go." Seventh Master Xie Bi'an waved to Fan Wujiao. "I just had Jin Gua Sun and the others check. Du Yu isn't dead."

Fan Wujiao nodded. Matters here had reached a temporary conclusion. Their next consideration was how to win Du Yu over once he returned.

The two walked out together, and Xie Bi'an stretched. "That was one long movie. I haven't put on a face mask in ages. My skin's getting worse."

"Really?" Fan Wujiao answered indifferently. He was about to leave when he suddenly turned back to ask Xie Bi'an, "By the way, did you check Moments yesterday?"

"Moments?" White Impermanence Xie Bi'an looked puzzled. "What happened on Moments?"

"Wu Gang."

"Wu Gang? What about Wu Gang? Could you finish a sentence for once?"

While scolding Fan Wujiao, Xie Bi'an pulled out his phone and opened Moments. He discovered that Wu Gang had posted a picture of the Moon Palace the previous night. Fairy Chang'e's figure was faintly visible in the picture, accompanied by the caption:

"Oh my heavens! Fairy Chang'e seems to have suddenly become a different person! I've been chopping the osmanthus tree here for hundreds of years, and for the first time in all those centuries, Fairy Chang'e came outside to ask if I was tired. She even brought me osmanthus cake! Then who was that Fairy Chang'e who used to barely acknowledge me and turn up her nose at me? Can somebody tell me what on earth happened?"

"Hahahaha!" Xie Bi'an laughed. "Isn't that a good thing? Chang'e's temperament has changed. She's no longer that infamous gold digger. Wu Gang's good days are finally here."

Fan Wujiao didn't respond. Chang'e wasn't what concerned him. He merely glanced at Xie Bi'an and said, "Du Yu's ability is important. We need to win him over as soon as possible."

Du Yu felt pain throughout his entire body, as though he were about to die.

He opened his eyes with difficulty and found himself lying inside a cavern. Its walls were unusually smooth, and it didn't look naturally formed.

"Where... is this?" Du Yu tried to get up, but a sharp pain shot through his abdomen.

"I suggest you don't move around. I haven't treated your wound. If you move, you could very well die." A cold voice drifted in from the cave entrance.

Du Yu turned his head and saw a man dressed in black standing at the entrance. Then he lowered his gaze to his abdomen. Sure enough, the blood had only temporarily clotted. The wound Youqiong had left was still blooming like a vivid red flower, so bright it seemed ready to drip.

Not knowing what was happening, Du Yu called quietly for Dong Qianqiu.

"Incidentally, I've temporarily severed your connection to the bureau. So right now, they can neither hear your voice nor see your feed."

Clutching his lower abdomen, Du Yu struggled into a sitting position.

"Who exactly are you?"

"Who am I? You should have guessed already." The man turned his head, revealing a pair of unfathomable eyes.

"Zhan Qisheng..."

"That's right. It's me."

Du Yu had never imagined he would meet Zhan Qisheng like this.

"What do you want?" Du Yu asked.

"I only want to ask you a few questions." Zhan Qisheng slowly approached Du Yu. "If your answers please me, I'll let you return. If they don't satisfy me, I'll finish you off here."

Du Yu's anger flared at those words. This man called Zhan Qisheng was unbelievably arrogant.

"Finish me off here? Who do you think you are?" Du Yu said through gritted teeth. "Don't think I can't beat you just because I'm injured. I've heard of veteran employees bullying new hires, but I've never heard of a former employee bullying one!"

Zhan Qisheng gave a cold smile and swept his left hand outward. With a boom, a massive hole blasted through the cavern wall.

"Holy shit!" If Du Yu hadn't been injured, he would have jumped up in shock. Someone who could shatter a rock wall with a casual wave of his hand really existed? Had the man before him carved out this neatly shaped cavern?

Zhan Qisheng said, "The greatest difference between you and me is that I spent four thousand years comprehending the Great Dao of Time. After enduring countless hardships, I cultivated from a mere mortal into a True Immortal. Yet after ascending, I discovered there was no suitable place for me on the celestial roster. For a cultivator who could travel freely through time, the Legend Management Bureau became my only choice."

"But you betrayed them, didn't you?"

"Betrayed?" Zhan Qisheng considered that. "An excellent choice of words. Is that how they all describe me now?"

"Isn't it true? You left the Legend Management Bureau and turned this place into a complete mess."

Zhan Qisheng glanced at Du Yu and said coldly, "A complete mess? Let me ask you this. How did you feel when you forced Heng'e to ascend to the sky?"

"I..." Zhan Qisheng had brought up something Du Yu didn't want to remember. His thoughts instantly returned to the previous night, when a breathtaking beauty had flown straight toward the moon with tears in her eyes.

"Were you happy?" Zhan Qisheng continued. "Did you think you were doing the right thing?"

"I wasn't thinking about right or wrong. I was just following the course of the legend..."

"Ridiculous!" Zhan Qisheng roared. "If one day a few assassins from the 'future' told you that you would destroy the world someday, so they had to kill you now, would you obediently go to your death?"

"That... that's not the same thing at all..." Du Yu said. "If Heng'e hadn't ascended, it really would have caused countless innocent deaths..."

"It's exactly the same principle! No matter how many people die, what do they have to do with Heng'e? People thousands of years in the future will die, yet all the blame gets shoved onto a helpless woman from thousands of years before. What kind of logic is that? Why must their lives be dictated by a legend, without even a single chance to choose for themselves?!"

The more Zhan Qisheng spoke, the more agitated he became. The entire cavern began to tremble slightly.

"Zhan Qisheng, you're getting more and more fucking out of line," Du Yu said flatly. "I showed you respect, and now you won't let up? Do you think I wanted to come here? What do you think brought me thousands of years into the past, fighting for my life in this death trap called 'Yi Shoots Down Nine Suns' until now?!"

Zhan Qisheng came back to his senses and looked at Du Yu, not understanding what he meant.

"I'm just a mortal!" Du Yu shouted weakly. "In the end, those immortals all banded together to trick me! Do you think I had a choice?! Ever since I died, a bunch of strangers have been dragging me along, all the way into this legend! I'm not like you. If I don't follow their arrangements, I'll be stuck here forever! I don't even have the right to keep being 'human'! And you're fucking lecturing me about who's right and who's wrong?!"

Du Yu raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the hole Zhan Qisheng had blasted through the wall. "You can split a mountain with one palm strike. What about me? I need two fucking strikes just to split a watermelon! There are dozens of people in the Legend Management Bureau. Which of them do you think I can defy? One by one, you order me around, then one by one, you come out to condemn me. What gives you the right?!"

As though something had occurred to him, Zhan Qisheng turned to Du Yu and said, "Since you have so many grievances, why not join me? We could remain in this ancient era, free from anyone's control. Wouldn't that be freedom?"

"Freedom?" Du Yu's lips had gone pale. He snorted coldly. "It's because of that 'freedom' you keep talking about that I was forcibly dragged here, then had to force Da Yi to shoot down the suns and Heng'e to swallow the medicine and ascend! You got your freedom, but what about me? You want me, a mortal, to stay in this ancient era crawling with demon beasts. Is that 'freedom'?"

Zhan Qisheng pondered something, watching Du Yu without speaking.

"You have your grievances, and I have mine," Du Yu said through clenched teeth. "Stop forcing all the blame onto me. If you're so dissatisfied, go destroy the Legend Management Bureau! Is holding an injured mortal captive here the full extent of your ability?"

When Zhan Qisheng didn't answer, Du Yu paused, then continued:

"Yes, I admit it. I'm sorry about how things ended for Da Yi and Heng'e, but I had no choice. I had no right to change their ending. As far as I'm concerned, a whole crowd of immortals held knives to my throat and made me do it." Du Yu looked at Zhan Qisheng, clutching his lower abdomen as he continued. "This is a trolley problem. You put me beside the tracks and told me to choose between running over Da Yi and Chang'e or running over everyone in the world. But I knew I'd be cursed no matter what I did... And that trolley was supposed to hit those two in the first place! So that was the only choice I could make! I couldn't switch the tracks just because I knew them and send it crashing into people who were supposed to survive!"

Zhan Qisheng listened quietly to Du Yu, deep in thought.

Du Yu could feel that his body was in bad shape, but Zhan Qisheng's attitude infuriated him too much to stop. "You were the one who switched the tracks of a trolley that was running perfectly normally. Now you're questioning why I switched them back... Zhan Qisheng, how are you any different from me... You..."

Du Yu coughed, and his wound tore open. His whole body curled inward as he sank into a crouch.

"Is that so? To think someone like you exists in this world." Zhan Qisheng looked at Du Yu and murmured to himself, "Very well. Let me see how far you can go..."

Du Yu wanted to say more, but his consciousness was already beginning to blur...

"Assistant Dong!" an employee shouted. "We've got Du Yu's feed!"

Dong Qianqiu abandoned everything else and immediately ran to the screen.

"Thank goodness... thank goodness..." Dong Qianqiu watched the feed, but what worried her was that Du Yu lay unconscious on the ground. No matter how they called him, he didn't respond, and the blood from his abdomen had stained the ground red.

"Activate recall mode immediately!" Dong Qianqiu worked the switches on the equipment beside the display, slipping into work mode in an instant. "Cleanup team, confirm the Supreme Pivots again. Soul-Summoning Team, begin recall at once!"

"Reporting! The projected number of Supreme Pivots generated by this journey into the legend is zero."

"Reporting! Soul retrieval is ready!"

Everyone throughout the Legend Management Bureau sprang into action.

"Assistant Dong! You may need to come take a look!" An employee had noticed something unusual and called loudly for Dong Qianqiu.

"Whatever it is, set it aside for now. I need Du Yu to come back alive!" Dong Qianqiu refused to be distracted and continued operating the screen.

"Assistant Dong! Something really is strange!"

Dong Qianqiu bit her lip and shouted, "All team members, continue the recall procedure. I'll take a look and be right back."

Dong Qianqiu hurried over to the employee, who was responsible for cleaning up after the legend.

"What is it?"

"Assistant Dong, the legend's completion rate has reached 98%, and it's still rising!"

"What?!" Dong Qianqiu cried. "98%? Isn't that the highest completion rate since the Legend Management Bureau was founded? But Du Yu clearly isn't involved anymore. How could it keep rising? Put the feed on-screen for me immediately!"

The employee dared not delay and immediately switched the display.

An old man appeared on-screen, accompanied by several attendants. They were walking briskly toward Da Yi's village.

"Is that... Emperor Yao?" Dong Qianqiu recognized the old man at a glance.

The old man entered the village with his attendants and went from household to household, asking who had shot down the suns. Without exception, the villagers told him the archer was named Da Yi. Yet after searching the entire village, he still couldn't find anyone who knew where Da Yi was.

"Your Majesty, must you find this Da Yi?" an attendant asked.

"Indeed. The moment I heard someone could shoot down the suns, I set out from Pingyang. It took two full days to get here. No matter what, we must take the person named Yi from this village with us. I intend to appoint him to office. This isn't merely a matter of thanking him for saving the people. It's also an excellent way to steady the hearts of everyone under heaven!"

"I see, Your Majesty." The attendant nodded, understanding. Whether Yi could shoot down the suns wasn't important. What mattered was that they had to take someone named Yi away from this village. Once they did, everyone under heaven would know Emperor Yao was a wise ruler.

"Reporting!" A guard approached and bowed to Emperor Yao. "We've asked everyone. In the nearby villages, there's only one child named Hou Yi!"

"Hou Yi?" Emperor Yao raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain no one else is named Yi?"

"Yes. Da Yi, who shot down the suns, has disappeared. Now this child is the only one named Yi. According to the villagers, Hou Yi was very close to Da Yi, the sun-shooter."

"Excellent. I will appoint this child to office. Spread the news. Tell everyone that I have taken the person named Yi from the village with me."

"As you command!"

Dong Qianqiu watched the screen. The completion rate had already reached 99%. What on earth was going on? Hou Yi? Da Yi?

She immediately opened an encyclopedia on her phone and searched in detail for the legend of Yi Shoots Down Nine Suns.

As it turned out, the commonly told story of "Hou Yi shooting down the suns" was merely a mistaken account. The person who had truly shot down the nine suns was named Da Yi, while Hou Yi was the ruler of the Youqiong Kingdom during the Xia Dynasty. Out of admiration for Da Yi, who had shot down the suns, he had changed his name to Hou Yi. According to legend, Hou Yi was also an exceptional archer, so people gradually confused Da Yi with Hou Yi. Then who had actually shot down the suns-Da Yi or Hou Yi?

That era was too distant. No one could remember anymore.

And so the story of "Hou Yi shooting down the suns" came to be.

Dong Qianqiu watched as the completion rate on-screen reached 100%, and the entire display lit up with golden light.

"The first one hundred percent in history..."

"Assistant Dong, Du Yu's soul is back!" a staff member shouted.