Dragon Raja: History Simulator

Page 76

Chapter 138 Altar Sealing

Inside the teahouse.

Wang Anzhi took a small sip of the last vestiges of fragrance from his teacup. After watching the man who called himself Qin Wuyi leave, the crowd on the first floor of the teahouse quickly emptied, including those who had been sitting there seemingly enjoying tea and chatting.

He glanced at Xia Mi, who seemed indifferent to the situation, and asked, "Junior Sister, what are your thoughts?"

"Thoughts?" Xia Mi rolled her eyes, playing with the teacup in her hand, swirling the tea inside to release its fragrance. She spread her hands, looking helpless.

"What else could it be? It's just a power struggle between groups of people. What's there to look forward to?"

She said earnestly, "If you ask me, senior brother, if you still have the leisure to care about this, you should think carefully about where Constantine is hiding."

Lost in thought for a moment, she spilled tea on her hand. "Senior brother, do you know? After Constantine entered Sichuan, it was very difficult for him to leave."

"Why?" Wang Anzhi asked curiously. "Does a dragon king like Constantine lack a way to leave this place? Even if he simply follows the route he came from and goes down the river, he can easily leave."

“That’s not the reason,” Xia Mi shook her head, looking out the window as if recalling a distant past.

"Mountains and rivers, continents and divisions, all of these were the result of the Black Emperor personally leveling the mountains and pacifying the rivers one by one."

She suddenly asked, "Senior, do you know the difference between contemporary geography and geography during the Black Emperor's era?"

Wang Anzhi recalled the time he and Freya had traveled around the entire continental shelf together. He then silently compared the maps with contemporary maps and was horrified to discover that the direction of mountains and the changes in rivers, despite having been altered over thousands of years, were still changing.

But now, in this era, the era when the Black Emperor is about to return, the landscape is gradually returning to the state it was in during the time of the Black Emperor Nidhogg.

This is terrible.

He glanced at Xia Mi, who nodded in agreement. "That's right, just as you thought, Senior Brother. When I awoke after hundreds of years, I was surprised to see such a familiar map. At that moment, I almost thought the Black Emperor had returned."

She smiled, but it was a forced smile. "It wasn't until I came to understand this era again that I realized these things were all reshaped over the past few hundred years."

Wang Anzhi thought for a moment and said, "I don't know much about geographical changes, but if I remember correctly, the river's mouth has changed several times, from the Bohai Bay to the Huai River and then into the sea..."

Before he could finish speaking, Xia Mi interrupted him, "That's not how it works. A line segment is winding and irregular in the middle, but the two endpoints are like the two ends of a mirror, unusually similar."

"What are these two ends?" Wang Anzhi thought of something.

“One is the era of the Black Emperor, and the other is the present era,” Xia Mi said coldly. “If nothing unexpected happens, geography will be completely classified into one category in 2012 and will no longer change.”

After a moment of silence, Wang Anzhi suddenly said:

"I remember that when the Dragon King revives, he subconsciously seals off the surrounding environment, creating a closed space for him."

“That’s right, the altar is sealed off,” Xia Mi nodded, her eyes slightly lowered as she looked at the ground. “Senior brother, how big do you think such a sealed place is for the Black Emperor?”

She said self-deprecatingly, "A city? No, this is merely the scale of a Dragon King's resurrection."

The entire Arctic Ocean? That's a bit cramped for the Black Emperor; it can only hold his embryo.

Without waiting for Wang Anzhi's reply, she revealed the answer: "The answer is an entire Earth. For the Black Emperor, only such a planet is worthy to be the cradle of his resurgence."

Wang Anzhi said softly, "So, is the increasing frequency of abnormal weather events in recent years also due to this reason?"

In his previous life, the frequent occurrence of extreme weather caused by global warming was already common knowledge. However, in this world, Wang Anzhi never imagined that there were so many hidden secrets behind it.

Xia Mi nodded and said, "The entire Earth is the cradle of the Black Emperor, and the mountains and rivers are the handles that He holds the cradle."

She stood up and walked to the window. It was already dusk, and the glow of the setting sun shone on her hair, making it appear golden.

Looking at the girl's slightly thin figure, Wang Anzhi couldn't help but feel extremely heartbroken.

Caesar once said that girls are like books, and his favorite is the one he can never understand.

Wang An understood Xia Mi without changing a single word, but he hadn't expected to only see the tip of the iceberg. He listened as the Dragon Girl spoke calmly:

"The entire Earth's ecosystem is a giant alchemical matrix, and the survival of contemporary life can only depend on this ecosystem. As long as the ecosystem continues to be maintained and the life that constitutes this ecosystem survives, then the resurgence of the Black Emperor will never be stopped."

The four monarchs each destroyed an era before human civilization had fully taken shape, but this could not prevent the return of the Black Emperor; it could only postpone it.

Conversely, the doomsday incantations of the monarchs have become less effective against the alchemical matrix set up by the Black Emperor—which is now the Earth's ecosystem. All the Dragon Kings have lost the ability to easily destroy an ecosystem, a power they once possessed.

The girl paused, then said, "That's why the monarchs are, in turn, subject to the Black Emperor's alchemical matrix and the ecosystem formed by these intersecting mountains and rivers."

Her tone was tinged with sadness and helplessness. "I am like this, and so is Constantine. The land of Bashu is now a self-contained system of trapped dragons."

"Once you choose to enter here, getting out will also be a test for the Dragon King."

She seemed to be mocking Constantine, the Bronze and Fire King, saying, "Constantine thought he sensed his brother's presence here, so he assumed Norton was here and entered without hesitation."

But I never expected this…

Xia Mi fell silent, then turned to look at Wang Anzhi with a deep gaze.

Wang Anzhi knew what Xia Mi wanted to say. If Norton was indeed in Brooklyn, New York, and not in Sichuan, as he claimed, then Constantine's actions would be like walking into a trap, appearing incredibly foolish.

So he nodded and said with certainty, "Junior sister, don't worry, I can assure you that Norton is definitely not here."

Before he left Shilan, he saw Lu Mingfei playing games with Lao Tang, whose address was in the United States.

Chapter 139 Mai's Confusion

"Long Legs, your new master is wandering around aimlessly with Little Dragon Girl again."

Su Enxi sat in a luxury hotel in Chengdu, munching on potato chips and mumbling indistinctly:

"The day before yesterday, they went to a wood carving shop and patiently sat with the owner all day, learning how to carve wood while chatting about everyday things. That's how they spent the day."

"The day before yesterday, they were wandering around this small town. In the evening, they listened to an excerpt from 'Jinshan Temple,' and to my horror, the Little Dragon Girl actually started crying while watching it. Is this really the Dragon King I remember?"

"Yesterday they seemed to finally see the light, realizing that Constantine might have left, and decided to go to Chengdu. They even had time to visit the Prime Minister's Shrine in between."

Su Enxi exclaimed in amazement. She suddenly tilted her head and thought, "Long legs, do you think I should also visit the Prime Minister's Ancestral Hall?"

"Yeah! Yeah! You've been here for four days, potato chips, you're completely moldy."

Despite saying that, Mai Shude has been here for four days. Every day, besides watching the long-legged man silently observe her new boss and Xiaolongnu's love life, she does her basic ninja training.

During this time, she stayed here with Su Enxi and accidentally saw the scene of Xiaolongnu sleeping on a rope.

So Su Enxi kept pestering her, saying she wanted to see if modern ninjas still had the ability to sleep on ropes without falling off, just like ancient knights-errant.

After several days of training, she successfully took a nap on the rope. The only downside was that when she rolled over, she accidentally fell back onto the bed and bumped into the potato chip girl.

Thinking about this, Mai Shude couldn't help but become a little dazed.

In the past, she would usually be out on field duty at this time, while Su Enxi would stay in the hotel and give orders while getting moldy. Now, although she is still maintaining the basic training of a ninja in her bedroom, she is gradually starting the process of getting moldy with Potato Chip Girl.

Just as she was stunned, Su Enxi suddenly put the computer aside, stood up, stared intently at Jiu De Mai's face, and played with the long hair that was hanging down on the rope, which Su Enxi had envied so much in the past.

"Long legs, what are you thinking about?"

In the past, by this time, the long-legged man would have already turned over and started pinching her cheeks, but now Mai Shude was in a low mood and had lost that interest.

This made Su Enxi secretly happy, but at the same time, she couldn't help but feel a little worried.

“I was thinking…” Mai Shude hadn’t noticed Su Enxi’s subtle movements. Looking into her close gaze, she said calmly:

What should I do next?

Without waiting for Su Enxi's reply, she continued speaking to herself:

“My boss abandoned me, and my new boss didn’t seem to have any work for me to do, so you took me in in the end.”

She looked at the potato chip girl in front of her, but her pupils didn't focus on the figure in front of her. Her gaze remained fixed on the white ceiling, as if there was something there that was worth her attention.

"Potato Chip Girl, you know I'm like a sword, and I need someone to wield it."

She returned to Potato Chip Girl's place when Wang Anzhi left Shilan and arrived at the Three Gorges.

Before leaving, she asked her new boss if there were any arrangements for her, but unfortunately there weren't. Wang Anzhi generously gave her a break, telling her that she hadn't figured things out yet, so he was giving her some time to think it over.

She can go back to him when she comes to her senses.

Mai Shude truly couldn't figure it out, especially the confusion and bewilderment that followed being abandoned by her "boss."

Being a ninja is a profession that requires seriousness. Even if you know that there is no way to survive, you still have to move forward. Once you lose your way, it means that you have lost your value.

Just as the value of a sword lies only in the moment it is drawn to kill, once it is placed in a museum, it loses all its meaning.

The same applies to Shude Mayi.

After arriving at Potato Chip Girl's place, the "boss" kept his promise and did not continue to assign her to work.

For the "boss," if it's a major event that could jeopardize his script, he wouldn't mind breaking his promise in exchange for a bigger achievement.

Just like in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is well-known to the Japanese, Liu Bei kept his promises and maintained his integrity throughout his life in order to gain Yizhou as a foothold.

Everything else is illusory.

But outside of major events, the "boss" maintains a strange reputation, much like a devil.

Just like Mai Shude's fate, she herself was merely an insignificant pawn in the tide of the times, and therefore the "boss" was unwilling to exchange his reputation for her.

He was indeed a tyrant, but even tyrants cherish their "reputation" and the weight of their word.

Now, with nowhere else to turn, Jiu De Mai is looking for a place to temporarily rest, only to find that she can only find her old friend Su Enxi.

There was no other way back.

Su Enxi sighed. Among the trio, she was most familiar with Shude Mai, while Zero and the boss shared a common past.

Based on her own experience, she understands Mai Shutoku's feelings very well.

The "boss" painted a rosy picture for them, promising them a "new era"—a new era different from the era of dragons and different from the era of humans.

That era was so wonderful that even people as empty-hearted as them couldn't help but want to join in when they heard about this unattainable dream, and were willing to dedicate their lives to it.

Now, Mai Shude has been abandoned, abandoned before reaching the end and before seeing the dawn.

The upheaval this caused her was considerable.

They are different from Zero. Zero is simply doing it for the contract with the "boss" that they made to never be separated, while they are doing it for the dream called "New Era".

Otherwise, even with the power of dreams, the "boss" who is already imprisoned in Black Swan Harbor would not be able to attract Su Enxi, who is in the outside world and is dominating Wall Street, and Mai Shude, who is enjoying her campus life at the University of Tokyo.

She said softly, "Mai, besides the sword in your hand, I remember you also love music. You were a student in the music department at Tokyo University. This was the first place you wanted to go after you killed your teacher and fled your ninja life. I also remember you telling me about how you studied all night to pass the entrance exam for Tokyo University..."

As she spoke, she laughed instead. With the power of words, her brain was comparable to a supercomputer. Even at Harvard Business School, where geniuses gathered, no one had ever worked as hard as Mai Shude.

The mocking laughter angered Mai Shude, but it also rekindled her energy. As usual, she raised her hand and gently pinched Su Enxi's cheek, laughing:

"You've gained some weight."