Chapter 58: 58. Starting To Accept
Uncle Dai let out his breath in relief. Then, his gaze shifted to a little girl with a short turquoise bob haircut, bronze eyes with glasses, and wearing a green qipao. And two beautiful women whose beauty cannot be ignored.
"By the way, who is this girl and those women?"
Ryūhei glanced at Jiu.
"Oh, she's also the victim in this incident. When I asked her, she said she was heading to her parents' graves who died a week ago. But somehow she got here. When I wanted to take her back, she seemed reluctant as if she didn't want to remember her grief. Knowing she lived alone in the Guyun Stone Forest. I'm gonna bring her to Liyue Harbor." Ryūhei replied.
Knowing that Ryūhei was creating stories in the form of manga, Zhongli knew that making up Jiu's background would be easy. Uncle Dai also didn't feel there was anything wrong with the story, especially when he saw Jiu's face, which looked fiercely at him because his question caused Ryūhei to mention her background.
Though, it was not like that, because Jiu's expression was still as usual. It was also what Ryūhei wished for him to be more relaxed in his expressions. Or perhaps, Ryūhei should change "he" to "she" since Azhdaha has become a little girl now.
"As for these women, they are my servants who happened to run away from Inazuma not long ago even though I told them to stay there. They are not native Inazuma, so their life is rather difficult there. Maybe because I left them there, they couldn't stand it and wanted to chase me here. They were lucky to escape from Inazuma because the nation was still isolated until now. Miraculously, fate brought them here to meet me."
"I see. It seems you are a young master in Inazuma. Hehe, you're so lucky to have such beautiful servants. I am so envious of you." Uncle Dai chuckled while his gaze switched to Eni from time to time because of her attire. But then, he turned around and discussed something with the helpers to bring the victims back to Liyue Harbor.
Several hours have passed. Uncle Dai and the helpers brought back the people who were victims of the incident to Liyue Harbor. Coincidentally, Kun Jun had also woken up and was a little confused because he didn't remember anything when he arrived at Nantianmen. Even so, he helped Uncle Dai to bring back the victims as well.
Ryūhei also did not forget to ask Kun Jun to forge his weapon later. And Kun Jun said he would visit Manga Impact two days later because Ryūhei was planning to come back tomorrow since he wanted to rest first.
After they left, Ryūhei closed his eyes before telling Zhongli. "Mr. Zhongli, I want to rest first. My eyes are kinda heavy right now. How about you?"
"You can rest. I'm different from mankind. I don't really need to sleep if I want to." Zhongli replied.
Since Zhongli said so, Ryūhei immediately got inside the tent to sleep.
— — — —
Ryūhei woke up Around 3 PM. The humid conditions in Nantianmen and flanked by two mountains to the east and west, made him sleep quite soundly.
"Good morning, Master." Nibi and Eni greeted him simultaneously. It was kinda nice to have beautiful servants to greet him after waking up from his sleep.
"Morning… or not? It's afternoon, I think."
Ryūhei got up and walked out of his tent. He saw the little girl, who was none other than Jiu, and Zhongli sat side by side, perhaps talking about their past or something along the line.
Well, it was a good thing to see them getting along again since Jiu's memories grounded into oblivion. But then again, Zhongli had already transferred Kun Jun or memories of Azhdaha's will into Jiu's consciousness. Thus, she gained those memories once again.
"You guys really don't need sleep, do you? I'm getting a bit jealous of you two."
"I may not need to sleep as much as humans, but Azhdaha— no, now I have to call you Jiu. Jiu herself is a dragon-like creature in general. She doesn't sleep, instead, she hibernates."
Jiu only nodded in agreement. Then, he noticed that her expression was mellowed a little bit. It was kinda surprising since she always put on angry or annoyed expressions most of the time. It seemed leaving her alone with Zhongli was a good idea.
"Oh right. Mr. Zhongli, I wanted to ask something. I want to publish a particular manga. This one is a bit… Unique, I must say. However, this manga might take the world by storm."
"Hmm? Can you tell me specifically?"
"It is like this…"
A few days ago, Ryūhei found or bought a manga on the system market that was quite unique, titled Dr. Stone, which tells about humans who return to the stone age. More specifically, they become rocks for thousands of years.
Because the system market only provides the first volume and has to sell the manga to unlock the second volume and so on, he doesn't know the next story after that first volume.
He was surprised that the manga could be used to study physics laws with quite solid theories and physics formulas. So he wondered if such a manga could be accepted in this world or not. That's why he asked for Zhongli's opinion. Zhongli is a Walkingpedia after all.
"Physics laws?" Zhongli didn't quite understand something like that.
"Yes. If you read the Food Wars manga, you must have seen lots of tall and big buildings, vehicles that are much different from horse-drawn carriages, cooking tools, and so on. Yet in that world, there are no beings like Archons or Adepti. They are just ordinary people without power whatsoever. However, how could humans create the things I mentioned earlier?"
Zhongli pondered for a bit.
"You're telling me it's due to the laws of physics?"
"Yes. Not just that. There is also such a thing as chemical laws. These two laws can make a country more advanced and develop rapidly, although they must be balanced with environmental controls. And I called it modernization. What do you think about that?" Ryūhei grinned. He should introduce this modernization thingy earlier. So, there might be no issues when he wanted to introduce PCs, smartphones, online games, and even anime. He noticed this because there was a Ruin Guard that should have been created using high technology. But it's a shame if those who have knowledge about machines only think about weapons as if they want to cause war. Or perhaps there was a reason that those knowledgeable people didn't want to create something more useful than just a weapon. This led him to ask Zhongli if it was alright to publish such a manga.
"Actually, there's no such restriction unless the nation itself forbids you, just like Inazuma and the Raiden Shogun. And I'll definitely be more than happy to see Liyue develop further than it is now." Zhongli stated his opinion. "But, you sure have a lot of ideas to make a manga. Isn't it too arduous? You already drew 3 already."
"Nope. And I have 2 more helpers after this."
"I see." Zhongli didn't ask further even if he wanted to.
"Things like laws, model-whatever, or anything else don't concern me. More importantly, what is the so-called "manga" you are talking about?"
Both Zhongli and Ryūhei looked at Jiu in shocked expressions. Naturally, the expressions that both of them gave made Jiu slightly irritated. Yet, there wasn't any scary element in her expression.
"What's with your expressions?" In fact, she was a little bit cute, showing a pouty expression like a little lass.
"Well, you know—" Ryūhei looked at Zhongli. Zhongli nodded while curling the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah. It's a bit surprising for you to be interested in human creation."
"You think I'm like the other old folks? If I hadn't been affected by Erosion, I would have founded a smithing academy!" Jiu pointed at those two. But, this reaction made Ryūhei flabbergasted. Jiu shouldn't have that knowledge due to his eroded memories. Thus, his gaze turned to Zhongli, who shrugged.
"Well, I told her about the past. Coupled with the memories she got from Kun Jun, she started to accept her old self." Zhongli explained shortly.
No wonder. Since she wanted to restart her life anew, there's nothing wrong if she knew things that didn't exist in her era. Ryūhei told her about the manga and explained that there were particular things in the manga that could be learned in real life.
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