“Thought… you…” Brother Guyu looked at Sister Siwei in surprise, “You think so too?”
“In this world… is there a more plausible answer?” Sister Siwei blinked, considering the possibilities from my perspective. “That display and the clock… could they actually be people?”
“That’s a bit too far-fetched…” Brother Guyu was momentarily stunned. “Are you saying… there are two living people, one transformed into a display and the other into a giant clock…? And they’ve been standing there for decades?!”
“Yes. Then someone with immense strength ‘assembled’ them together—that would make everything logical.” The more Sister Siwei thought about it, the more it made sense. “So… who were the ‘clock’ and ‘display’ originally?”
Brother Guyu quickly interrupted, “Siwei… are you really going to follow this line of reasoning…? Though ‘Qingxiang’ involves supernatural abilities, this scenario is just too rare! If someone’s ‘Qingxiang’ really allowed them to become a ‘display’ or a ‘clock,’ they’d likely transform the moment they activated it. If that’s the case… wouldn’t ‘Daocheng’ be filled with clocks and displays everywhere?”
“This…”
“Moreover, the ‘clocks’ and ‘displays’ in ‘Daocheng’ are distributed in a pattern—four sets in the north, south, east, and west. It’s clearly a premeditated design.” Brother Guyu explained seriously. “Though Hero’s idea is certainly novel, I think whoever built these must have used a far more ingenious method…”
“Is there another way…?” Sister Siwei pondered. “If the ‘clock’ and ‘display’ aren’t alive, how do we explain them functioning for so long…? And the way they operate…”
At this, she paused slightly and asked, “What did you say was written on that display earlier?”
“I heard an echo,” Brother Guyu replied.
“You said… ‘I heard an echo’ and ‘I smelled Qingxiang’… could they mean the same thing?”
“What…?”
“I mean… could the one standing there be a ‘Qingxiang user’ named ‘Lingwen’ or ‘Lingting’?”
“But… but…” Brother Guyu followed her train of thought for a while but still found it hard to believe. “By that logic… only one person would need to be standing there. So who is the ‘giant clock’? Why would two people be needed?”
His question plunged Sister Siwei into silence again. The two debated for a long time but couldn’t reach a conclusion.
Sister Siwei suggested that the next morning, during roll call, they first identify ‘Qingxiang users’ with similar abilities to see if they could replicate something close to the existing setup.
Brother Guyu, meanwhile, would focus on maintaining stability within the entire family, ensuring unity and directing everyone’s admiration solely toward me.
Watching them busy themselves all day often left me uneasy.
As the ‘Hero’… what exactly should I do?
The next day, Sister Siwei and Brother Guyu compiled a list of many ‘Qingxiang users’ and their abilities, but the situation didn’t seem promising.
“Siwei… after excluding 209 support types, 126 self-enhancement types, over 70 illusion types, and more than 40 combat types, there are at most twenty or so creation-type ‘Qingxiang users.’ But most of them can only create fixed objects—they can’t freely shape their creations. Right now, only abilities like ‘Strong Sand,’ ‘Soft Mud,’ ‘Frost,’ and ‘Crystal’ come close…”
Sister Siwei’s expression darkened as she thought it over before finally saying, “It sounds like we could create something like ‘concrete’… but would that really work? After listing all these abilities, I finally realize just how absurd that display is…”
“Exactly,” Brother Guyu nodded. “Setting everything else aside… that display must at least have a cathode-ray tube and a chip. The tube requires large amounts of glass and phosphors, and the chip needs silicon and heavy metals. And if we’re building a giant clock, we’d need massive amounts of copper… and that’s just obtaining the materials. Then we’d have to assemble all these fantastical components into something that actually functions… and keeps functioning for years. It’s utterly mind-boggling.”
“So initially, you thought this wasn’t ‘Qingxiang’ but some kind of ‘technology’…”
“Right,” Brother Guyu said gravely. “Siwei, it’s not that I don’t believe in the power of ‘Qingxiang,’ but the difficulty here is just too high. Take Sister Fang’s ‘Frost,’ for example—she can only conjure a small pile of ice cubes when she’s in good condition. Now imagine if I told her, ‘We need you to create a giant clock made of ice’ or ‘We need enough ice to build a giant clock’…”
“Yes, that’s absurd—it defies common sense.” Sister Siwei nodded. “Then… could there be another possibility?”
“Like what?”
“That the person who built the display and the clock didn’t use created materials but sourced them locally…?”
“You mean…” Brother Guyu considered it. “They used materials already in the city?”
“Mm!” Sister Siwei nodded. “There must be chips and circuits lying around in the city, right…? Could they have repurposed those?”
“That stumps me,” Brother Guyu admitted. “I’ve never paid attention to whether the old TVs left in ‘Daocheng’s’ ruins were dismantled… But even so, the workload would still be enormous. At the very least, they’d need a large group of people to help transport materials. And the giant clock is even more outrageous—a temple-sized bell weighs at least ten tons. If they were sourcing materials locally, how many people would they need just to gather enough copper? And that’s just for one set—there are four sets of these displays and clocks, quadrupling the materials required! Without any vehicles or machinery, the effort would be like building the Great Wall—far beyond imagination.”
Sister Siwei’s face grew solemn. “So… in the end, little brother Hero can’t be freed.”
After all these days, I finally understood what troubled them: they wanted to save me, but I didn’t need saving.
They probably didn’t realize how I felt… From the moment I was born until now, this was the first time so many people had needed me.
I was willing to do anything for that feeling of being needed.
I just didn’t want Brother Guyu and Sister Siwei to suffer for it.
“Let’s not give up entirely…” Brother Guyu sighed. “I’ll have them try making a signboard or something first… If nothing else, we can assign people to manually write and erase messages daily. Every little bit helps to ease Hero’s burden…”
“Brother, Sister,” I interrupted them.
“Yes?” Sister Siwei turned to me.
“I think you’re overlooking the most critical issue.”
“What issue?” Brother Guyu asked.
“No matter what we build… it won’t come to life.” I said softly. “The one who senses ‘Qingxiang’ is always me. But in that city… it was the display.”
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