Has Han Qingyu's Style Changed?

The township where Fenglong'ao was located was called Houshan Township. The memories and details Han Qingyu had gleaned from his parents were largely accurate; there were merely a few discrepancies regarding the specific timeline. The five or six years he kept muttering about was actually just the duration Jiang Longchi had stayed in the dilapidated temple posing as a monk. To be precise, this Azure super-combatant, General Jiang, had arrived in Houshan Township nearly two years before that. That was the true moment when the massive source energy fluctuation detected by Azure had occurred. Back then, Han's father and mother didn't even know each other yet. Naturally, it had nothing to do with Han Qingyu. "Speaking of which, you stayed in that place for so many years without finding a single abnormality—you should have given up long ago." In the office, Chen Buer squinted at the gray monk robes on his old comrade before him, speaking with helpless amusement. "Besides, I really can't wrap my head around why you decided to become a monk back then... and then got hooked on it." "I ran out of money back then," Jiang Longchi gulped down the top-grade Longjing tea, wetting his beard. "*Gulp*... I had to eat, had to make a living." "Out of money? You?!" Chen Buer thought to himself that this was impossible. *You were already a full general back then! With such a high salary and subsidies, how on earth could you have no money?!* "Back then, I couldn't find my bankbook," Jiang Longchi set down his cup and lamented pitifully. "..." So his forgetfulness had actually started back then. Chen Buer thought about it and added, "Then you could have called back." "My communicator got smashed while climbing the mountains, and I lost my address book... As for the phone number, I forgot it. And I didn't dare leave, worried that the source energy fluctuation would reappear the moment I stepped away." Jiang Longchi said as if it were only natural, "So I had to find a way to score an easy meal." The key word here was "easy." He needed food, but he also needed free time so that he could scale mountains and cross ridges every day to search for the location of the source energy fluctuation, keeping an eye at all times on its general radius: the entirety of Houshan Township. Therefore, he shaved his head, became a monk, and moved into the dilapidated temple, styling himself Master Longchi. And so, in Houshan Township, he freeloaded for six whole years. During that time, whether performing funeral rites, naming babies, selecting burial sites, or even spirit channeling, fortune-telling, and character divination—whether it was a Buddhist monk's work or that of a Daoist priest or shaman—he did whatever he could do, becoming thoroughly acquainted with everyone in Houshan Township. So to him, the child named Han Qingyu and the act of naming him was merely one very ordinary swindle among many over those six years; he had long since forgotten it. Having rarely had the chance to sit down and talk things through face to face, Chen Buer finally sorted out the gist of Jiang Longchi's past escapades in his mind and reluctantly accepted the explanation. He then asked: "Even so, you didn't need to stay that long, did you? What, was being a monk that much fun?" "That wasn't it. Fun is one thing... Actually, by my fourth year in the temple, I was already ready to call it quits. But as luck would have it, that very year, that source energy fluctuation appeared again. This time it was very faint, but I felt it." At the time of this second fluctuation Jiang Longchi mentioned, Han Qingyu had already been a little over three years old. Because farm life was busy, he had often been taken up the mountains or out to the fields by his grandfather or parents, left to play on his own off to the side. Even back then, his grandfather would catch non-venomous snakes, pull out their fangs, and toss them to him as toys, declaring that as a descendant of the Han family, catching snakes had to be as easy as child's play. As for the Han family, they didn't know what the damn source energy fluctuation was, nor how strong or weak it might be. To them, it was just another utterly mundane day of taking a kid up the mountain while working the land; nothing had happened. In reality, something probably had occurred. It was just that the Han family adults hadn't known, three-year-old Han Qingyu hadn't known, and Jiang Longchi naturally hadn't known either. As for Chen Buer, he had read Han Qingyu's dossier, and more than once. But after all, he hadn't experienced the events firsthand, and quite some time had passed since then. So when examining it back then, Legion Commander Chen had not noticed anything special about a place like Fenglong'ao. "After that fluctuation, I stayed for another two years. When there wasn't the slightest stir for two years, I finally left." As Jiang Longchi spoke, he suddenly cursed, "Fuck it all, six whole years! After what I spent on food and living, I even saved up a sum of money." So chronologically speaking, it had actually been a very long time since Jiang Longchi left Fenglong'ao. Since then, year after year, nothing had happened in Fenglong'ao. As for this former Azure General Jiang, he roamed freely beneath the heavens. Even after departing, he had never taken off his monk's robes. Whether he was killing people or running a con... just like that, he dashed all over the world. Gradually, he became known to the outside world as "the old monk of the Azure Huaxia Front." "All right, then." Chen Buer gave up pressing the matter. He refilled Jiang Longchi's cup, checked that there was still time, and sat down. "Let me show you something." With that, he pulled a document from the filing cabinet behind him. "What is it?" Jiang Longchi took it and flipped through it, asking directly to save himself the trouble. "Records of anomalous source energy fluctuations across the globe... There are seven on here, one of which occurred in the southwest region of our own Huaxia," Chen Buer said. "Whether they're all the exact same situation as the one we detected back then, I don't know, but at least one thing is identical..." "What?" "Just like yours, nothing was ever found afterward. The scientific research system once thought this might prove source energy truly exists on our Azure planet, but when they conducted on-site surveys, they came up empty all the same." Hearing this, a flicker of regret crossed Jiang Longchi's face. "Oh." "So rein yourself in. These are troubled times, so stop running around recklessly. I'm afraid your memory will get even worse, and next time you won't be able to find your way back." Chen Buer smiled, though a hint of exhaustion lingered in his eyes. "In a bit, come with me to the conference to show your face to the youngsters. After the meeting, I'll introduce a few promising kids for you to meet. If you get the chance, give them some guidance." "That's useless. They might recognize me, but I won't remember them." Jiang Longchi chuckled and looked at Chen Buer. "I'm afraid I won't even remember you soon... old buddy." *** *Does General Jiang of Azure serving as a monk in Houshan Township have any connection to what happened to me?* *Does that 'Yanxiu' mentioned by the small-statured Red Shoulder have anything to do with this either?* Han Qingyu pondered. He couldn't help but dwell on it, because if this was a coincidence, it was far too colossal a coincidence. *But if they actually knew long ago that I possessed extraordinary talent and arranged things deliberately... then hasn't my life over the past ten-plus years been a bit too ordinary?* *Right, when I was twelve or thirteen, I almost died twice, and I didn't see anyone jumping out to help me.* *I can't make heads or tails of this damn thing. Whatever, let's see if that old man comes looking for me. Either way, he can definitely access my information. He gave me my name himself; I refuse to believe he could forget it.* "Hey, Han Qingyu?!" not far off, an unfamiliar face holding an Azure internal newspaper suddenly cocked his head and asked. "Yes, sir." Han Qingyu turned and saluted. "Sir... Good day, Captain." "Good day." The captain returned the salute, then smiled as he approached. "Don't call me that—who knows, you might become my superior officer any day now." He handed the newspaper over. "Just arrived. Take a look for yourself." There was more than one internal newspaper within Azure. The one Han Qingyu now held was considered one of the core publications, its contents broadly divided into international and domestic sections. The piece the captain pointed out to him had been translated from the international edition. The reporter credited was named Ashleia. "Is that... you?!" Wen Jifei leaned in for a look. Han Qingyu nodded. "Yeah." "When did you learn to smoke? Was it posed?" "No, Captain Wei Jiang from White gave me one back then. I just lit it, held it in my mouth, and let it burn down on its own." Han Qingyu felt a stroke of luck, because the accompanying photograph was not a front-facing portrait. The picture showed the night before dawn broke, bathed in cool, pale moonlight. Carrying a battleblade on his back, he sat on a snow slope atop Xilang Peak, his head slightly lowered, a cigarette burned down by two-thirds held between his lips... The overall atmosphere was tinged with weariness amidst desolation and grandeur. It was a profile shot. Due to the lighting, the contours were sharp, but his exact facial features were not very distinct. *This is fine. That female reporter has some sense of boundaries,* Han Qingyu thought as he scanned down to the text. Then, he froze. At the exact moment he froze, Wen Jifei and Yang Qingbai, who had their heads huddled together reading along, cursed in unison, "Holy shit!" "Qingzi, what you said sounds badass!" Yang Qingbai marveled. "Wait, when did you ever say something like that?" Wen Jifei asked suspiciously. Only Rusty Sister looked at Qingzi in confusion. She had been standing not far away at the time; although she hadn't heard clearly, she had a vague impression that Qingzi hadn't said anything of the sort. "I didn't say any of that," Han Qingyu said somewhat helplessly, staring at the printed words. "Then who said it? Can they just make things up in an interview?" Wen Jifei asked. "Yin! Cai! Xin!" Han Qingyu ground his teeth, uttering each word with venom. "What kind of damn... garbage translation is this?!" He remembered clearly that when Ashleia had asked what was going through his mind on the night of the Flag War, his original response had been that he simply wasn't good at many things, so he focused wholeheartedly on doing the one thing he could do well: hacking with his blade. The intended meaning: *I'm just a brute of a warrior with no grand ideas. When trouble hits, I only know how to swing my blade and charge ahead. I didn't have any deep thoughts or mental reflections at all.* Yet now, in the newspaper, likely embellished by the translator, his interview quote had become: [Living in this era named Defense, the only thing I can do is place eternal trust in the Azure battleblade in my hands. No matter how vast the darkness and terror, I shall cleave through it with my blade's edge.] Looking at this, one couldn't say it was entirely fabricated or completely wrong, but one couldn't call it right either. The emotion conveyed by this passage was entirely different from what Han Qingyu had actually intended. "I was terrified of being put on a pedestal!" But it was already too late. Once a newspaper was printed, it certainly didn't stop at a single copy. At that very moment, a crowd of hundreds of young attendees from the Scientific Research division and the Council were walking onto the plaza from outside, heading toward the venue. The young women gathered in groups of three, five, or seven, chattering excitedly as they read the newspaper. "So this is Han Qingyu... 'The Qing'? 'The King'? Foreigners have such funny nicknames for people." "Yeah, too bad it's only a profile, and not even a clear one." "Even a profile looks handsome! I think this photo has an amazing vibe. By the way, do you think he'll attend this conference? Will we see him?" "He has to come! Just look at what he's accomplished over the past six months." "Then how many Azure Guardians will he receive this time? Will there be a Star of Azure among them? Want to make a bet?" "A Star of Azure wouldn't be approved that quickly. If we're betting, we might as well bet on what rank he'll be exceptionally promoted to this time." "..." *Warriors really do look cooler on the battlefield... But I remember he didn't smoke, did he? Did he pick it up recently?* Amid the chatter, one of the girls looked down at the newspaper, lost in thought. Right then, a commotion broke out ahead. Judging by the murmurs, some girls seemed to have spotted Han Qingyu and were trying to confirm it. *Where? Where?* Anxious, the girl quickly turned her head to look, thinking: *Impossible. In a scene like this, if he were really there, he would definitely run away, hah.* Over there, an arm raised into the air. "Qiaoqiao!" Han Qingyu waved, calling out with a smile. "Over here!" "..." *Wait, is he calling me?!* Feeling the gazes of everyone around instantly snap toward her, Xin Yaoqiao was stunned: *Out of so many people, he spotted me in a single glance? And greeted me so warmly?* This didn't match his style in the slightest.