I'm Already the Richest Man, Why Did My System Just Arrive?

Chapter 337: Chapter 194: Sun Chaser

As Xie Luohe finished, her voice turned ethereal, trembling slightly with the bumps of the road. She paused. ”But I... I believed them. I later discovered that seventy percent of the strange phenomena in these legends all seemed to be about... the same person. A person who lived for nearly eight hundred years.”

”Later, I followed that person’s footsteps through history. I traveled thousands of miles, crossing countless mountains and traversing the Great Desert to reach its very end. When I finally arrived, I confirmed that this person had indeed been there and had left behind a distinct legend.”

”It told of a tall man named Zhu who ran barefoot, covering immense distances in a single day, as fast as thunder and lightning. He worshipped the Scorching Sun. He ran toward the sunset, ever westward, running and running. He crossed countless mountains and rivers alone. Finally, atop a steep peak, he grasped the Scorching Sun in his hands... and melted.”

”The people of the Great Desert, isolated from the rest of the world, revered him as a reincarnated Immortal God. They carved stone statues in his image and recorded this bizarre legend in murals, passing it down through the generations.” Xie Luohe’s voice was light and airy. She snuggled into Zheng Xiu’s embrace, her expression serene. It seemed his arms made her feel incredibly safe—or perhaps it was the rhythmic, cloud-like pleasure of bouncing on horseback that she was reluctant to leave.

Xie Luohe shifted slightly, settling into a more comfortable position before continuing, ”The people of the Great Desert call him... the Sun Chaser. They don’t believe Zhu was melted by the Scorching Sun, but rather that he merged with it. So, they worship the Scorching Sun in the sky as Zhu’s Incarnation, a custom that has been passed down to this day.”

Hearing this, Zheng Xiu suddenly cried out, ”I remember now!”

In his excitement, Zheng Xiu tightened his embrace, making Xie Luohe flinch.

”I remember! I remember! A while ago... no, two hundred years in the future... bah, whatever, in your dream! Me and the Monk—your brother...” Zheng Xiu always found the connection bizarre and couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, so he simply plowed ahead. In a single breath, he recounted his and the Monk’s encounter with the ”Centennial Worm,” also known as the ”Cotton Shedding.”

”Back then, that Elder Purifying Witch showed me an ancient tome called the *Chang’an Secret Record*. Besides describing the strange case of the Centennial Worm’s Cotton Shedding, it definitely mentioned the ’Sun Chaser’!”

”So you knew.” Despite her words, Xie Luohe didn’t seem particularly surprised that Zheng Xiu had heard the legend. She nodded. ”Deep in the Great Desert, there’s a place called Richan Valley. It’s next to an oasis, home to a village of about a hundred people. They’re the ones who worship the Sun Chaser, and for centuries, they’ve kept the murals there perfectly preserved. The murals depict... hmm... scenes involving Darkness and Mystics. I want to take you to see them for yourself.”

In Xie Luohe’s original time, the concepts of ”Mystics” and ”Darkness” didn’t exist. But the Xie Luohe of today was not the same one from two hundred years ago; she now understood these things through Feng Bei’s memories.

Zheng Xiu asked curiously, ”Don’t you remember? Can you draw them?”

Xie Luohe pouted. ”I’m not you. Hmph. I can’t.”

”You sure?”

Xie Luohe had tricked him so many times that Zheng Xiu was close to developing ”Xie Luohe-itis”—a condition where he had to doubt every single word she said.

Xie Luohe insisted, ”I can’t. And that’s final.”

Since Xie Luohe was so adamant, Zheng Xiu couldn’t force her to draw. Besides, he had a nagging feeling this wasn’t just a tantrum. The place she spoke of was thousands of miles away, requiring them to cross the entire Great Desert. But if she believed the murals on the cliffs of Richan Valley were that important, Zheng Xiu felt it must be worth the trip. They might even discover something significant.

「In the days that followed.」

The two of them traveled on together.

About a month later, it dawned on Zheng Xiu that he’d been tricked by Xie Luohe yet again.

When they left Li City, Xie Luohe had given every impression that she was about to disappear. But after more than a month of riding, she was still perfectly fine, showing no sign of reverting to Feng Bei.

This only made Zheng Xiu more certain: from now on, he couldn’t even trust half a word she said. Anything more was out of the question.

They had left without any travel money, so Zheng Xiu had to make a living by selling his paintings along the way. Whenever they reached a bustling town, he would assume the identity of ”Gongsun Mo” and paint landscapes, fish, insects, birds, and beasts. Thanks to his superb skill and his imaginative, unrestrained compositions, he earned quite a reputation during their journey west.

In the Danqing Realm, the legend of ”Gongsun Painter” gradually began to spread.

Zheng Xiu would no sooner set up his ”Gongsun” stall in a new place than people, drawn by his fame, would arrive to offer hefty sums for a painting.

Many who came seeking a painting learned of Gongsun Painter’s eccentricity: he would paint landscapes, birds, beasts, fish, and insects—anything but living people. This unique ”quirk” only piqued the curiosity of many wealthy merchants.

Zheng Xiu even ran into a few oafs who tried to force him to paint portraits. In the end, they were all ”persuaded” by Xie Luohe’s fists without causing too much of a scene.

「Time passed.」

Xie Luohe and Zheng Xiu had been journeying west together for a month now.

The weather gradually grew warmer.

It was the season of spring, and life stirred in all things.

April 22nd.

A day that should have been recorded in the annals of history, yet was forgotten.

”Terrible news! Terrible news! The border pass has been breached by the Barbarians! Outside Jade Wolf Pass, General Zheng is leading seven thousand soldiers to hold them off!”