Chapter 714: Absolutely Impossible to Replicate
"Siwei... you..." Gu Yu looked at her with some surprise. "You think so too?"
"In this world... is there a more reasonable explanation than that?" Siwei blinked, already considering the possibilities within my idea. "Could that display screen and the giant bell both be people?"
"That's a bit too outlandish..." Gu Yu paused, stunned. "You're saying... two living people—one turned into a display screen, one into a giant bell...? And they've been standing there for decades?!"
"Yes. And then someone with immense strength 'assembled' them together. That would make everything logical." The more Siwei thought about it, the more convinced she became. "So then... who were the 'bell' and the 'display screen' originally?"
Gu Yu hastily interrupted: "Siwei... are you really going to go along with this hypothesis? Even though 'Fragrance' is supernatural, this situation is far too rare! If someone's Fragrance really could turn them into a 'display screen' or a 'bell,' logically they would transform the moment they activated it. If that were the case... wouldn't Dao City be littered with bells and display screens?"
"Well..."
"Moreover, the distribution of the 'bells' and 'display screens' in Dao City follows a pattern—they are arranged in four groups: east, south, west, and north. Clearly, someone designed the layout in advance." Gu Yu explained seriously to Siwei. "Although Hero's idea is certainly novel, I think the other party must have used some other, more ingenious method to construct those two things..."
"Is there another way...?" Siwei pondered. "If the 'bell' and 'display screen' aren't alive, then how do you explain them functioning for so long...? And the way they operate..."
At that point, Siwei paused slightly and then asked, "What did you say was written on that display screen?"
"I heard the echo," Gu Yu replied.
"Could it be... that 'I heard the echo' and 'I sensed the fragrance' mean the same thing?"
"What...?"
"I mean... could the person standing there be a 'Fragrance user' named 'Lingwen' or 'Lingting'?"
"But... but..." Gu Yu followed Siwei's train of thought for a while, but still found it a stretch. "According to you, only one person would need to be standing there... Then who is the 'giant bell'? Why would two people be needed there?"
Her question plunged Siwei back into silence. The two debated for a long time without reaching a conclusion.
Siwei suggested that during roll call the next morning, they first tally up Fragrance users with similar abilities to see if they could replicate a similar device based on existing capabilities.
Gu Yu, meanwhile, would be responsible for maintaining the stability of the entire family. He would find ways to unite everyone so that they would worship only me.
Watching them busy every day, I often felt a little uneasy.
As the "Hero"... what should I actually do?
The next day, Siwei and Gu Yu compiled many Fragrance users' abilities, but things didn't look optimistic.
"Siwei, after removing two hundred and nine support-type, one hundred and twenty-six self-enhancement type, seventy-plus illusion-type, and forty-plus combat-type, the number of 'creation-type' Fragrance users is at most twenty-some. But most of their creation-type Fragrances are fixed constructs—they can't freely create shapes. Right now, only abilities like 'Strong Sand,' 'Soft Mud,' 'Ice,' and 'Crystal' are barely in the ballpark..."
Siwei's expression turned heavy. She thought for a long moment, then said, "It sounds like we could create something like 'cement'... but will that actually work? After listing all these abilities, I finally understand just how absurd that display screen really is..."
"Yes," Gu Yu nodded. "Not to mention anything else, a display screen needs at least a cathode ray tube and a chip. The cathode ray tube requires large amounts of glass and phosphors, and the chip needs silicon and heavy metals. To build a giant bell, you'd need huge quantities of copper ore... And that's just obtaining the raw materials. Then you have to combine those wildly imaginative components into something that actually functions... and keep it running for years on end. It's an incredibly mind-boggling feat."
"So at first, you thought this wasn't 'Fragrance' but some kind of 'technology'..."
"Exactly." Gu Yu said gravely. "Siwei, it's not that I don't believe in the power of 'Fragrance,' but the difficulty is too high. Take Sister Fang's 'Ice' for example—she can only conjure up a small pile of ice cubes when she's in good condition. Think about it... if I told her, 'I need you to produce an ice giant bell,' or 'I need enough ice to build a giant bell'..."
"Yes, that's too ridiculous—it defies common sense." Siwei nodded. "Then... could there be another possibility?"
"What?"
"That the person who built the display screen and the giant bell didn't use created materials, but instead sourced them locally...?"
"You mean..." Gu Yu thought it over. "That person directly used materials from the city?"
"Mm!" Siwei nodded. "There are plenty of chips and circuits left in the city's buildings, aren't there? Could that person have just taken them directly?"
"That question stumps me," Gu Yu said. "I've never paid attention to whether the old televisions in Dao City's buildings have been dismantled... But even so, that doesn't work; the workload would still be enormous... It would require at least a large group of people to help transport the materials. And the giant bell is even more absurd. A bell the size of those in temples easily weighs over ten tons. If they were sourcing locally, how many people would it take to collect enough copper? And it's not just one set—there are four sets of such exaggerated display screens and giant bells, quadrupling the materials! Without any transportation or machinery, the workload is like building the Great Wall—the difficulty is unimaginable."
Siwei's face darkened as she listened. "So... Hero little brother still can't be liberated."
After all these days, I finally seemed to understand what they were worried about. They wanted to save me, but I didn't need saving.
They probably didn't know how I felt... For the first time since I was born, I was needed by so many people.
I was willing to do anything for the sake of that feeling of being needed.
I just didn't want Gu Yu and Siwei to work so hard for this.
"Don't give up entirely..." Gu Yu sighed. "I'll first have them try to make something like a signboard... If that doesn't work, we can arrange for someone to hand-write messages and erase them every day. At least we can lighten Hero's burden a little..."
"Brother, Sister." I interrupted them.
"What is it?" Siwei looked at me.
"I think you're overlooking a key issue."
"What issue?" Gu Yu asked.
"No matter what we build... it won't be alive." I said softly. "I'm the one who senses the 'Fragrance' in my own body. But in that city, it's the display screen that senses the 'Fragrance'."