Morning sunlight struck the golden glazed tiles of the Eastern Palace in Sky-Crown City. High above the inner imperial walls, white cranes circled through the cold autumn mist, their cries echoing across the marble courtyards of the Great Qian Royal Capital.
Inside the velvet-curtained bedchamber of the Eastern Palace, Second Prince Qian Ye snapped his eyes open.
For a split second, his pupils dilated with the phantom heat of a burning continent. In his mind’s eye, he still heard the screams of ten million Great Qian citizens—soldiers, mothers, and crying children—being melted alive inside his thirty-six-prefecture Blood-Sacrifice Array eighty years in the future. He had burned an entire kingdom’s blood to propel himself into the Upper Realm, only to perish during an astral lightning tribulation and wake up back in his eighteen-year-old body.
Qian Ye let out a slow breath and wiped a bead of cold sweat from his temple. There was not a shred of guilt on his handsome, pale face.
“Ten million mortals were nothing more than firewood,” Qian Ye murmured to the empty room, his voice smooth and icy as winter glass. “In my first life, I started building my foundation too late and wasted years fighting my mediocre brothers. This time, every secret vein, every ancient ruin, and every future genius in Great Qian belongs to me before the board is even set.”
He lifted his right hand. Around his wrist, invisible to mortal eyes, a golden ring of stolen destiny—his [100-Year Regressor Halo: 100%]—hummed with steady power.
Sitting up on the carved dragon-wood bed, Qian Ye closed his eyes halfway and reviewed the mental ledger he had written in his own soul-blood.
First on today’s schedule: at 10:15 AM sharp, a blind country peddler at Stall #44 in Black-Market Stone Gambling Alley would put out an uncut gray granite footstool rock for ten copper coins. Nobody in Sky-Crown City knew that beneath three inches of dead granite crust lay a fist-sized core of [Rank 4 Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow].
In his previous life, a lucky wandering martial artist had bought that footstool rock, absorbed the Dragon Marrow. Broken straight into Rank 4 Qi Gathering before becoming a thorn in the royal family’s side.
“With the Royal Brothers’ Tournament only two months away. That Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow will wash my meridians today and push me straight to the threshold of Rank 4 Immortal cultivation,” Qian Ye whispered. A cold smirk curling the corner of his mouth.
“And in nine days, the Blood-Surgeon Guild in Coffin Alley will deliver the Innate Sword Heart and Sword Eyes of that ten-year-old slum rat Ye Xiao.”
Just as Qian Ye swung his legs off the bed, a shrill, metallic whistle tore across the northern horizon.
WHOOSH-BOOM!
High above the Eastern Palace eaves, a jagged bolt of blood-red light slammed into the palace’s outer spirit-shield, bursting into a burning crimson flare shaped like a broken iron chain.
Outside the bedchamber doors, hurried footsteps clattered across the polished flagstones. Palace Steward Liu burst into the outer parlor and threw himself flat on his knees, his forehead thumping against the carpet.
“Your Highness! Urgent border alarm from Red-Maple Pass!” Steward Liu stammered, his plump shoulders shaking.
“Captain Hu’s life-linked communication tally was just crushed to powder!
The pass blockade has fallen!”
Qian Ye didn’t even pause as he buttoned his black brocade inner tunic. He walked calmly to the washbasin, dipped his hands in warm scented water, and dried his fingers on a white silk towel.
“Let me guess,” Qian Ye said, his voice flat and unhurried. “Envoy Zhao hasn’t sent a single carrier hawk from Azure-Cloud Prefecture since yesterday noon either.”
Steward Liu’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with shock. “Your Highness... how did you know?!
The War Ministry pigeon post hasn’t even arrived yet! I only just learned from the watchtower that Envoy Zhao’s midnight check-in missed its bell!”
“Envoy Zhao is greedy and loud,” Qian Ye said coldly, looking at his reflection in the bronze mirror. “I sent him to Azure-Cloud Prefecture to collect Lin Fan’s report and bring back the Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin. Since Lin Fan’s luck-seed went dark last week and Captain Hu’s border chain just snapped at Red-Maple Pass.
Someone from Azure-Cloud has captured or killed Envoy Zhao and is marching straight toward Sky-Crown City right now.”
Steward Liu pressed his forehead back to the floor, trembling at the Second Prince’s terrifying omniscience. For the past month, ever since His Highness woke from a brief fever, the Second Prince had predicted everything from court impeachments to sudden rainstorms down to the quarter-hour. Reading the empire’s future as though the gods themselves whispered tomorrow’s script directly into his ear.
“Shall I ask the Capital Garrison to send five thousand cavalry to Red-Maple Pass, Your Highness?” Steward Liu asked breathlessly.
“Waste of horse feed,” Qian Ye said, striding over to his weapon rack and strapping a slender Rank 3 spirit-steel saber to his waist. “Red-Maple Pass is fifty miles north, and whoever broke through Captain Hu’s two hundred armored guards in under ten breaths has a high-speed spirit carriage. By the time cavalry rides halfway there, our guests will already be knocking on the capital gates.”
Qian Ye raised two fingers toward the dark corner ceiling of his bedchamber.
“Shadow-Commander Crow.”
A ripple of black smoke detached itself from the ceiling beam. A tall, gaunt man in a feathered black mask dropped silently to one knee on the carpet, his Rank 3 Late aura sharp as an assassin’s stiletto.
“Your Highness,” Shadow-Commander Crow rasped.
“Take fifty Night-Crow scouts and lock down all eight gates of Sky-Crown City immediately,” Qian Ye ordered, fastening a heavy black silk cloak over his shoulders to hide his royal robe. “Check every wagon axle and every horse brand. If any carriage bearing an Azure-Cloud Prefecture license plate approaches the outer moat, seize the passengers alive and bring the Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin to my study.”
“As Your Highness commands!” Shadow-Commander Crow vanished through the window in a blur of black feathers.
“Your Highness, shouldn’t you remain inside the Eastern Palace until the border intruders are caught?” Steward Liu asked nervously, trotting after the prince with an umbrella. “What if they are desperate assassins hired by First Prince Qian Ba?”
“Assassins don’t smash border blockades at noon,” Qian Ye sneered, checking the bronze water-clock in the corridor. The brass needle stood at 9:45 AM. “Besides, I have a ten-copper appointment in the Outer Ward at 10:15 AM that is worth more than ten Envoy Zhaos.
Keep the study locked until I return.”
While Second Prince Qian Ye stepped into his unmarked palanquin and headed south toward Black-Market Stone Gambling Alley. Three miles away at the bustling South Gate of Sky-Crown City, Shadow-Commander Crow’s lockdown order was just arriving.
Twenty armored gate guards hurriedly unrolled a painted scroll showing a bronze Azure-Cloud Prefecture license plate, shouting for all incoming country carts to line up in the mud for axle checks.
Fifty yards back from the checkpoint, parked behind a willow grove, Gu Changsheng tapped his chin as he looked out the front window of the [Rank 3 Spring-Shock Luxury Caravan].
“Looks like Captain Hu’s broken belt buckle sent a telegram after all,” Gu Changsheng said dryly. “They’re checking for Azure-Cloud plates at the main gate.”
In the original novel, Second Prince Qian Ye was famous for acting like an all-knowing chess grandmaster, Gu Changsheng thought, flipping open [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] on the kitchen counter. He knows we broke Red-Maple Pass, so he locked the gates to catch an Azure-Cloud wagon. Too bad his ‘hundred-year memory’ doesn’t include what happens when his own royal envoy is pulling our cabbage cart.
“Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng called out. “Flip the front license plate over.”
“Right away, Third Young Master!” Grandpa Fu pulled a brass lever beside the driver’s brake. With a neat clack, the bronze Azure-Cloud license plate rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, displaying the gold-stamped [Eastern Palace Special Tribute Envoy] plate they had unscrewed from Envoy Zhao’s broken flying disk yesterday.
Next, Gu Changsheng leaned out the side window and tapped the handle of his [Iron Wok Spatula] against the wooden rail.
“Envoy Zhao,” Gu Changsheng said. “Take off the pink apron for two minutes, put your royal jade tally on your forehead. Go tell those South Gate guards that anybody who delays Second Prince Qian Ye’s morning herb cart gets thirty lashes.”
Behind the caravan, Envoy Zhao’s eyes lit up at the chance to take off the pink duck. Apron—until he felt Gu Changsheng loop an invisible thread of Rank 3 Peak internal qi around his ankle.
“And don’t get any funny ideas about winking at the guards,” Gu Changsheng added casually, stirring the clay pot of pork ribs on the stove. “My spatula travels faster than their crossbows, and you still have eight teeth left on the bottom row.”
Envoy Zhao shuddered, nodded ten times in a row, and marched up to the South Gate VIP lane holding his Eastern Palace gold tally high in the air.
“Clear the VIP archway!” Envoy Zhao barked through his missing front teeth, glaring furiously at the trembling gate captain. “Eastern Palace special alchemy delivery!
If His Highness’s morning cauldron cools down by one degree, I’ll have your boots nailed to the city wall!”
The South Gate Captain took one look at the authentic Eastern Palace gold tally—and Envoy Zhao’s terrifyingly bruised face—and nearly broke his own waist bowing. “Open the royal lane! Let Envoy Zhao’s carriage straight through without inspection!”
Thirty seconds later, the [Rank 3 Spring-Shock Luxury Caravan] glided smoothly through the VIP gate archway while Shadow-Commander Crow’s scouts were still busy turning over hay carts in the commoner lane fifty feet away.
Inside the cabin, nine-year-old Gu Nian and seven-year-old Su Nuannuan pressed their faces to the tinted window glass, marveling at the towering five-story restaurants, fluttering silk banners, and bustling avenues of Sky-Crown City.
“Dad, the streets here are wider than our whole square in Frost-Pine Town,” Gu Nian whispered, his hand resting on his yellow schoolbag. “Is Big Brother Ye Xiao really living in a city this big?”
“The bigger the lamps on the main street, the darker the alleys behind them, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng said, checking his mental map and the clock tower chime. It was 9:55 AM. “Coffin Alley is in the South Ward slums, and Qian Ye’s surgeons aren’t scheduled to move until tomorrow night.
Before we go scout the slums, Dad promised you kids a morning snack—and Second Prince Qian Ye is generously donating the soup stock.”
“Dragon-marrow soup!” Su Nuannuan cheered softly, hugging her pink watering can as her Darkening ticked down another point from 6% to 5%, while Gu Nian’s settled from 8% to 6%.
Gu Changsheng steered the caravan down a narrow side lane behind the bustling Black-Market Stone Gambling Alley, parking right beside a low brick wall thirty paces from Stall #44.
Up on the spice rack, Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] hopped up and down excitedly as he sensed the spiritual fluctuations coming from the stalls across the alley. “Brother Gu! Your spoiler book didn’t lie!
Right under that blind peddler’s wooden sandal at Stall #44, there’s a chunk of unrefined Rank 4 Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow sealed inside a gray granite shell! If we boil that marrow with white winter radishes and pork ribs, one bowl will wash the kids’ meridians like liquid sunlight!”
“Keep the clay pot at a rolling boil, Auntie Qin,” Gu Changsheng said. Turning up the Earth-Fire stove so a thick, fragrant cloud of pork-rib and white-radish steam billowed out of the caravan’s brass chimney and drifted straight across Stall #44. “Nian’er, Nuannuan, grab three copper coins and a hot roasted sweet potato from the oven.
We have fifteen minutes before our ‘prophet’ prince shows up.”
Meanwhile, at the northern archway of Black-Market Stone Gambling Alley, Second Prince Qian Ye stepped out of his unmarked palanquin accompanied by Palace Steward Liu.
The alley was packed with shouting stone merchants, wealthy appraisers holding magnifying loupes, and sparks flying from iron stone-cutting wheels.
“Wait here by the arch, Liu,” Qian Ye said, pulling the hood of his black silk cloak low over his brow as a smug smile touched his lips. “Watch closely. In ten minutes, I will walk out of Stall #44 with a Rank 4 treasure that the greatest appraisers in this city walked right past.”
“Your Highness’s heavenly eye sees through all things!” Steward Liu whispered in reverent awe, bowing low as he watched his master stride into the dusty stone market.
Qian Ye walked with measured, aristocratic grace, counting the stalls as he went. Stall #38... Stall #40...
Stall #42...
Then, fifty yards short of Stall #44, Qian Ye stopped dead on the cobblestones.
His refined nose twitched once. Then twice.
Instead of the dry, chalky smell of granite dust and iron saws that he remembered from his past life. A warm, ridiculously rich cloud of steam rolled down the alley and hit him square in the face.
It smelled of slow-simmered pork ribs, sweet winter white radish, bruised ginger, and sizzling Earth-Fire bone marrow.
Qian Ye blinked under his black hood, his footsteps freezing on the stone pavement.
What is that smell? Qian Ye frowned sharply, his 100% Regressor Halo giving a tiny, uneasy flicker around his wrist. *Stall #44 is supposed to be a freezing stone corner run by Old Blind Sun!
Why does it smell like someone brought a five-star soup kitchen to my Dragon Marrow stall fifteen minutes early?!*