At 10:15 AM on the dot, Second Prince Qian Ye strode up to the frayed hemp tarp of Stall #44 in his hooded black silk cloak.
He had pushed his way past thirty shouting stone gamblers at the end of the lane, his nostrils still twitching at the rich. Mouth-watering aroma of white winter radish and pork-rib broth hanging in the air.
Some idiot set up a food cart near the stone stalls, Qian Ye thought coldly, forcing his heart rate to slow down. *It doesn’t matter. Nobody in Great Qian knows the secret of the five-layer meteoric iron shell except me.
As long as Old Blind Sun is still sitting on his stool, the Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow is mine.*
Without looking at the stunned crowd gathered twenty paces down the street around a parked cedar caravan, Qian Ye stepped right up to Old Blind Sun’s bamboo counter.
He reached into his sleeve, pulled out ten dull copper coins, and tossed them onto the wooden board with a crisp, arrogant clatter.
“Old man,” Qian Ye said, his voice cool and commanding beneath his black hood. “I’m buying the dirty gray granite footstool under your left sandal. Keep the ten coppers.
You don’t need to wrap it.”
Old Blind Sun paused mid-bite on his steaming, honey-glazed sweet potato. He tilted his wrinkled face up toward the hooded youth, his milky-white blind eyes blinking in surprise.
“My granite footstool?” Old Blind Sun beamed with a wide, toothless grin, wiping a drop of caramelized sweet-potato syrup from his chin. “Aiya, young customer, you’re fifteen minutes too late!
What is it with rich young masters and my dirty ditch-rock today?”
Inside his black cloak, Second Prince Qian Ye’s fingers stiffened.
The ambient noise of the market seemed to vanish from his ears. A cold, suffocating silence pressed against his eardrums.
“What did you just say?” Qian Ye asked softly, each word dropping ten degrees in temperature.
“I said someone already bought it!” Old Blind Sun chuckled happily, patting the warm earthenware soup bowl sitting beside his knee. “Right when the ten o’clock drum sounded, a kind-hearted father came by with his two adorable little kids.
He gave me a bowl of knee-warming mutton medicine, ten silver taels of charity so I wouldn’t get robbed by Master Cui.
Bought that old gray footstool for three copper coins and this roasted sweet potato!”
Qian Ye’s breath caught in his throat.
Three copper coins and a roasted sweet potato?!
In his previous life, that stone had sat untouched until 10:15 AM! He had verified the date, the hour, and the exact stall number ten times before leaving the Eastern Palace!
“Where did he go?!” Qian Ye’s hand shot out and gripped the edge of the bamboo counter so hard the wood cracked under his gloved fingers. “Which gate did he take?!
Describe his face!”
“Take a breath, young man, he didn’t go to any gate!” Old Blind Sun pointed his bamboo walking stick fifty paces down the alley toward the side lane corner. A cloud of golden, fragrant steam was rising from the open window of a sleek cedar caravan.
“He didn’t even leave the alley!
He tapped my footstool open right over there and dropped the insides into his soup pot!”
He dropped the insides... into his soup pot?!
After all of two lifetimes, the hundred-year Regressor’s icy composure shattered completely.
Qian Ye spun on his heel and sprinted fifty paces down the cobblestones so fast his black silk cloak snapped like a whip behind him. Palace Steward Liu, who had just caught up at the alley entrance, hiked up his robes and wheezed in panic as he chased after his master.
Around the parked [Rank 3 Spring-Shock Luxury Caravan], thirty stone gamblers and appraisers were still standing like wooden statues, their eyes glued to the open kitchen window.
On the cobblestone ground beside the wagon wheel lay the two split halves of the gray granite footstool rock—their five inner layers of meteoric iron still warm. Shimmering with tiny flecks of residual golden dust.
Qian Ye skidded to a halt beside the split rock. His pupils shrank to pinpricks.
The shell was empty.
The fist-sized core of [Rank 4 Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow]—the supreme fire-attribute heaven-and-earth treasure that was supposed to wash his mortal meridians and carry him to first place in the Royal Brothers’ Tournament—was gone!
“Where is it?!” Qian Ye’s voice cracked as his head snapped up toward the caravan window.
Inside the warm cedar cabin, Gu Changsheng was wiping his hands on a clean kitchen towel while Auntie Qin ladled a small side bowl of tender white radish slices for seven-year-old Su Nuannuan.
Sitting right by the open window, nine-year-old Gu Nian—wearing a bright yellow bunny bib over his cotton. Tunic so he wouldn’t splash grease on his clothes—was holding the two-handled clay soup pot with both hands.
The boy had already eaten the pork ribs. Now, with his cheeks puffed out, Gu Nian tilted the warm clay pot back. Gulped down the very last golden drop of the [Rank 4 Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow Rib Broth] right in front of Second Prince Qian Ye’s eyes!
Gulp. Gulp. Ahhhh.
Gu Nian lowered the empty clay pot, wiped a golden droplet of broth off his upper lip with the back of his wrist, and let out a polite, satisfied little burp.
Hic—PUFF!
A tiny, translucent ring of pure golden Nine-Yang Dragon Fire popped out of the nine-year-old boy’s mouth. Floating three feet out the window before dissolving into warm spring sunlight right in front of Qian Ye’s nose!
Inside Gu Nian’s small body, a deep, resonant rumble echoed through his bones and meridians like a waking volcano. Guided by the gentle white winter radish and pork collagen, the domineering Rank 4 Dragon Marrow didn’t burn a single blood vessel. Instead, it washed every trace of childhood frailty out of his limbs, igniting his internal qi into a roaring golden furnace.
BOOM!
A crisp martial shockwave rippled smoothly under Gu Nian’s yellow bunny bib. Without a single bead of sweat, the nine-year-old boy broke straight through from Rank 3 Early into Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster!
“Dad,” Gu Nian said, blinking his bright eyes as he flexed his small right fist and set the empty clay pot on the sill. “My stomach feels like a warm stove. I think I can lift two spirit-oxen now.”
“Don’t lift the oxen while they’re hitched,” Gu Changsheng said mildly, reaching over to pat his son’s head and straighten the ears on his yellow bunny bib. “Go wash your bowl in the sink, Nian’er. If you leave dragon-marrow grease on the clay overnight, Grandpa Fu will lecture us both.”
Outside on the cobblestones, Second Prince Qian Ye stood frozen like a man struck by summer lightning.
He stared at the nine-year-old boy in the yellow bunny bib. Then he stared at the empty clay pot. Then he inhaled the lingering, unmistakable scent of boiled Rank 4 Nine-Yang Dragon Marrow mixed with garlic, scallions, and five-spice pork ribs.
He boiled it, Qian Ye’s mind screamed, a red haze of disbelief flooding his vision. *That’s a Rank 4 Immortal catalyst! Even in the Eastern Palace, I would have needed three Royal Alchemists, seven days of fasting, and an ice-jade cauldron to refine that Dragon Marrow into pills!
And this lunatic threw the raw core into a clay pot with pig ribs and fed the whole thing to a nine-year-old child for morning tea?!*
Ten feet away, still kneeling on the cobblestones with his broken folding fan in his hand, portly stone appraiser Master Cui recognized the gold-threaded boots peeking out from under Qian Ye’s black cloak.
Thinking this was his chance to curry favor with the grieving royal heir, Master Cui crawled three steps closer on his knees and pointed a trembling fat finger at the caravan window.
“Y-Your Highness Second Prince!” Master Cui squeaked loudly in front of the entire alley. “That country bumpkin boiled the whole pound of Dragon Marrow into pork soup!
His kid just drank the last drop!
Shall... shall this lowly Cui spend fifty silver taels to buy the empty clay pot for Your Highness, so Your Highness can scrape the grease off the bottom and lick it?!”
Every stone gambler in the alley sucked in a cold breath and took three steps back.
Under his black hood, Second Prince Qian Ye’s face turned from pale white to iron-green, and then to bruise-purple.
Lick the bottom of a child’s pork-rib pot for fifty silvers?!
“Shut your mouth, Cui,” Qian Ye whispered.
At that exact moment, an invisible, glass-like CRACK echoed inside Qian Ye’s soul.
Because his #1 scripted foundation treasure had been intercepted, boiled, and digested by one of the destined world-ending bosses he was trying to suppress, the cosmic destiny engine supporting his regression violently misfired.
[WARNING! TARGET ‘SECOND PRINCE QIAN YE’ SUFFERED MAJOR SCRIPT BACKLASH!]
[Qian Ye’s 100-Year Regressor Halo: 100% -> 94% (-6% Stolen Destiny Refunded!)]
[Gu Nian Breakthrough Confirmed: Rank 3 Early -> Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster!]
[Gu Nian Darkening: 4% -> 3% | Su Nuannuan Darkening: 4% -> 3%]
[Daily Income: +680,000 -> +760,000 DP/day!]
A sharp, stabbing pain seized the center of Qian Ye’s chest, as if an iron hand had reached into his dantian and ripped away six years of stolen luck. Blood rushed into the back of his throat. His fingers spasmed against the hilt of his concealed saber.
For two heartbeats, murderous fury urged Qian Ye to draw his blade, summon his palace guards, and slaughter everyone in Black-Market Stone Gambling Alley right here in broad daylight.
Then, with terrifying willpower forged over a hundred years of cutthroat royal survival, Qian Ye swallowed the mouthful of blood back down his throat.
He didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t scream or throw a tantrum like a common young master.
Instead, his cold, narrow eyes locked onto Gu Changsheng’s calm face framed in the caravan window, then dropped to the golden Eastern Palace tribute plate bolted to the front of the wagon. Captured Envoy Zhao was hiding behind a stack of cabbages in a pink apron.
Envoy Zhao didn’t die at Red-Maple Pass, Qian Ye deduced instantly, a chill running down his spine. This man captured my Half-Step Rank 4 envoy alive, turned him into a luggage puller, bypassed Shadow-Commander Crow’s gate lockdown, and arrived at Stall #44 fifteen minutes before my past-life memory.
Does he also carry memories of the future? Or is he a hidden chess piece planted by First Prince Qian Ba or the Immortal Sects?
Gu Changsheng met the hooded prince’s icy stare from across the counter, holding a warm teacup in one hand.
“Something on your mind, young man?” Gu Changsheng asked politely. “The soup is sold out for today, and the empty pot isn’t for sale.
My son still needs it for dinner.”
Qian Ye’s jaw muscles flexed once. Without uttering a single threat in front of the crowd, the Second Prince pulled his black hood lower over his eyes, turned smoothly on his heel. Walked back up the alley into the shadow of his waiting palanquin.
“Steward Liu,” Qian Ye’s icy whisper drifted back as he stepped into the carriage. “Do not send the city guards after that wagon. Tell Broker Lai in the South Ward Housing Bureau that if a family with two children and an ox-caravan comes looking to rent a courtyard today.
He is to put them into the haunted Willow-Breeze Estate—and inform Deputy Appraiser Zhou at the Royal Treasure Pavilion to move Lot #19 into the back vault immediately.”
Back inside the [Rank 3 Spring-Shock Luxury Caravan], Gu Changsheng watched the unmarked palanquin disappear around the corner.
See? That’s why a hundred-year Regressor is ten times more annoying than a brainless ring-grandpa brat like Lin Fan, Gu Changsheng thought dryly, setting his teacup down. *He took a six-percent Halo hit right in the chest, swallowed his own blood without blinking.
Walked away to change his traps instead of starting a street brawl he wasn’t sure he could win.*
Right on cue, a sharp HISSSS of black smoke rose from the spice rack beside the stove.
[Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] flipped open by itself. The neat black paragraphs on the next three pages—which had originally detailed Qian Ye meditating in his palace for three days. Attending the afternoon Royal Auction—suddenly blurred, twisted, and smudged into unreadable gray ink blobs!
Across the top of the smudged pages, a flashing red system banner stamped itself into the paper:.
[ALERT! FOREKNOWLEDGE DECAY: 15%!]
[Cause: Target ‘Second Prince Qian Ye’ (100-Year Regressor) has deduced that an unknown rival knows his timeline!]
[Script Deviation Warning: Target Qian Ye is actively abandoning his original past-life schedule, relocating the Royal Auction’s ‘Rank 4 Medicine King Furnace’ ahead of time, and setting unscripted counter-traps across Sky-Crown City!]