Chapter 3: Before Awakening
The next two years passed quietly.
At least, they looked quiet from the outside.
To the attendants serving in the crown prince residence, Renyu was simply the child Xue Qinghe had taken a liking to. A reading attendant in name, a shadow at the prince side in practice. He no longer lived among the servant children. His room had been moved closer, his routines adjusted, his presence normalized so thoroughly that even gossip began to lose interest.
At first, that had only made people more cautious around him.
Later, it made them treat it as natural.
That was how things in a palace became—when the unusual was allowed to settle long enough that no one questioned it anymore.
Renyu spent his mornings learning letters, numbers, court etiquette, geography, spirit beast records, noble lineages, and anything else Qian Renxue deemed useful. His afternoons belonged to the library. His evenings varied: sometimes calligraphy, sometimes memory drills, sometimes quiet meals taken in Xue Qinghe's inner rooms where attendants came and went without daring to look too closely.
Every morning she will brought Renyu together for training. Even though, Renyu can be said too young, she force Renyu to join her in training especially in hand to hand combat.
In public, he bowed and called her Your Highness.
In private, when the doors were shut and no one listened at the walls, he called her Sister.
The first time he did, he stumbled over the word.
Qian Renxue had looked up from the document she was reading, one pale brow lifting slightly as if amused by his discomfort.
"Well?" she had asked.
He had looked anywhere but at her. "...Sister."
That earned him a small smile.
Not the crown prince smile.
Her smile.
After that, the word became easier.
Everything else did too.
She corrected his reading less and challenged his thinking more. She began leaving the easier books untouched and instead watched which shelves drew him in on his own. Military records. Spirit beast anatomy. Notes on medicinal compounds. Old travel journals from merchants and wandering soul masters.
"You prefer practical things," she said once.
Renyu did not look up from the page. "Stories are practical too."
"Oh?"
"They tell you what people believe." He turned a page. "That matters."
That had made her still for a second.
Then she leaned back in her chair and said, "Good answer."
It was around then that he found the mention of whale glue. Then he also remember some from the past live about it.
The note itself was brief—a passing line in an old record about rare body-strengthening materials collected from sea soul beasts. Another mention appeared in a trading ledger. A third in a physician's copied notes, though there it was dismissed as a tonic with indecent side effects and no proper scholarly worth.
That was what caught his attention.
Too many sources mentioned it for something useless.
So he kept reading.
One record called it precious.
Another called it wastefully consumed.
A third noted that most buyers cared more for its reputation than its preparation.
He brought the matter up in the library one rainy afternoon.
Qian Renxue was seated beside the window, sorting copied intelligence reports into separate piles while he sat cross-legged with three books open around him. Thunder muttered beyond the palace roofs, low and distant.
"Sister," he said.
She did not look up immediately. "Mm?"
"I think people are using whale glue the wrong way."
That made her pause.
Only then did she lift her head.
Renyu turned the nearest book toward her, finger pressing lightly against a line of cramped characters.
"It appears in medicinal notes and beast-product ledgers, but the descriptions don't match how people talk about it." He hesitated, organizing the thought. "Or rather... they do match. Too well."
Her eyes moved from the page to his face.
"Explain."
Renyu sat up straighter.
"They describe the side effects more than the result. That means most people judge it after crude use." He tapped the passage again. "But this line says it reacts strongly to heat. And this one implies improper consumption ruins most of its value."
Qian Renxue reached over and took the book. She scanned the line once, then set it aside and waited.
Renyu knew that look.
It meant. Continue. Carefully.
"I think it's being treated like a stimulant because no one is processing it properly first," he said. "But if its real value is locked inside the material itself, then maybe the common method is wrong. Maybe it needs to be fully melted before use."
Silence followed.
Rain struck the roof in a steady hush.
Qian Renxue rested one hand against her cheek and regarded him with that unreadable calm she wore when something had begun to interest her.
"And if you're right?" she asked.
Renyu lowered his eyes to the books again. "Then it may strengthen the body far more effectively than people realize."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I learn something that this is a failure."
The corner of her mouth curved.
She liked that answer.
Not because it was bold, but because it was honest.
"You want to test it," she said.
It was not a question.
Renyu nodded.
Qian Renxue said nothing for several breaths.
Outside, the rain grew harder.
At last she set the book down with quiet precision and asked, "How much do you need?"
Renyu looked up.
No refusal.
No reprimand for childish curiosity.
Only that.
He had already begun estimating in his head. "A small amount first. Enough to compare. And someone trustworthy to prepare the heat properly."
Qian Renxue's fingers tapped once against the table.
"I'll arrange it."
That was all.
No lecture about risk. No demand that he justify himself further. No visible surprise that a child not yet six wanted to conduct an experiment from library scraps and half-forgotten notes.
She simply accepted it as the sort of thing he would do. It like she knows that the kid will ask this.
Renyu should have found that concerning.
Instead, he found it reassuring.
"Sister," he said after a pause, "if it works—"
"It will not be published."
The interruption was immediate.
Flat. Final.
He stilled.
Qian Renxue gaze did not change, but the air in the room seemed to narrow.
"If it works," she repeated, "then the result remains in this residence. No scholars. No physicians. No court records. No one hears of it unless I permit it."
Renyu understood at once.
A body-strengthening secret was not just medicine. In the hands of the Spirit Hall, or the Heaven Dou court, or any powerful clan, it could become leverage.
He nodded.
"I understand."
Her expression eased.
"Good."
The matter proceeded after that with startling simplicity.
A sample of whale glue appeared within ten days, delivered not through ordinary servants but through one of the discreet channels Qian Renxue reserved for things no one else was meant to notice. It came sealed in a lacquered box, wrapped twice over, accompanied by no written label at all.
Renyu examined it under her supervision.
The smell was strong. The texture unpleasant. At first glance, it was easy to see why crude users had reduced it to rumor and appetite.
He almost dismissed it on instinct.
Then Qian Renxue said, "Continue."
So he did. He remember the method that Douluo fan compile before, but he did not remember the exact heat that need to be use. He only know that it need to be melt, but how melt it need to be? And how high the temperature need to be?
The first trial failed.
The failure was record and the temperature was taken.
The second nearly burned. The maximum temperature then was record.
The third produced a foul-smelling paste that made even him regret having eyes.
Qian Renxue watched all of it without comment.
Not once did she ask whether the time would have been better spent on proper studies. Not once did she mock the absurdity of a child standing over a specialized heating vessel with the seriousness of a court alchemist.
She only ensured that nothing left the room and no one outside the trusted inner circle learned what they were doing.
On the thirteenth attempt, the glue finally show changed.
Not softened.
But melted closer to the one that he remember the description.
Then he continue the attempt.
Heat. Temperature. Time. Constant.
Everything was taken into account, like he remember where he stay in the lab trying to get proper result before this life.
Its texture turned uniform under controlled heat, impurities separating in a way the earlier notes had implied but never explained outright. The resulting preparation smelled different too—cleaner, sharper, less foul.
Renyu stared at it for a long moment.
Then he looked up.
Qian Renxue was already watching him.
"Well?" she asked.
He swallowed.
"I think this is it."
She inclined her head once.
"Then we proceed carefully."
The result was real.
Taken properly, the processed whale glue did not merely produce heat and agitation. It nourished the body. Slowly, measurably. Not enough to turn a weak person into a powerhouse overnight, but enough that someone still growing could build upon it.
It was not a miracle.
But it was important.
The person who take this not only will increase their physique but will also increase the amount of spirit ring he can absorb.
The stronger the body, the stronger the years of spirit ring that can be absorb. Then, he might be able to absorb a thousand years old for the first ring.
Imagining make him felt a chuckle and smile escape his lips.
And because it was important, Qian Renxue buried it.
No record of the method remained outside her private keeping. No servant involved in the handling knew the full process. No visible changes were allowed to invite suspicion. Even Renyu use of it was measured, spaced, and concealed beneath ordinary routines of food, rest, stretching, and the quiet physical exercises she had already begun teaching him.
Of course, Qian Renxue also take it. It did not give too much different as she already a soul ancestor and a little more to reach soul king. But who will reject the abilities to absorb higher ring age.
Even the validation of using ordinary people to confirm whether a person able to increase the amount of the years they can absorb was done secretly by finding a place far away.
This was done using the channel that Qian Renxue only can access. But Renyu know that it might be the title douluo that follow Qian Renxue name Snake Lance Douluo, She Long and Porcupinefish Douluo, Ci Xue.
The secret became one more thing shared only between them.
------
So the years passed.
Renyu grew.
Not quickly enough to look strange, but clearly enough that the foundation of his body changed. His limbs became steadier. His endurance improved. His recovery from strain of training shortened. When Qian Renxue began having him hold difficult stances for longer stretches, he could feel the difference himself.
She noticed too, of course.
One evening, after he had completed a sequence of balance drills without collapsing halfway through the last position, she handed him a cloth for the sweat on his face and said, as though remarking on the weather:
"It worked."
Renyu, still breathing hard, blinked up at her. "You sound disappointed."
That earned him a flick to the forehead.
"Don't be foolish."
Then, after a beat:
"You were right. Be satisfied with that."
He was.
More satisfied than he let show.
Not because he had proven something from a book.
Because in a world he still did not fully understand, where great clans, spirit rings, titles, bloodlines, and fate all seemed to tower above ordinary people, he had found a way to seize one small advantage with his own hands.
Qian Renxue had seen that too.
And perhaps that was why she guarded the secret so tightly.
By the time he neared six, the experiment was finished, the method fixed, and the matter locked away in silence.
She will not do the same mistake.
Then came the eve of his awakening.
The palace was quieter than usual that night.
Perhaps Renyu only imagined it. Perhaps he was the one too aware, every sound sharpened by anticipation. Either way, even the lamps seemed to burn with unusual stillness in the crown prince's residence.
He sat by the open lattice of his room, looking out at the moonlit courtyard stones.
Tomorrow.
At six years old, children in this world awakened their martial souls. Some gained tools. Some gained beasts. Some gained useless things. Most gained ordinary things. A very few gained lives that would change their fate.
Behind him, the door opened softly.
He did not need to turn to know who it was.
The scent of clean incense reached him first.
Then the whisper of robes.
Qian Renxue stopped beside him, still wearing Xue Qinghe face.
"You're awake," she said.
"Yes."
For a while, neither spoke.
The moonlight painted her borrowed features in silver and shadow, making the false prince look almost unreal. But when she set one hand lightly on his head, the gesture was familiar enough to cut through the disguise at once.
"You're nervous," she said.
Renyu considered lying.
Then decided there was no point.
"A little."
Her hand remained where it was, not heavy, not light.
"You've been prepared as well as anyone can be."
"That doesn't mean much in a world where people can even awaken blue silver grass."
That drew the smallest breath of laughter from her.
"True."
He tipped his head back enough to look at her. "What if it's useless?"
Qian Renxue eyes lowered to meet his.
For a fleeting second, the crown prince disappeared.
What remained was the woman who had found him, watched him, taught him, indulged his strange ideas, kept his secrets, and made certain he survived long enough to stand here now.
"Then we make use of it anyway," she said.
No hesitation.
No false comfort.
Only certainty.
Renyu looked at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
That answer, more than any gentle reassurance, settled something in his chest.
Qian Renxue withdrew her hand at last.
"Sleep," she said. "Tomorrow will not wait for you to be ready."
She turned to leave.
At the door, he called softly, "Sister."
She paused.
"What?"
Renyu hesitated, then said the truth.
"Thank you."
For the library.
For the experiments.
For the secrecy.
For the years in between.
For not leaving him alone in this world.
Qian Renxue did not answer immediately.
When she finally did, her voice was quiet enough that only he could hear it.
"Awaken well."
Then she left.
Renyu sat in the moonlit room a little longer after that, listening to the fading echo of her footsteps.
Tomorrow, he would learn what kind of path this world had prepared for him.
But tonight, for the first time in a long while, he felt less like someone waiting to be judged by fate—
and more like someone ready to meet it.