"Drink, Elder. It will warm your stomach," Xiaogang said softly, pushing the cup forward.
Li grunted in acknowledgment, taking a long sip. He paused, his brow furrowing slightly as a wave of profound, soothing warmth radiated from his core, rushing down his arms and pooling in his hands. The tremor in his left hand ceased entirely. The stiff, aching joints loosened, feeling thirty years younger.
The old man stared at his steady hand for a long, silent moment. He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening as he fought to keep his composure. He didn't look up at Xiaogang. He didn't ask questions. In the brutal world of spirit masters, sudden miracles were often accompanied by deadly secrets.
What he and Yu Xiaogang himself didn't know was the control and technique Yu Xiaogang used was something only Limit Douluo would be able to capable of doing, let alone with that level of stealth and effortlessness.
"The tea is... good today," Li managed to say, his voice a little thicker than usual.
"It's just the usual leaves, Elder," Xiaogang replied gently, keeping his gaze on his own food to give the man his dignity. "You must just be having a good morning."
"Mn. Must be."
The unspoken gratitude hung heavy and warm in the space between them. It was a fragile bond, built on silence and mutual protection. Xiaogang found himself leaning into it. If the regressors were coming, if the timeline was going to tear itself apart to correct his existence, he needed anchors. Not soldiers, not pawns, but people.
After breakfast, Li left to attend to the upper floors, leaving Xiaogang to his work.
With his physical presence perfectly masked and his immediate environment secure, Xiaogang turned his attention to his long-term survival. He pulled a fresh stack of parchment toward him, grinding an inkstick against a stone block.
He had to enter the world stage eventually. Hiding in the archives for a lifetime was impossible; trouble had a terrifyingly accurate compass when it came to anomalies like him. But he wouldn't enter as a combatant. He would enter as a foundational pillar of the world itself.
He dipped his brush and began to write.
He didn't write the complete, perfected theories of martial soul evolution that he now possessed. That would be suicide. It would draw the Spirit Hall's highest echelons immediately. Instead, he wrote 'The Ten Core Competencies of Martial Souls'—the very same theories that would historically make him famous, and infamous.
But with his cheat, his understanding of the world's mechanics was absolute. He layered the text.
On the surface, the theories were sound, innovative, but ultimately deemed useless by the arrogant combat masters of the current era because they relied on perfect control rather than brute strength. It was the perfect mediocre disguise.
However, woven into the specific phrasing, the cadence of the sentences, and the subtle diagrams, Xiaogang embedded a secondary, infinitely more complex truth. It was a cipher.
Anyone reading the text with a flawed foundation would only see the surface. But if Xiaogang himself, or someone he personally guided, read the text, the specific phrasing would trigger a resonance with their spirit power, acting as a flawless meditation guide that bypassed bottlenecks completely.
He was creating a legacy in plain sight, a lock that only he held the key to.
'A thousand ways to solve a problem,' he mused, watching the ink dry on the final scroll. 'If Bibi Dong regresses and comes looking for the pathetic, helpless Yu Xiaogang she remembers, she'll find exactly what she expects.'
Contrary to his expectations, due to the Essence giving him such high level of mastery and skill in any subject he encounters or starts, his understanding of normal is also skewed. What he considers basic, is very advanced for the current era.
Yu Xiaogang had unknowingly shot himself in the foot, as the regressors will react very differently when faced with differences in the history they know and have experienced, and the reality they now face.
Suddenly, Xiaogang's brush paused.
A heavy, suffocating pressure rolled over the Spirit Hall grounds far above him. It wasn't directed at the archives, but the sheer density of it made the dust motes in the air freeze. A Titled Douluo. And not just any Titled Douluo—the sharp, piercing edge of the aura tasted distinctly of holy light and absolute authority.
Qian Xunji.
Xiaogang didn't flinch. He didn't suppress his breathing or pull his aura back further. Doing so would create a void, a noticeable absence of presence. Instead, he simply allowed his meticulously crafted disguise to carry the weight. He projected the exact emotional and spiritual frequency of a tired, weak, slightly anxious researcher trying to finish his daily quota of cataloging.
The terrifying spiritual sense of the Supreme Pontiff swept through the lower archives like a physical tide. It washed over the bookshelves, over the ancient scrolls, and right over Yu Xiaogang.
It lingered for a fraction of a second, cataloging him as 'inconsequential trash,' and moved on.
Xiaogang let out a slow, silent breath as the pressure receded. His camouflage was flawless. His cheat had engineered a disguise that even the peak powers of this world couldn't pierce.
He looked down at the calendar etched into the corner of his desk.
Twenty-eight days left.
Twenty-eight days until the timeline fractured and the regressors awoke with blood in their eyes and tragedies in their hearts. He had the skills, he had the knowledge, and he had the perfect cover.
His plan ahead was simple but effective. Become untouchable by changing the fundamental rules of the world.
'A thousand ways to solve a problem. Heh.'
He carefully rolled up his newly written theories, tying them with a simple silk ribbon. He was a normal researcher. He was weak. He was a salted fish.
But as he placed the scroll on the shelf, the faint, golden reflection of a dragon's eye caught in the polished wood of the desk.
Let them come.