Chapter 9: Six Years Beneath the Crown
They returned to Heaven Dou before dawn.
The city gates were only beginning to stir when She Long brought Renyu back through one of the lesser-used roads into the crown prince residence.
Qian Renxue was waiting in the innermost courtyard.
Still wearing Xue Qinghe face.
Still dressed in pale robes neat enough to look effortless.
Only her eyes gave away that she had not slept.
She Long dropped to one knee at once.
"Young Mistress."
Qian Renxue did not answer immediately. Her gaze passed over Renyu first, taking in the pallor beneath his skin, the stiffness in his steps, the exhaustion he was trying and failing to hide. Then it dropped to the spirit power he could no longer fully suppress.
"Successful?" she asked.
She Long lifted his head.
"Successful. Eleven hundred years. No external interruption." A brief pause. "He endured it."
Renyu saw the smallest shift in her expression.
Not relief exactly.
But something close enough.
Then She Long continued, and the pause vanished.
"The first skill is abnormal."
That brought her full attention to him.
"How?"
She Long did not waste words. "Support-type, but it amplifies direct combat capacity. Strength, speed, reflexes, soul power circulation, mental steadiness. Passive baseline under ambient rhythm. Stronger with deliberate sound. And stronger with stable emotional focus."
Qian Renxue eyes narrowed.
Renyu felt, with miserable certainty, that the next part was coming.
She Long delivered it without mercy.
"It is triggered by song."
Silence.
Then Qian Renxue turned her head and looked at Renyu.
Renyu, already tired, felt something inside him give up.
The corners of her mouth moved first.
Then, to his complete offense, she laughed.
Not loudly.
Not cruelly.
But enough to convey her feeling of amusement.
Enough that after the thousand-year absorption, after the impossible first purple ring, after the shock written across a Title Douluo face, the thing that finally undid his dignity was Qian Renxue standing in a quiet courtyard at dawn and finding his first soul skill amusing.
Renyu stared at her.
She Long, having completed his betrayal, remained respectfully expressionless.
At last Qian Renxue asked, "Is that why your face looked so tragic when you awakened it?"
Renyu folded his arms. "It is an unreasonable design."
That only made her eyes warmer.
"Show me."
So he did.
She tested it herself in the private training room before the sun had fully risen. She made him summon the red crystal, observe its passive response to wind and birdsong, then deliberately hum until Phonic Gain Resonance spread through his body.
She struck without warning.
A flick of her sleeve. A step meant to unbalance. A palm aimed at his shoulder.
Each time, Renyu responded better with the skill active than without it. Not enough to close the gulf between them. Nothing in the world would do that yet. But enough to prove She Long had not exaggerated anything.
When the final exchange ended, Qian Renxue stood still for a while.
Then she said, "This cannot be allowed to become public in full."
The others can know but cannot know Renyu full capabilities.
That had always been the real answer.
His first purple ring could be called monstrous talent. His red crystal could be called a rare mutant martial spirit. Even an abnormal first skill could be framed as luck.
But the combination was too much.
A martial spirit that ignored normal ring compatibility.
A body method that allowed thousand-year absorption at the first ring.
A support skill that directly strengthened the user combat body through rhythm and song.
Together, they formed something other people would want to possess, dissect, or destroy.
So Qian Renxue chose the middle road.
The full truth remained sealed.
The result did not.
Within a month, Emperor Xue Ye learned that the crown prince had cultivated a rare young genius beneath his personal protection.
Not displaying everything all at once.
Not in a way that would invite the other party to panic.
Qian Renxue handled it carefully, the way she handled every useful thing in Heaven Dou—never too much, never too little, always exactly enough to shape opinion before anyone realized it had been shaped.
To the emperor, Renyu was presented as a mutant red crystal spirit master personally discovered and nurtured by Xue Qinghe. His talent was extraordinary. His loyalty was firm. His future, if properly cultivated, might become one of Heaven Dou greatest pillars.
The emperor was delighted.
Of course he was.
The Heaven Dou Empire did not drown in lack of soldiers or officials. It lacked the one thing kingdoms always feared lacking most, power at the very top. A truly loyal future Title Douluo tied to the crown prince was not merely talent. It was reassurance. A promise. A political treasure.
From that moment onward, resources began to move.
Not openly enough to draw suspicion, but steadily.
Rare medicinal support. Better cultivation environments. Permission for private spirit beast hunts. Access to records ordinarily buried in imperial archives. Funding routed under the crown prince household budget. Quiet protection from those who might otherwise try to pull a gifted common-born child into some other faction orbit.
Every piece of support sent to Renyu strengthened Xue Qinghe standing.
Every improvement in Renyu growth became one more proof that the crown prince had a keen eye for talent.
And because the emperor approved, others learned to approve as well.
Thus the next six years passed.
Not quietly.
Not anymore.
Renyu remained beneath Qian Renxue shadow, but no longer merely as the odd child of the inner residence. By eight, he was already known among select members of the palace and the imperial household as the crown prince chosen young retainer. By ten, instructors who had once spoken to him with indulgent patience began speaking with care. By eleven, his name had begun circulating through the Heaven Dou court often enough that even those who had never seen him understood one thing.
Xue Qinghe was raising a powerhouse.
Privately, the truth ran deeper.
Qian Renxue continued his training herself whenever her role allowed it. Body conditioning before dawn. Hand-to-hand combat until technique became instinct. Weapon basics, then counters. Breath control. Pain tolerance. Memory training. She Long and the others were occasionally used when the lesson required a different hand, a different pressure, a different kind of kill-intent.
Phonic Gain Resonance was tested relentlessly.
Renyu never came to like its nature.
He tolerated it.
That was different.
He learned how much ambient rhythm could support him in the background, and how deliberate humming could sharpen the effect. He learned that embarrassment weakened control, while focus strengthened it. He learned that in battle, shame was a useless thing to protect.
Qian Renxue found that lesson amusing every single time.
His second ring came earlier than common sense would have allowed and stronger than common standards would have recommended.
Purple.
Again.
By then, the impossible had already happened once. The second time did not feel easier.
It only felt more deliberate.
With two purple rings, Renyu stopped being discussed as merely gifted. At that point he had crossed into the realm of absurdity, and only Qian Renxue control over what could be seen and what could be guessed kept the matter from becoming too loud too quickly.
The emperor support deepened.
That was exactly as she intended.
A monster-level talent visibly loyal to the crown prince made factions lean closer, not farther. Ministers spoke more warmly. Imperial resources arrived more smoothly. Future plans became easier to justify. Even the idea that Heaven Dou might one day possess a top expert truly raised by its own hand no longer sounded like fantasy.
Then came the third ring.
Black.
That matter was not allowed to spread widely.
Even in Heaven Dou, even under imperial favor, a twelve-year-old with three rings was one thing. A twelve-year-old with purple, purple, black was another. That was no longer just excellent talent. That was the kind of growth that made sects pay attention and made hidden enemies begin planning early.
So the truth of the ring colors was confined.
The emperor knew.
A very small number of trusted people knew.
Everyone else knew only that Renyu had advanced again under the crown prince banner, and that his future was now a matter of imperial interest.
That was enough.
More than enough.
And through it all, one thing never changed.
In public, he bowed.
He called her Your Highness.
He stood half a step behind and to the side, never too close, never too familiar, exactly as a subordinate of the crown prince should.
In private, when doors were shut and masks could thin, he still called her Sister.
By the time he turned twelve, the word no longer stumbled on his tongue.
Neither did the silence between them.
At twelve, Renyu was no longer the child in the library, nor the six-year-old boy glaring at a soul skill that demanded song from him. He had grown taller, his frame lean rather than broad, his features sharpened from softness into clarity. His red crystal martial spirit had become steadier under his control, and his body—tempered by years of training, hidden methods, and dangerous rings—carried a force that did not belong on someone his age.
His cultivation had reached the point where even those stronger than him stopped making the mistake of treating him lightly.
That was how Qian Renxue preferred it.
Not because she wanted him underestimated forever.
But because a weapon was always most useful in the moment before others fully understood what it could do.
On the evening that truly marked the end of those six years, Renyu stood in the same library where she had first found him among stolen books and sunlit dust.
The room had not changed much.
He had.
Behind him, the light of dusk stretched long across the floor. Before him stood Qian Renxue in Xue Qinghe form, one hand resting against the table as she watched him with the same unreadable calm she had worn for years.
Only now, there was less need to measure whether he would survive.
That question had already been answered.
"You've grown well," she said.
Renyu glanced at her. "That sounds quip when you say it like that."
"It is a praise."
"From you, those are often the same thing."
That earned him the slightest curve at her mouth.
Then she stepped closer and adjusted the fold of his collar, a familiar habit she had never entirely lost.
"Twelve years old," she said. "Three rings. Enough reputation to be useful. More than enough hidden truth to remain dangerous and sharp weapom."
Renyu let her straighten the fabric without moving.
"And?"
Her gaze lifted to his.
"And from here on," she said softly, "you will not merely be raised."
The library seemed to quiet around them.
"You will begin to be usefulk in the grand scheme."
Renyu did not look away.
Outside, Heaven Dou still believed it was watching the crown prince gather a future pillar for the empire.
Inside the fading light of the library, Renyu understood the truth more clearly than ever.
Heaven Dou might claim his talent.
The emperor might fund his growth.
The court might praise his promise.
But the hand that had found him, shaped him, sharpened him, and now prepared to place him upon the board had always belonged to one person alone.
And at twelve years old, with the ring configuration of purple, purple, black behind his name and six hidden years beneath the crown prince shadow, Renyu was finally ready for the next move.