The Little Emperor of Great Qi

Li Huowang thought he had misheard when the old man finished speaking. Thirty years ago? How could that be?

Li Huowang didn't want to believe it, but since the other party knew that the Little Emperor of Great Qi had a wound on his chest, he had to accept it. Otherwise, it would be too much of a coincidence.

A male infant with a sword wound to the chest thirty years ago, and another male infant thirty years later? That was impossible to imagine.

Even so, there was only one conclusion: the Little Emperor of Great Qi, who should have been sent to Great Liang, had for some unknown reason been sent thirty years into the past!

"But… why? Why did this change happen? Is traveling back in time something an ordinary person can even do?"

"Wait…" Li Huowang immediately recalled the scene of his fight with the Little Emperor. Back then, there weren't just the two of them—Zhuge Yuan's friend, the Void Nian, had also been there.

Her ability was strange. She could drain other people's yang life.

What if it worked the other way? What if she wasn't draining their yang life, but altering their time?

Li Huowang remembered the changes his body had gone through during their fight, and how the five-or-six-year-old Little Emperor of Great Qi had shrunk back into the form of an unborn child in its mother's belly.

"It was those red afterimages of the Void Nian!" Li Huowang immediately identified the problem.

When he had sent the Little Emperor of Great Qi through the fissure to Great Liang, it had been done inside those red afterimages.

A look of disbelief on his face, Li Huowang jumped down from the willow tree and landed right in front of the old man. He reached out and grabbed him by the collar. "There really was a wound on that child's chest?! You didn't misremember something from thirty years ago?"

If this hypothesis was true, it meant the Little Emperor of Great Qi had been sent thirty years into the past in Great Liang. By now, he would already be a grown man!

Seeing that Li Huowang was willing to listen to his story, the old man nodded eagerly and spoke with even more enthusiasm. "That's right, I was right there. I saw it clearly."

"Old Man Yan was about to be persuaded by us to put it back in the woods, but that wife of his, who couldn't bear kids, went crazy. She hugged that baby and refused to let go no matter what."

"Later, they fed it rice porridge and put medicine on its wounds. And guess what? Hey! They actually managed to keep it alive! Isn't that bizarre? A hole that big, and it still lived. The whole village thought it was some kind of spirit creature."

"Now, since it lived, that should have been a good thing, right? A lonely old couple with someone to care for them in their old age. But guess what happened next?"

"Stop with the nonsense! Get to the point!" Li Huowang was burning with anxiety and had no patience for a straight man to feed the old man's banter.

Just then, a woman holding a child walked past them and casually chimed in. "It turned out to be a simpleton. How many times has this been told? Don't you ever get tired of it?"

"Shoo! Shoo! Who asked you to butt in? Did anyone ask you?"

The old man shooed the woman away and continued, "Where was I? Right. So guess what? It was a simpleton! Not only was its mouth crooked and its eyes slanted, but its brain was also missing a screw. It couldn't remember anything! At three, it still stumbled when walking. At six, it couldn't even speak."

Li Huowang quickly scanned the area. He didn't see any simpleton among these people. "Where is this person now?"

"What's the rush, young man? I haven't gotten to that part yet. Later on, that simpleton grew up, slowly. As he got older, he became less simple. At least he could recognize people."

"But guess what? One day, out of nowhere, that simpleton started screaming and ran into the woods, never to return. Can you believe it?" The old man slapped his thigh regretfully, a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"Wrong." Li Huowang's eyes locked onto the Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings on the old man's body. Everything the old man had said before was true. But just now, he had lied! The Little Emperor of Great Qi hadn't run screaming into the woods! There was definitely something fishy!

Li Huowang's mind raced. He moved closer to the old man and lowered his voice. "Thank you, elder. I can't give you all ten taels of gold, but I should at least give you one tael as a token of thanks. Come with me to collect the reward."

Hearing this, the old man's spirits lifted. Being paid just for telling old tales was a rare stroke of luck.

"Gold is valuable, so I naturally can't carry it on me. Please, follow me."

With that, Li Huowang led the old man out of the village. But as soon as they reached an alley, he grabbed the man, slashed open a fissure, and dragged him through it.

As soon as they arrived in Great Qi, the overwhelming darkness and chaos sent the old man into a panic. He was at a loss, not knowing what to do.

Li Huowang had no intention of being subtle. He pressed the Purple-Tasseled Sword against the old man's neck and threatened him bluntly, "You just lied to me! Talk! What are you hiding?"

The surrounding environment had already terrified the old man out of his wits. He spilled everything he knew like beans from a bag. "It—it's got nothing to do with me! It was an immortal who took the simpleton away! I really didn't dare say it before! I was afraid that immortal would come looking for me!"

This response only made Li Huowang frown deeper. "An immortal? Who exactly discovered the Little Emperor's identity?"

"What did this immortal look like?" Li Huowang pressed on.

"Er… this immortal could fly. From the looks of it, he was a man. And he was a mangy-headed fellow."

A mangy head? Li Huowang's pupils constricted. An unbelievable thought formed in his mind, and he directly interrogated the old man. "Was this mangy-headed man all dirty and sloppy, with an underbite?"

"Yes! Yes!" The old man nodded vigorously at Li Huowang's description.

In that moment, Li Huowang understood everything. This so-called immortal was his already-dead master, Danyangzi!

In the Qingfeng Temple, there weren't many simpletons he had taken. Because they were too simple-minded to care for themselves, only one person matched the old man's description: Gao Zhijian!

Now that he had the answer, Li Huowang worked backward. The more he thought about it, the stranger Gao Zhijian seemed. Several times along the way, Gao Zhijian had been as good as dead, yet he had survived every single time.

And then there was the "yellow" he had stammered about before. All of this confirmed that Gao Zhijian was the Little Emperor of Great Qi!

This was a turn of events Li Huowang had never expected. He was utterly shocked. The Little Emperor of Great Qi had been right by his side from the very beginning.

Despite his shock, even if Gao Zhijian was the Emperor of Great Qi, Li Huowang still had to find him as quickly as possible. Great Qi was once again facing a Heavenly Calamity. The longer he delayed, the more people would die.

Having put it all together, Li Huowang immediately brought the old man back to Great Liang and prepared to mount his horse and head for Niuxin Village.

"Son~ Open up. Eat some egg custard. Aiyah, good boy."

The sight of the woman on his left feeding her son made Li Huowang suddenly realize that he seemed to have forgotten something.