# Chapter 179: An Old Friend
Deep within an ancient forest.
In a man-made clearing.
Zhao Rucheng sat on the ground, his head hung low.
If any old acquaintance from Fenglin City had seen him now, they would hardly have recognized him.
His long hair was disheveled, his robes dirty and torn, and he was simply sitting on the ground!
For Zhao Rucheng, who had always been fastidious about everything—clothing, food, shelter, and travel—this was simply inconceivable.
Yet here he sat, unkempt and disheveled, looking no different from any common vagrant.
Uncle Deng stood before him, his voice still gentle but tinged with a question. "Have you truly made up your mind?"
"No need to think further." Zhao Rucheng raised his head and said flatly.
Even with his hair in disarray and face unwashed, his striking beauty remained hard to conceal.
But his face no longer held the carefree smile of old. Instead, it was serious to the point of being stern.
"In truth, I had tacitly approved of your willingness to waste your talent, to idle away your days. Not just because I didn't want to interfere with your choices, but also because..."
Uncle Deng sighed. "In this terrifying world, the stronger you become, the greater the dangers you'll face. With your talent, the day would come when you'd encounter dangers even I couldn't solve. Just like..."
"Just like what happened in Fenglin City." Zhao Rucheng finished his sentence. His tone was calm.
But it was precisely this forced calm that betrayed the pain in his heart.
"So," he said. "I just need to grow stronger. As long as I'm always stronger than the danger, that's enough."
Uncle Deng fell silent for a moment.
Zhao Rucheng continued, "Back then, I always thought—what's the point of working hard? No matter how hard you try, it doesn't matter. Might as well muddle through, living day by day. The world is so vast, life so short. Walk far enough and you won't need to walk anymore. Why bother with all that hardship?"
"Every time I watched Ling He and Jiang Wang train as if their lives depended on it, I wanted to laugh. But often, while laughing, my eyes would grow wet."
"At first, I didn't understand why I was crying. Later, I realized—I wasn't laughing at them. I was envious of them. I envied them for not knowing what the future held. I envied them for being able to press forward with conviction. I envied them."
"They had hope. They had direction. They had a future. So working hard was a joyful thing. No matter how exhausting, it was sweet."
"From the day I was born, I had no hope, no direction, no future. The higher I climbed, the darker what I saw became. So I envied them. I made friends with them. They treated me with sincerity, and I treated them with sincerity. I mocked them, yet I also looked forward to seeing them. I saw in them a different kind of life."
"But now." Zhao Rucheng paused. "All their hope, direction, and future—every last bit of it—has been severed. And I... I had the chance to prevent all of it. If I hadn't wasted my years. If I hadn't idled away my time."
"Perhaps I could never save myself. But in those few moments, I might have been able to save the people I truly cared about. Now, I want to work for those few moments."
As he spoke, Zhao Rucheng shifted from sitting to kneeling, bowing formally before Uncle Deng.
Uncle Deng watched in silence, making no move to stop him.
Zhao Rucheng knelt straight and proper, speaking with earnest sincerity. "I know you are powerful. Before, I didn't care about such things. But now, please—let me see just how powerful you truly are."
"Please use every method you can imagine to forge me."
"Please let me see the Deng Yue who split a river with a single finger."
"Please look forward to my efforts."
He lowered his head, placed both hands flat at his sides, and pressed his forehead to the ground.
Uncle Deng remained silent for a very long time before finally saying, "All right."
...
At Chongxuan Sheng's private residence in Heavenly Treasury City.
Given Chongxuan Sheng's status, he naturally owned numerous private properties.
But in the past, it would have been impossible for him to own a private residence in the prohibitively expensive Heavenly Treasury City.
The Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm had been ongoing for so many years that all property here had long since been claimed.
That was why, when he first met Jiang Wang, he could only host the banquet at his family's restaurant—and that was how the incident with Chongxuan Xin bursting into the room had occurred.
Now, if Chongxuan Xin dared to trespass into this private residence without permission, Chongxuan Sheng would kill him on the spot.
This residence had been transferred to Chongxuan Sheng's name the moment he emerged from the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm.
It was merely a negligible portion of the enormous benefits he had reaped.
The Chongxuan clan was a massive, sprawling aristocratic family, its estate spanning an entire commandery. Most of its population consisted of retainers, servants, and clan guards. The true direct-line members of the Chongxuan clan were few in number.
And the future heir of such a clan was destined to become one of the most powerful figures in all of Great Qi.
No one was a fool. There would be no shortage of those eager to invest early.
But Chongxuan Zun, as the undisputed first-in-line heir, already had every position around him filled. The cost of investing in him had long since skyrocketed to dizzying heights.
The sudden emergence of Chongxuan Sheng fulfilled every hope of those who had bet on a long shot.
As the only direct-line Chongxuan heir currently competing with Chongxuan Zun for the succession, Chongxuan Sheng should have received even greater resource allocation.
Unfortunately, Chongxuan Zun was simply too brilliant. People saw no possibility of success for Chongxuan Sheng.
Betting on a long shot only made sense if there was a chance of recovery—not if you were simply throwing resources into the void.
With such a massive prize as the Chongxuan clan, there had naturally been other contenders before Chongxuan Sheng. Those individuals had been remarkably talented, but all had paled in comparison to Chongxuan Zun and been swept aside with ease.
In truth, if the Chongxuan clan's leaders hadn't needed to rein in Chongxuan Zun for reasons they couldn't publicly state, Chongxuan Sheng would never have had the chance to stand out.
That was why Chongxuan Sheng had taken a desperate gamble—trading existing resources to secure control over the Chongxuan clan's exploration of the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm.
He had even needed to invite Jiang Wang from thousands of miles away through the Great Void Illusion. The only person in the clan he truly trusted was Shisi, who stood at his side. If Jiang Wang hadn't shown up, he would rather have left the slot empty.
Take Chongxuan Xin, for example—always calling him "Brother Sheng," always claiming to be family and kin. If Chongxuan Sheng had brought him into the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm, Chongxuan Xin would have been the first to stab him in the back.
None of the methods like the Heart-Demon Curse would have worked. Because anything Chongxuan Sheng could use, Chongxuan Zun would know about—and could neutralize.
The reason Chongxuan Sheng had treated this matter with such gravity—and why Chongxuan Zun had even sent Wang Yiwu personally—was that the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm was Chongxuan Sheng's all-or-nothing gamble.
It was his last hope.
If he died in the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm, there was nothing more to say.
Even if he survived but was eliminated—if he came out alive—all would still be lost.
The Chongxuan clan would belong to Chongxuan Zun from then on, and he would never have another chance.
But he had survived. He had become the victor of the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm, securing a future divine-power Inner Prefecture.
His gamble had succeeded.
No matter how dismissively Wang Yiwu treated the concept of a divine-power Inner Prefecture...
He could not deny that from the moment Chongxuan Sheng emerged from the Heavenly Treasury Secret Realm, he had truly earned the right to compete with Chongxuan Zun!
And the period that followed would be Chongxuan Sheng's era of rapid growth.
All those who had been watching, waiting—the resources that should have gone to Chongxuan Zun's competitors—would now flood toward him.
The only thing Chongxuan Sheng needed to consider was how to digest them all.
A snake trying to swallow an elephant—choke on it and you die.
Swallow it, and you become a python!