His heart pounded wildly inside his chest.
Each beat seemed ready to shatter his ribs and leap out through his throat.
Su Chen's fingertips were icy. A thin sheen of cold sweat quietly seeped from his temples and slid down his cheeks.
He forced himself to look away from the shattered porcelain strewn at his feet and gaze out the window again.
The slender figure who had rushed out of the Xiao Clan estate was walking alone along the bustling main street.
Most of the passersby looked at him with pity and mockery. A good-for-nothing whose engagement had been publicly broken off by the Misty Cloud Sect, a laughingstock who had brought shame upon his entire clan.
No one could see the true storm concealed beneath that stubborn frame.
But Su Chen could.
Deep in his consciousness, that empty space had already returned to stillness.
But the ancient Stone Platform at its center was utterly different from before.
Above the Stone Platform hovered a phantom pointer formed from countless intricate runes, giving off a faint white glow.
The pointer crossed the barrier of space, pierced the teahouse walls, ignored every person and object on the street, and locked firmly onto the youth named Xiao Yan!
Wherever the youth went, the pointer followed like a maggot clinging to bone, never deviating by so much as a hair.
Precise and cold, it brimmed with the greedy certainty of a hunter who knew its prey was as good as caught.
A frenzied thought erupted from the deepest part of Su Chen's heart like a volcano.
"Follow him!"
"Find out exactly what he has on him! Find out what form that Heavenly Flame exists in!"
The thought was filled with lethal temptation.
If only he followed him, if only he found an opportunity...
No.
Su Chen clenched his jaw.
The sharp pain from his tongue brought his mind back to clarity, if only for a moment, after it had nearly been swept away by wild elation.
He forced himself to calm down, though his blood surged more violently with every ounce of restraint.
He couldn't go.
Absolutely not!
Su Chen's gaze remained fixed on Xiao Yan, but his thoughts raced at a speed he had never known before.
Xiao Yan, a "good-for-nothing" known to the whole world.
A youth who had been stuck at the third stage of Dou Qi for three whole years.
Could someone like him possess a true Heavenly Flame?
Impossible!
What kind of violently destructive treasure of heaven and earth was a Heavenly Flame? Forget a youth at the third stage of Dou Qi—even a genuine Da Dou Shi would be burned to ash if he dared approach one recklessly!
Then there was only one conclusion.
That Heavenly Flame had an owner!
Its owner was concealed on Xiao Yan's person in a way no one knew about!
A powerful being capable of possessing and controlling a true Heavenly Flame...
What kind of terrifying existence would that be?
A Dou Wang? A Dou Emperor? Or even... the legendary Dou Zong?
The conclusion poured over Su Chen from head to toe like ice water from the depths of hell.
It left him cold from head to foot.
Fear.
A fear a hundred, a thousand times stronger than what he had felt when the Jialie Clan was hunting him down seized his heart in an instant!
The Jialie Clan was merely a local power in Wutan City. Their strength still fell within the bounds of what he could understand.
But a mysterious powerhouse who could control a Heavenly Flame...
That was beyond everything Su Chen currently understood. It was a life form on an entirely different plane!
If he really let his wits desert him and followed, and the other party noticed him...
Su Chen had no doubt that the other party wouldn't even need to lift a finger.
Perhaps all it would take was a single thought.
He would be utterly erased from this world, silently and without a trace! Not even a shred of evidence that he had ever existed would remain!
Cold sweat soaked his back once again.
As he watched Xiao Yan recede into the distance, for the first time, two entirely different paths appeared before him.
The first was safety.
Stay away from Xiao Yan and pretend nothing had happened today. With the "Rock Fire Seed" in his hands and his partnership with the Miteer Auction House, he could establish himself in Wutan City and steadily build his wealth and strength, one step at a time.
It was the safest and most sensible choice.
And the other path...
Su Chen's breath caught.
His gaze fell of its own accord upon Xiao Yan's retreating figure.
That wasn't a youth.
It was a walking treasure vault, priceless and brimming with the most supreme power in the world!
If he could steal even the tiniest shred of the Heavenly Flame's essence...
Then he could use the Stone Platform to analyze and replicate it!
What he produced would no longer be a mere "Rock Fire Seed," refined from a first-grade Beast Flame.
It would be... a true Child Flame with the properties of a Heavenly Flame!
Even if it had only one ten-thousandth of the original's power, what kind of frenzy would it unleash if it appeared on the market?
Every alchemist in the Jia Ma Empire would go mad for it!
The wealth it would bring was unimaginable! It would be enough to send him soaring in a single bound and give him the means to speak as an equal with this world's top powers!
Fear and greed.
Like two giant serpents from the abyss, they tore into each other and fought for their lives deep inside him!
On one side lay an abyss of death from which there was no return.
On the other was the endless temptation of a path to the divine throne.
Time seemed to freeze in that moment.
The clamor inside the teahouse and the traffic beyond the window faded away.
Only the choice between those two paths remained in his world.
A long while passed.
A very long while.
Su Chen's rigid body slowly relaxed.
He leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.
The eyes that had grown unfocused from the battle within him sharpened again.
All his fear and hesitation were replaced in that instant by something hotter and more frenzied.
Greed!
An all-consuming greed!
Fortune favored those who risked their lives!
In his previous life, he had amounted to nothing. Now that he had finally been given a chance to defy fate, would he really shrink back because of a vague "possibility"?!
No!
He didn't want a quiet, safe life!
He wanted to stand at the summit of this world!
To hell with Dou Wangs and Dou Emperors!
As long as he wasn't discovered, who would know he was the one who stole the flame?!
A near-mad glint flashed in Su Chen's eyes.
But he didn't get up right away.
Greed didn't mean recklessness.
He knew all too well that following Xiao Yan directly would be suicide. He needed a plan—a careful, flawless plan that would let him achieve his goal without anyone being the wiser.
A... "non-contact" replication plan!
His mind began racing once more.
If he couldn't approach Xiao Yan directly, he could only find another way in.
The Stone Platform's pointer had locked onto the aura of the Heavenly Flame. As long as he was within a certain distance, he could theoretically try to analyze and replicate it.
What was that "distance"?
And what conditions did analysis and replication require?
Would it consume his mental strength? Or would he need some special medium to guide the process?
One question after another surfaced in his mind, and he dissected them one by one.
In the space of a few minutes, his mindset underwent an astonishing transformation.
He had gone from a passive "discoverer," a gambler torn apart by fear and greed,
to an active "schemer," a cool-headed yet crazed hunter who regarded all of Wutan City as his chessboard!
He looked out the window again.
Xiao Yan had already disappeared around the corner.
But there wasn't a trace of anxiety on Su Chen's face.
Because he knew that from this day onward, the youth named Xiao Yan would no longer be the unrelated protagonist in a story.
He would become Su Chen's most important "mobile resource vault."
He would be Su Chen's first—and most crucial—lever for shifting the entire Dou Qi Continent!
Su Chen rose to his feet and placed a few silver coins on the table.
"The bill."
He didn't spare the waiter another glance before turning and walking down the stairs.
His steps were steady and firm.
After leaving the teahouse, he didn't return to the Miteer Auction House, nor did he go back to his dilapidated little courtyard.
He got his bearings, then turned and walked in the opposite direction from the one Xiao Yan had taken.
That way lay Wutan City's largest material market.
The auction in three days was only the beginning.
And the grand "welcome ceremony" he was preparing for that true Heavenly Flame had only just begun.
Before you continue