The emergency stairwell was the only route to the top floor besides the internal elevator.
The Dragon Emperor rested both elbows on the stair rail and looked at the dispirited young boy slumped in the hall as if the sky had fallen.
He shook his head and sighed. "What a shame. A child even rarer than A-Jin, yet he ended up with a father like that."
"Suppression-style parenting, raising him in poverty."
Clearly, the Dragon Emperor had already seen through it: the one who had been guiding Tang Wulin to change his choice all along, unseen, was a fragment of God King Tang San's soul.
And why had he insisted on choosing a Grass Snake—which wasn't even a Soul Beast—for his son's first and most important Soul Spirit of his Soul Master career?
Perhaps he had simply seen how happy his son was today and wanted to design a little hardship to suppress his spirits.
After all, with the Ancestor of Sub-Dragons' eye for things, the Dragon Emperor could see nothing unusual about this little Grass Snake that wasn't a Soul Beast.
It had nothing to do with the ceiling of reptiles, the Sky Green Python, or the top-tier Plant-type Soul Beast, the Sky Green Vine.
It was nothing more than a juvenile Grass Snake that wasn't a Soul Beast, yet Tang San had chosen it for his son.
And he'd insisted on it again and again, as if nothing else would do.
Looking back over tens of thousands of years on the Douluo Plane, the Dragon Emperor could think of no other explanation for this style of upbringing besides the suppression-style parenting of ancient times.
"Perhaps Tang San's thinking is still stuck in ancient times."
With tens of thousands of years of experience among mortals, the Dragon Emperor saw through Tang San's approach to raising a child at a glance:
First, he had his son placed with a family beset by misfortune, where he ate meager meals with little energy.
That way, Tang Wulin, carrying the Golden Dragon King Bloodline, would have to eat more to grow, using quantity to bring about qualitative change.
Then, by making life harder for these kind-hearted foster parents, he could make his son see how difficult it was for them to support the family and how they had to scrimp and save, ultimately nurturing a sense of guilt in Tang Wulin.
In truth, if he'd been placed with any moderately well-off family, a single bowl of "Grade A food" would have been enough to feed this "young dragon."
But perhaps Tang San hadn't expected the Silver Dragon King to freeload there too, making an already struggling working-class family's situation even worse.
Come to think of it, the Silver Dragon King had also contributed to the hardships Tang Wulin endured during those first three years of his life.
After all, it sounded ridiculous that a Half-Step God King who had just recovered from grave injuries, a peak powerhouse already able to prey on the world's vital energy, still needed to eat large quantities of ordinary food to stay alive.
And now, Tang San was most likely living by the famous saying, "A sharp sword is honed through hardship; plum blossoms release their fragrance after bitter cold."
On the happiest days of his son's life, when happiness was closest, he'd dealt him a blow powerful enough to shatter his worldview, crushing that bright, beautiful atmosphere.
That way, his son would continue to endure hardship and forge an unyielding spirit.
By now, the Dragon Emperor could easily figure it out.
Today's clear skies darkened by a sudden cloud were just an appetizer.
From here on out, Tang San and the Silver Dragon King still had plenty of ways to put Tang Wulin through obstacle after obstacle.
"Still, in this king's humble opinion, the Golden Dragon host is just a child with no mind of his own," the Holy Dragon King offered.
He shook his head as he spoke. "Humans often say, 'You can see a man's thirties in his ten-year-old self; the small reveals the great.'"
"His choice just now was a lot like Father God's. Neither could follow their heart and remain consistent to the end."
The Holy Dragon King had been standing to the Dragon Emperor's front left while they watched the Soul Spirit ball machine, so he had seen everything clearly—
The Dragon Emperor had hidden the two Soul Spirit balls behind his waist and never switched their positions, then handed them both to Tang Wulin.
But Tang Wulin's reaction had been just like the Dragon God's when he was affected by the two Godhoods: he had made the worst possible choice.
The Dragon Emperor tossed his purple hair and left him with a parting remark: "I hope he doesn't end up like A-Jin."
After his sigh, he turned and disappeared up the stairs.
All that remained was a young boy, clutching the Soul Spirit ball as he sat on the cold tiled floor.
Today should have been... the happiest day of his childhood before it ended.
Tang Wulin returned home in a daze.
He stood there like a wooden chicken, motionless. His eyes were red and brimming with sadness, but his stubborn nature had kept him from shedding a single tear along the way.
He stood before the empty yellowwood dining table.
His mother was still working overtime and hadn't come home. Ever since Na'er, that big glutton, had arrived, Lang Yue had been forced to go out to work.
Ever since the night Na'er had arrived, the house had been quiet most of the time, no longer filled with the smell of food as soon as they walked in.
Of course, this was also the first time Tang Wulin had come home without an appetite.
In his rigid arms was the half of a pure-white ball. The little Grass Snake Soul Spirit lay quietly inside, looking rather well-behaved and still; it didn't even twitch.
In truth, it had no intelligence at all and couldn't respond to external stimuli.
Noticing that something was wrong with her son, Tang Ziran—already troubled by his own worries all the way home—murmured a few hurried words of comfort before rushing out the door.
Only then did Na'er, her silver hair gleaming, step out of the shadows, her eyes filled with complicated emotions.
Tang Wulin noticed his younger sister had arrived and quickly rubbed at his eyes with the rough skin on his hand, trying to squeeze out a smile for her.
But no matter how hard he forced the corners of his mouth upward, he couldn't manage to change his expression.
At last, the moment Na'er took his hand and turned him around,
the tears Tang Wulin had held back for three years finally fell in silence.
The clear tears pattered into the Soul Spirit ball in his arms, gradually soaking the little Grass Snake.
The Grass Snake clumsily twisted its tiny body, clearly quite fond of these secretions from the Golden Dragon King's vessel.
Na'er finally led Tang Wulin back into the dim room and sat him on the bed. With her soft, pale hands, she wiped the tears from her target juvenile and gently coaxed his tender heart.
As her memories slowly returned, she hesitated: should she find him a Soul Beast willing to sacrifice itself before she left this family for good?
But if she helped the Golden Dragon King grow, she'd have trouble devouring him later...
Helping would harm the future she had planned;
not helping hurt her to see him like this.
Just as Na'er wrestled with these two choices...
Outside the Spirit Pagoda in Aolai City, near noon.
The gray-robed Spirit Master had finished his morning shift and was waiting for the lunch boxes to be brought down from upstairs.
Ever since those Xu Family executives from headquarters had left and then suddenly returned three years later, the food standards at the Aolai City Spirit Pagoda had been rising steadily.
Suddenly, the gray-robed Spirit Master sensed something and looked toward the shadow stretching in through the doorway.
It was the father from the pair who had come that morning, now sneaking inside "furtively."
The Spirit Master frowned and called from a distance, "What is it, Master Tang?"
He had only just learned that morning that the man was a repairman from a struggling family, hence the way he addressed him.
Tang Ziran, however, glanced around cautiously and asked in a hushed voice, "Spirit Master, could you introduce me to that young man named Long from this morning?"
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