The Starting Point of the Return Journey

After the light faded, lingering echoes still remained in the air.

The tiny motes of light drifted down slowly, finally vanishing soundlessly against the floor of the temple.

Only then did Old Kai seem to finally cast off the crushing burden weighing on his shoulders.

He let out a long breath, his voice trembling.

His once-straight back suddenly sagged, and he collapsed onto the cold stone steps as though he could no longer hold himself up.

He raised a wrinkled hand to wipe his forehead, his palm covered in cold sweat.

"Lord Old Kai..." Shin hurried forward, but he did not dare support him rashly. He could only ask quietly, "Do you think... he can really find a way back? Can he really... return to his original world?"

Old Kai did not answer at once.

He tilted his head back and looked toward the spot where Qi Heng had vanished, his gaze seeming to pass through the temple dome and stretch toward the farther, deeper reaches of the universe.

After a long time, he slowly shook his head, his graying beard trembling faintly along with the motion.

"I don't know."

His voice was terribly hoarse, as though every word bore the exhaustion of millions of years.

"The spacetime fluctuations around that young man... to be honest, I have never seen anything so chaotic, yet so powerful. His 'origin point' is far more distant—and harder to comprehend—than we imagined."

He paused, his withered fingers unconsciously tracing the ancient patterns carved into the stone steps.

"But I hope he finds the answer," Old Kai murmured, a glimmer of near-pity flashing through his eyes.

"At the very least... I hope this journey of his lets him see... more than what I saw."

Earth.

The blue sky stretched high overhead, while clouds drifted slowly like scraps of torn cotton.

Qi Heng's figure appeared without warning above Mount Paozu.

The air currents twisted gently around him before quickly settling back into stillness.

He hovered in midair and looked down—the mountain was not particularly high, but it was quiet, secluded from the world.

The mountainside was covered in shades of green.

A few wisps of cooking smoke rose from midway up the mountain, only to be quickly scattered by the wind.

Qi Heng slowly descended, the airflow brushing over the grass and dust below.

Beneath his feet stood a somewhat dilapidated dome-shaped house.

The paint on its walls had long since peeled away, and its roof was laid with dark brown tiles.

A small yard enclosed by a fence stood in front of the house, with several vegetable patches inside. Their leaves gleamed with a rich green sheen beneath the sunlight.

A clothesline was strung across the yard, several faded, freshly washed garments swaying in the breeze.

The air carried the mingled scents of earth and plant roots. It was excessively quiet; even birdsong was scarce, as if some invisible loneliness had enveloped the entire yard.

Just then, the wooden door opened with a creak.

A black-haired woman stepped outside.

She wore simple house clothes, their cuffs somewhat worn.

She carried a half-empty watering can in one hand.

She was Chi-Chi, Son Goku's wife.

Time had left clear marks upon her face: crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and deep vertical lines between her brows from years of frowning.

Her gaze was somewhat unfocused, and the corners of her mouth drooped. She looked older than her actual age, unable to conceal the exhaustion and sorrow that filled her.

When she looked up and saw Qi Heng standing outside the yard, her movements visibly froze. She immediately narrowed her eyes warily, her fingers tightening around the watering can.

"Who are you looking for?" Her voice was dry, her tone guarded.

Qi Heng took half a step forward, his tone calm. "Is Goku home?"

"He's not!"

The moment Chi-Chi heard Goku's name, it was as if she had been set alight. Her voice abruptly rose, and obvious resentment surged across her face.

"That bastard—he ran off into the universe with Pan almost a year ago, and there hasn't been a single word from him! He hasn't even made one phone call! He dumped everything at home on me, and all he knows how to do is train! I bet he's made some shady new friends out there and has long forgotten all about this family—"

The faster she spoke, the more violently her chest heaved, as though she were pouring out all the resentment that had built up inside her.

Qi Heng silently took two steps back. The sole of his shoe crushed a small pebble, producing a faint scraping sound.

He had no intention of listening to her endless complaints.

With a thought, he activated his power.

The scene around him blurred, warped, and faded like a receding tide.

The fence, Chi-Chi's waving hand, and the open wooden door behind her all instantly transformed into flowing light and shadow.

A brief sensation of weightlessness enveloped his body.

The next second, hard, rough ground lay beneath his feet.

A wave of heat rushed over him.

He stood in a boundless wilderness.

This was where Piccolo trained year-round.

As far as the eye could see, reddish-brown and grayish-yellow rocks filled the landscape—some towering, some sprawled across the ground, all bizarrely shaped, cutting the earth into jagged shadows.

The ground was cracked in every direction, with scarcely a trace of green in sight.

The blazing sun overhead was like a white gold coin, pouring down its searing light without restraint.

Even the air seemed slightly warped by the heat, thick with the dry, pungent scent of dust.

At the center of the wilderness, atop a massive black boulder like a small mountain, a green figure sat cross-legged.

He did not move in the slightest, like another rock weathered by countless winds, nearly blending into his surroundings.

That was Piccolo, a Namekian.

His eyes were closed, and his white turban stirred faintly in the hot wind.

The instant Qi Heng's body solidified, Piccolo's eyes snapped open.

His golden pupils, like amber, locked precisely onto Qi Heng's position.

At first, they held their usual sharpness and indifference. But the next moment, upon seeing who had come, a rare flicker of shock passed through the depths of his eyes.

The aura around him, calm as an abyss, also rippled ever so slightly.

"Who are you?" Piccolo's voice was as low as muffled thunder from underground, his vigilance undisguised.

The muscles of his deep-green body tensed, while his white cape remained utterly still in the wind.

Those sharp white eyes stared fixedly at the stranger before him—or, more precisely, at the brown, furry tail swaying slowly behind him.

"A Saiyan?"

He asked again, the hostility in his voice nearly solidifying into something tangible.

This wilderness training ground was where he usually meditated in solitude, yet now it was enveloped by an indescribable sense of oppression.

Even the air had become somewhat viscous, and the sparse clouds in the distance seemed to be pushed aside by an invisible force.

The newcomer slowly turned around.

He was a tall young man, his long black hair tied behind his head, with a few strands clinging to his sharply defined cheeks.

He wore a dark battle suit, its fabric faintly patterned with shadowy designs.

Most striking of all was the tail belonging to a Saiyan—loosely coiled, yet undeniably brimming with power.

"Qi Heng." His voice was calm and devoid of emotion. His golden pupils looked at Piccolo, yet his gaze seemed to pass through him, cast toward somewhere far more distant.

"I came to find Son Goku."

"Goku isn't on Earth." Piccolo slowly rose to his feet, his tall body casting a long shadow.

His brow furrowed tightly, and the antennae on his forehead trembled faintly.

It was not anger, but an instinctive vigilance that nearly made him shudder.

He looked Qi Heng up and down, as though trying to see what lay hidden beneath that calm exterior.

"And," he paused, weighing every word, each one heavy, "I can sense... a very 'strange' aura from you. Chaos? No... something deeper, something harder to explain. You are definitely no ordinary Saiyan."

Piccolo's perception of ki had reached its peak, but what he sensed now was a bottomless darkness.

"I know he isn't on Earth." Qi Heng paid no mind to Piccolo's doubts, as though it were only natural.

He did not answer the question about his aura, merely repeated his goal. "Do you know when he'll return?"

"I don't."