Time-Space Visitor

Near Capsule Corporation, the dust had yet to fully settle, and gravel rolled down among the shattered walls.

The aftershock of the energy clash had plowed cracks across the ground for hundreds of meters around. Wisps of smoke rose from scorched craters, and the air reeked of ozone and burnt earth.

Qi Heng stood in the middle of the ruins, the hem of his clothes still fluttering slightly in the residual blast.

He slowly lowered the arm he had used to block the attack, a red mark on his forearm where it had collided with Vegeta's fist.

Vegeta had already retreated to the edge of a half-collapsed alloy wall.

His feet were sunk into the cracked concrete, his arms folded across his chest. A fresh gash marked the shoulder guard of his battle suit.

The lines of his face looked carved by a blade, covered in a frosty chill. His lips were pressed tight, and his gaze was sharp as knives, making even the air around them taut.

Bulla stood between the two of them, her long light-purple hair slightly disheveled by the turbulent air currents.

Her large eyes, inherited from her mother, were full of confusion and unease. Her gaze shifted between her father's grim face and Qi Heng's calm expression, while her fingers unconsciously tugged at the hem of her clothes.

"You said just now... that you came from another time and space?" Bulla finally couldn't hold back any longer. Her clear, eager voice shattered the silence. "Like Trunks? Did you come from the future in a time machine?"

Qi Heng drew his gaze back from the distant dust and smoke, letting it settle on Bulla's questioning face.

He fell silent for a moment as memories of Trunks flashed through his mind—the bleak future world, the desperate resistance, the all-or-nothing reversal... In this timeline, none of it was a story. It had all truly happened.

"More or less." He gave only those two short words, his tone calm and unreadable.

"Hmph!" Vegeta snorted coldly, like a block of ice dropped into the air.

The muscles in his folded arms tightened, and he lifted his chin slightly, radiating the pride and vigilance of a Saiyan prince.

"Even if you're some drifter from another time and space, you have no right to approach my daughter whenever you please." He enunciated every word clearly, each one full of warning.

"Dad!" Bulla stomped her foot, sending small stones flying everywhere.

She turned to Vegeta, her cheeks puffed up. "Mr. Qi Heng only came to ask about Uncle Goku's whereabouts! He hasn't done anything bad, so why are you being so mean?"

"Fool. Bad people never have the words 'bad person' written on their faces." Vegeta's blade-like gaze swept over Qi Heng, his tone turning colder. "Unknown origins, strange power, suddenly appearing near Capsule Corporation... Those reasons alone are enough to put me on guard."

Qi Heng did not take Vegeta's hostility to heart at all. In fact, he had no time to concern himself with it right now.

His purpose in coming here was clear—to find the Son Goku of this timeline.

Only by fighting this legendary warrior at full strength could he create an energy shock powerful enough to tear through time and space and open a path back to his own world.

What he needed was information and coordinates, not to get involved in a family quarrel.

"Son Goku," Qi Heng directly interrupted the father and daughter, "when will he be back?"

Seeing that her father still had a stern face, Bulla turned and answered herself.

She tilted her head, tapping her chin with one finger as she tried to remember. "Uncle Goku... He took Pan and Trunks on a spaceship into deep space to look for the Black Star Dragon Balls. It's been... about eight months, I think."

"The Black Star Dragon Balls?" Qi Heng's brows furrowed slightly.

The name was like a stone cast into a lake, immediately sending ripples through his mind.

The Black Star Dragon Balls—these were no ordinary Dragon Balls, but the key to the beginning of the Dragon Ball GT story.

After a wish was made, they would not turn to stone and fall to Earth. Instead, they would fly directly into the depths of space.

Worse still, if all seven Black Star Dragon Balls were not gathered within a year, the planet of the person who made the wish would be completely destroyed.

And the person who had used the Black Star Dragon Balls to make that wish...

"Who made the wish?" Qi Heng pressed, a trace of tension entering his voice.

Bulla looked a little embarrassed. She scratched the back of her head and lowered her voice. "It was... Pilaf and his group. Somehow, they got hold of a Dragon Radar again. While Uncle Goku had been turned into a child and let his guard down, they secretly gathered the Black Star Dragon Balls and made a wish... for Uncle Goku to stay a child forever."

By the end, her tone also carried some helplessness toward Pilaf's group—those people loved messing around with turning Goku into a child. They never gave up.

Qi Heng's pupils suddenly contracted.

That scene sprang into his mind: the red dragon soaring into the sky.

Goku, his messy black hair framing a shrunken child's body, his eyes still as bright as ever.

And that adventure spanning the cosmos—the peril-filled journey to find the Dragon Balls.