Time-Space Visitor 2

Vegeta spoke, his voice low and edged with an aggressive demand. "Why didn't you make a move just now?"

Qi Heng merely replied flatly, "There was no need." His voice was calm, as though he did not take the situation seriously at all.

His gaze passed over Vegeta and fixed on those controlled Earthlings in the distance.

Honestly, he looked at them as if they were a pile of dust, utterly devoid of presence.

"You could handle them," Qi Heng added.

Vegeta snorted coldly, folding his arms across his chest as his muscles tensed.

Of course, he knew Qi Heng was right—those controlled Earthlings were not opponents at all.

But Qi Heng's detached attitude, as though he were separated from everyone else by a layer of air, irritated Vegeta for no apparent reason.

The wind swept up sand and dust, brushing past Vegeta's tightly pressed lips.

At that moment, Bulla spoke. She stepped forward two paces, curiosity and a trace of concern shining in her eyes. "Qi Heng, you said you came from another time and space. Then why exactly are you looking for Uncle Goku?"

Qi Heng fell silent for a moment.

His gaze lowered to his open palm, then seemed to pass through the ground and look into the distance.

Occasional sparks crackled amid the laboratory ruins, throwing the contours of his profile into sharp relief.

"I need his help with something."

Bulla pressed on, lowering her voice. "What is it?"

"Fighting."

Vegeta's brow twitched, and the lock of black hair hanging over his forehead swayed with it. "Fighting?" he repeated, his voice full of suspicion and scrutiny.

He took a step forward, his combat boot crushing a chunk of concrete beneath it.

Qi Heng raised his eyes, his gaze as distant as though it could pierce through the clouds. "I need a powerful enough collision of energy." His voice was quiet, yet it carried an inexplicable weight.

"Only then can I tear open the barrier of time and space, find the coordinates to return, and go back to my original world."

Vegeta fell silent.

His sharp eyes remained fixed on Qi Heng. The hostility from before gradually turned into something more complicated—curiosity, shock, and a warrior's unwillingness to accept a realm he could not understand.

His clenched fist loosened, then tightened again, while his breath rolled through his chest.

"Kakarot is," Vegeta said through gritted teeth, every word laced with irritation, "still just a child." He gestured at a height, his tone brimming with mockery.

"Right now, all he can do is play in the mud. He probably isn't even enough to serve as your warm-up, much less meet your requirement of 'tearing through time and space.'"

"I know." Qi Heng nodded. The movement was slight, but exceptionally certain.

The wind tousled his black hair, several strands brushing over his deep eyes.

"So I'll wait."

"Wait?" Vegeta scoffed, crossing his arms even more tightly.

Qi Heng's voice remained steady. "Wait for him to recover, wait for him to grow stronger, wait for him to break through his limits and become Super Saiyan 4."

Vegeta's pupils suddenly contracted.

He had never heard that term before.

An instinctive longing and wariness seized him at once.

"What is that?"

Qi Heng did not answer.

He slowly turned around, leaving his back to Vegeta and Bulla.

The setting sun stretched out his shadow, blending it with the shadows of the ruins and giving him an air of utter solitude.

"Before that," he said again, his voice as even as ever, "I need somewhere to stay."

"You want to stay at my house?" Bulla cried in delight. Her eyes lit up, and a smile bloomed across her face, making the atmosphere instantly lighter.

"No!" Vegeta immediately refused. Almost instinctively, he stepped between Bulla and Qi Heng, his expression so dark it seemed ready to drip water.

"I will never allow some stranger of unknown origin to stay in my house!"

"Dad!" Bulla stomped her foot in dissatisfaction and grabbed Vegeta's arm. "He's a guest! And he helped us, and he has nowhere else to go now—"

"I said no, and that means no!" Vegeta's voice was filled with unquestionable authority.

Qi Heng seemed not to care about their argument in the slightest.

He slowly raised his right hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and lightly touched them to his forehead. The gesture was natural, yet carried a mysterious rhythm.

"Bulla," he suddenly cut in, his steady voice slicing through the argument, "is your mother at home?"

Bulla froze, and the argument came to an abrupt halt.

She blinked, then nodded. "She is. At this time... she should still be busy in the lab—"

"Thank you."

As soon as the words left his mouth, a faint light emerged where Qi Heng's fingertips touched his forehead, instantly enveloping his entire body.

The next second, he vanished from where he stood as if erased by a rubber, leaving behind only faint ripples of energy.

Vegeta's face instantly turned livid, the veins on his forehead throbbing.

"That bastard..." he ground out through clenched teeth. His aura erupted in an instant, blasting the shattered stones at his feet in every direction.

Bulla looked at the spot where Qi Heng had disappeared and couldn't help letting out a snort of laughter, shaking her head.

"Dad, don't worry," she said lightly, with a girl's slyness in her tone. "I can tell that Qi Heng... he has absolutely no interest in girls who aren't Saiyans."

"How do you know?!" Vegeta abruptly turned and glared at his daughter, furious and incredulous.

"Just a feeling." Bulla tilted her head playfully, her smile radiant, as though all the tension from before had vanished.

Vegeta was left speechless. He could only glare fiercely at Bulla, his chest heaving violently, unable to refute her for a long while.

West City, Capsule Corporation Headquarters, Bulma's private laboratory.

As the spatial fluctuations gradually subsided, Qi Heng's figure silently appeared by the laboratory's alloy door without making a sound.

The room was spacious and filled with an aura of cutting-edge technology.

Cold white light poured evenly from the ceiling, illuminating all manner of complex instruments and equipment: control panels blinking with indicator lights, three-dimensional structural blueprints slowly rotating in midair, softly humming energy reactors, and streams of data code cascading across enormous screens.

The air carried the faint mixed scent of ozone and coolant.

The tools and design blueprints were not particularly tidy, all bearing their creator's uniquely "chaotic vitality" as they lay scattered across workbenches and idle robotic arms.

At the center of the room, a massive, complex machine connected to countless pipes was running at low power, emitting a steady hum.

A figure in a white research coat stood with her back to the door, wholly absorbed in her work at the console before the machine.

She leaned forward slightly, one hand holding an electronic pen as it rapidly sketched and calculated across the screen, while the other constantly adjusted parameter dials with crisp, efficient movements.

Bulma.

Time had left its marks on her, but not weariness—rather, a sense of refinement.

Her purple hair was cut even shorter than in her youth, with strands of silver faintly visible among it, adding to her capable, intelligent air.

Her posture remained straight, without the slightest stoop. Her focused profile as she worked carried the steadiness and sharpness forged by the years.

Even without turning around, the aura she radiated from within—one of command over the entire laboratory and even a technological empire—had already filled the air.

Qi Heng stood quietly at the door without speaking at once, merely watching that busy figure calmly, as though observing her, or perhaps confirming something.

The laboratory's constant low hum became the only background sound at that moment.