Huo Yuhao

"You two little mud monkeys, go take a bath first."

Lang Yue came out of the kitchen wearing a floral apron dusted with flour. Seeing the two little ones standing in the living room, covered head to toe in dirt, she could not help but smile and shake her head.

She gently patted the dust off Tang Wulin's shoulder, then tenderly stroked Na'er's silver hair. When her fingertips touched those icy-cold strands, her movements unconsciously became even gentler.

"Dinner will be ready after your bath. Mom made your favorite braised pork, and she steamed egg custard too."

She bent down until she was eye level with Na'er, her voice so gentle it seemed to drip with tenderness.

"Be good, Na'er. Auntie found you some clean clothes. They're Tang Tang's old clothes from when he was little. They might be a bit big, but they're warm.

After dinner, Auntie will take you to the governor and see whether there's any news about your father and mother, okay?"

"Okay!"

Tang Wulin answered loudly, tossed the cloth bag from his back onto the sofa, grabbed Na'er's little hand, and ran toward the bathroom.

Na'er obediently followed him, her large purple eyes curiously taking in this warm little home.

Tang Ziran came out of the study with a clean towel in hand. He handed it to Lang Yue and smiled helplessly.

"That child is still so reckless."

"He's a child. Being lively is a good thing."

Lang Yue took the towel and wiped her hands. Listening to the sound of running water from the bathroom, her face was filled with a tender smile.

"Look how well-behaved Na'er is, so quiet and sweet. She's really lovable. I hope we can help her find her parents soon."

Tang Ziran nodded, though his eyes flickered slightly.

He glanced toward the bathroom without saying anything, then turned and went into the kitchen to help Lang Yue carry out the dishes.

Inside the Spirit Sea.

Jin Qiu leaned against the enormous Starlight Tree, swinging his dangling legs as he watched the heartwarming scene outside. A barely noticeable trace of envy surfaced in his eyes.

Golden starlight, like fine drifting sand, slowly fell over his body.

He reached out and caught a wisp of floating starlight, his fingertips curling slightly.

What a warm family.

He thought silently to himself.

The home he had known before transmigrating had never had anything to do with the word "warmth."

His memories were always of dim lights, shattered liquor bottles scattered across the floor, his father's deafening drunken beatings and curses, his mother's hysterical cries after losing all their money, and his brother, five years older than him, who would rummage through his schoolbag the moment he got home and snatch away his tiny allowance. If anything displeased him, he would beat Jin Qiu without mercy.

In that home, there was no care and no warmth, only endless arguments, violence, and indifference.

Of the entire family, he alone had still desperately wanted to live properly.

After graduating middle school, he dropped out and began working, fleeing that hellish home.

He had never felt the warmth of a family, nor had anyone ever treated him so gently.

That was why he envied everything Tang Wulin had so deeply.

"Well, little brother, you finally decided to wake up."

Suddenly, a cold and imposing voice sounded behind him.

Jin Qiu's body stiffened slightly, and the envy on his face vanished without a trace.

He did not turn around. Still leaning against the Starlight Tree, he played with that wisp of golden starlight in his hand, his tone casual and faintly teasing.

"What? Is the Divine Realm no longer busy? Has the Spacetime Turbulence been dealt with? You even have time to come visit me?"

A pale blue phantom slowly condensed behind him.

It was a man in blue robes, with black hair cascading like a waterfall and handsome features. His brows carried an innate majesty and steadiness.

His eyes were a deep blue, like an endless ocean. At that moment, they calmly regarded Jin Qiu's back. There was no fury or killing intent as expected, only a weighty calmness and an unquestionable interrogation.

This was precisely a sliver of divine consciousness Tang San had left within Tang Wulin.

The Divine Realm was suffering an unprecedented assault from the Spacetime Turbulence. The God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life had already fallen while protecting the Divine Realm, and nearly the entire burden of the Divine Realm rested upon Tang San and the other two God Kings.

His already demanding duties had been compounded by the need to take on the responsibilities once held by the God of Destruction and the Goddess of Life.

This sliver of his divine consciousness had limited power, and its connection to his main body was extremely unstable. It could only awaken for very brief periods to observe Tang Wulin's condition.

"You are not the Golden Dragon King at all, are you?"

Tang San's voice was calm, but it carried a force that seemed to pierce straight into one's heart.

His gaze fell upon Jin Qiu as though it could see through his soul.

Jin Qiu finally turned around and looked at Tang San.

His hands were tucked into his hooded pockets, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes calm and unruffled.

"Why would you say that?" he

asked in return, without the slightest hint of panic in his voice, as though Tang San had merely raised an insignificant question.

"As the incarnation of the Dragon God's negative will, the Golden Dragon King—"

Tang San spoke slowly, his voice low and clear.

"—inherited nearly all of the Dragon God's negative emotions: violence, rage, selfishness, cruelty. He was driven by the desire for destruction and slaughter, with almost no reason to speak of.

He held a pure hatred and fury toward humans and every god, one that ran deep into his bones."

At this point, he paused, and a complicated glint flashed through his deep blue eyes.

"But based on my intermittent observations during this period, you do not fit any of those traits at all. In fact, you are almost completely the opposite."

"You taught Tang Wulin how to temper his body with patience and care. You considered what he could endure, progressed step by step, and showed no intention of forcing his growth.

When you protected him, you were calm and decisive, striking ruthlessly, yet you never indiscriminately killed innocents or harmed those around him.

You even took the initiative to remind him not to make his adoptive parents worry."

"In that alley just now, you could clearly have killed those three thugs directly. Instead, you guided Tang Wulin into taking action himself, so that he would understand the law of the strong devouring the weak and learn to protect himself.

You also showed no hostility whatsoever toward the little girl named Na'er. On the contrary, you had been protecting her in secret all along."

"None of that is something the Golden Dragon King would do.

The real Golden Dragon King would only destroy everything he saw. He would never have so many considerations, much less so many human emotions."

Tang San stared intently at Jin Qiu, his tone turning solemn.

"So who exactly are you? You occupied the Golden Dragon King's body and lurked within Wulin's Spirit Sea. What exactly do you want?"

Hearing Tang San's questioning, the smile on Jin Qiu's face deepened. He took two steps forward and stopped pi meters away from Tang San.

The starlight in the Spirit Sea flowed around him, while golden dragon-scale patterns flickered in and out of sight along the hem of his clothes.

Rather than answer Tang San's question directly, he tilted his head and revealed a mysterious smile.

"We are the same kind of people."

"What do you mean?"

Tang San clearly did not understand. His brows furrowed tightly.

His fingertips twitched, and a strand of pale blue Sea God's Divine Power quietly gathered. His eyes were filled with vigilance.

He had no idea what Jin Qiu meant by that statement.

"I think you should understand what I mean."

Jin Qiu smiled even more mysteriously, a trace of mockery in his eyes.

Tang San said nothing, only watching him with even greater wariness.

He could sense no malice from Jin Qiu, but there was absolutely no goodwill either.

He was like an outsider, coldly watching everything unfold, making his thoughts impossible to guess.

An eerie silence descended upon the Spirit Sea.

After a long while, Jin Qiu finally broke the silence. He cleared his throat and spoke with complete seriousness.

"Fine. Since you cannot understand riddles, I'll give you a chance.

If you want to enjoy non-riddle-speaker service, answer all positive integer ordered pairs (x, y) satisfying the equation 2x² - 3xy + y² = 27."

Tang San: "?"

He froze completely, the expression on his face instantly stiffening.

He had lived for hundreds of thousands of years, weathered countless storms, and seen all manner of strange people and events.

He had fought, negotiated with, and confronted countless powerful figures.

He had thought he had seen every possible situation and that nothing could surprise him anymore.

But now, he was truly dumbfounded.

He never could have imagined that, at such a tense standoff, while he was seriously questioning the other party's identity and intentions, the other party would actually give him a math problem.

What kind of move was this?

Tang San stood where he was, staring blankly at Jin Qiu, his mind completely empty.

He even wondered whether handling the Spacetime Turbulence lately had exhausted him so badly that he was hallucinating.

"Hey? What are you spacing out for?"

Jin Qiu waved a hand.

"No way. The great Sea God, Asura God, chairman of the God Realm Committee, cannot solve such a simple math problem?"

"..."

Tang San still did not speak, his eyes dull.

"Little San? Tang San?"

Jin Qiu called out several more times.

"Hey, can you hear me? Don't tell me you lagged out. Well, the signal over in the Divine Realm is bad. Understandable."

After calling for a while and seeing Tang San remain unresponsive, Jin Qiu rubbed his chin and nodded thoughtfully.

"Oh, I get it. You must have gone to find outside help."

Jin Qiu's guess was completely correct.

At that very moment, in the Divine Realm.

Within the grand hall of the God Realm Committee, red alarms blared one after another, their shrill sounds piercing the air.

A massive energy barrier flickered faintly around the Divine Realm's perimeter, constantly withstanding the impacts of the Spacetime Turbulence.

Countless gods bustled about the hall, their expressions grave as they continuously relayed data and orders.

Tang San's main body stood on a high platform in the center of the hall, his brows tightly furrowed and his forehead covered in cold sweat.

One hand controlled the Sea God's Trident to maintain the stability of the energy barrier, while the other separated a strand of divine consciousness to contact the consciousness within Tang Wulin's body.

He had originally taken advantage of a brief lull in the Spacetime Turbulence to find time to question Jin Qiu.

Yet he had not expected Jin Qiu to give him such an absurd math problem.

He stared at the equation for a long time, but his mind was full of the energy parameters of the Spacetime Turbulence and the calculation formulas of the God Realm Defense Formation. He simply could not calm down enough to solve it.

Left with no choice, he urgently called out through the divine consciousness link to Huo Yuhao, who was helping process data elsewhere.

"Yuhao! Yuhao! Come here quickly!"

"Father-in-law? What is it?"

Huo Yuhao's voice soon came through, carrying a hint of exhaustion.

"Has another crack appeared on the western side of the energy barrier? I'll be right there!"

"No, no!"

Tang San hurriedly said, his voice urgent.

"Forget the crack for now! Help me solve a math problem first! The equation is 2x² - 3xy + y² = 27. Find all positive integer ordered pairs (x, y)! Hurry! I need the answer urgently!"

Huo Yuhao: "?"

Huo Yuhao, who had been rapidly typing on a virtual screen, abruptly stopped, nearly dropping what he was holding.

He turned around and stared at Tang San's back in disbelief, wondering whether he had misheard.

"F-Father-in-law, what did you say? Solve a math problem?"

"Yes! This exact problem!"

Tang San's voice was incomparably serious.

"Calculate it quickly! I'm waiting for the answer!"

Huo Yuhao opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but seeing Tang San's anxious expression, he swallowed his words.

He lowered his head and began calculating rapidly in his mind.

As a genius cultivated by the Ultimate Soldier Program, this level of middle-school math was nothing to him. In just a few seconds, he had the answer.

"Father-in-law, I have it."

Huo Yuhao said.

"Factor it, and the original expression becomes (2x - y)(x - y) = 27.

The positive integer factor pairs of 27 are 1×27, 3×9, 9×3, and 27×1.

Substituting them in, the final positive integer solutions are (6, 3) and (26, 25)."

"Are you sure?"

Tang San hurriedly asked.

"There are no other solutions?"

"I'm sure there are no others."

Huo Yuhao answered firmly.

"There are a few negative integer solutions, but you asked for positive integer solutions. Those are the only two."

"Good! Excellent!"

Tang San breathed a sigh of relief and immediately cut off his connection with Huo Yuhao, refocusing his divine consciousness on Tang Wulin's Spirit Sea.

"The complete set of positive integer solutions is (6, 3) and (26, 25)."

Tang San looked at Jin Qiu, his tone carrying a barely perceptible trace of pride. He felt that he had finally recovered some ground.

Jin Qiu looked at Tang San with a smile and asked in return.

"Tell me, can you guarantee that answer is genuine?"

Tang San: "..."

The expression on his face immediately froze.

"Whether it's right or wrong, don't you know yourself?"

Tang San retorted irritably.

He had lived this long, yet this was the first time anyone had ever asked him something like that.

"Well, you got that right."

Jin Qiu spread his hands and said frankly.

"I really don't know the answer to this question."

Tang San: "???"

He froze again, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"You don't know the answer, and you still asked me?" Tang San's voice rose several octaves, his tone full of speechless exasperation.

"If I knew the answer, would I still be asking you?" Jin Qiu retorted righteously.

Before Jin Ke transmigrated, he had dropped out to work right after graduating middle school. He had never passed math in his life.

He had seen this question while scrolling through short videos before. He thought it was interesting, so he remembered it.

How could he possibly know the answer?

Tang San stood where he was, opening his mouth, yet unable to say a single word.

He felt that the worldview and values he had built over hundreds of thousands of years had suffered an unprecedented shock at that moment.

He had never imagined that after getting so nervous and serious, even specifically seeking Huo Yuhao's help to solve the question, the other party would not know the answer at all.

He even began to wonder whether he had just been played.

Seeing Tang San look utterly speechless, Jin Qiu could not help laughing.

The starlight in the Spirit Sea continued to flow slowly, while the eighteen golden seals in the distance gave off a faint glow.

Tang San stood still, watching Jin Qiu laugh so hard he bent forward and backward. The expression on his face shifted unpredictably before he could only let out a helpless sigh.

He could see it now. The guy before him simply did not play by the rules.

"I'm asking you—are you going to tell me or not?!"

Tang San was genuinely getting anxious.

The pale blue Sea God's Divine Power gathered at his fingertips trembled slightly with his emotional fluctuations. Ripples spread across the once-calm Spirit Sea, and the eighteen floating golden seals in the distance flickered lightly as well.

He truly could not afford to waste time.

The alarms from the Divine Realm faintly echoed even across the vast distance of time and space. During their brief confrontation of only a few minutes, three new cracks had already appeared in the outer energy barrier.

Taking even this little time to come here was already his limit. If this dragged on, the entire Divine Realm's defensive array might fail.

"If your answer is real, then of course I'll tell you."

Jin Qiu crossed his arms, slowly swinging his dangling legs, a lingering smile still on his lips.

"But what if he's wrong? Wouldn't I be the one losing out?"

"If it's wrong, I'll hang Huo Yuhao from a pillar in the God Realm Committee and beat him for three days and three nights straight, all right?!"

Tang San gritted his teeth, his tone brimming with helpless frustration. In all his hundreds of thousands of years, he had never felt so stifled.

"Wow, you really are such a great father-in-law."

Jin Qiu laughed even harder. His golden hair swayed with his movements, and the dragon-scale patterns along the edge of his hood glimmered with tiny flecks of light.

"Yuhao worked so hard to help you, and you want to hang him up and beat him. That's a little too miserable."

After teasing him, Jin Qiu had no intention of continuing to play around.

After all, he knew Tang San was pressed for time. If he kept provoking him and this Asura God truly lost his temper, he might not be able to defeat Jin Qiu, but the commotion would be too great. It would not be good if Tang Wulin outside were alerted.

The smile faded from his face. He straightened up, looked at Tang San, and spoke seriously for the first time.

"Fine, I won't tease you anymore. Just as I said from the beginning, we are the same kind of people—we both transmigrated to the Douluo Continent from another world."

"What?!"

Tang San shuddered violently, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints. Genuine horror appeared on his normally composed face for the first time.

It was a shock that reached deep into his bones, a hundred times stronger than anything he had encountered before.

His transmigration was the deepest secret hidden in his heart.

From the day he was born, that secret had followed him through two lifetimes and countless years.

He had never told anyone. Not even his beloved Xiao Wu, his daughter Tang Wutong, or any of those close to him had ever heard the full truth: that he came from the Bashu Tang Sect of another world.

He had thought that secret would be buried with him forever.

Yet now, the person who had suddenly appeared before him, someone who seemed to be a transmigrator just like him, had casually spoken it aloud.

"How do you know about that?"

Tang San's voice trembled slightly. He unconsciously clenched his fists, and the Sea God's pressure around him spilled out of control.

The golden starlight around them was instantly suppressed into stillness. Even the air seemed to freeze, becoming so heavy that it was hard to breathe.

"Did you also come from the Bashu Tang Sect?"

He pressed on, with a trace of expectation in his voice that even he had not noticed.

If the other party had come from the same place, then did that mean...

"No."

Jin Qiu shook his head, interrupting his speculation.

"We come from different worlds."

"How can you be certain that we came from different worlds?"

Tang San furrowed his brows, his eyes full of confusion.

"Because my world doesn't have any of those Tang Sect Secret Arts you mentioned."

Jin Qiu leaned back against the Starlight Tree, slipping both hands back into his hood pockets. His tone was calm, yet carried an unquestionable certainty.

"Because my world doesn't have that thing you mentioned."

Tang San fell silent.

He stared into Jin Qiu's eyes, trying to find even the slightest trace of deceit.

But all he saw was frankness.

After a long while, he slowly withdrew the pressure around him and asked in a grave voice.

"So what exactly do you want? What is your purpose?"

That was what concerned him most.

No matter where Jin Qiu came from, as long as he bore ill intent toward Tang Wulin, Tang San would never let him go—not even if this strand of divine consciousness dissipated, not even if the Spacetime Turbulence in the Divine Realm grew worse.

"There's no need for me to tell you my plan."

Jin Qiu said blandly.

"But I can tell you for certain that I bear no ill will toward you.

On the contrary, I will help you protect him, help him grow stronger, and help him escape the calamities that should have been his.

Because my plan requires him to become stronger."

He looked toward the eighteen seals radiating holy light in the distance, a complicated glimmer flashing through his eyes.

"Didn't you place these seals because you were afraid he would be unable to control my power and ultimately walk toward destruction? I'll help you watch over him."

Tang San stared at him intently for a very, very long time.

He tried to see through Jin Qiu's heart, but the other man's soul seemed shrouded in mist. He could see nothing.

Yet he could sense that Jin Qiu was telling the truth.

There truly was not the slightest malice toward Tang Wulin on him.

"Then don't you have anything you want to ask me?"

Tang San could not help asking.

He had assumed that since the other party knew he was a transmigrator, he would surely have many questions.

Questions about the Divine Realm, about his experiences, about the future.

"No."

Jin Qiu shook his head, answering cleanly and decisively.

He truly had nothing he wanted to ask.

He knew Tang San's experiences better than Tang San himself did.

Of course, he knew almost nothing about Tang San's life before his transmigration, but he had no interest in that at the moment.

He had long known what would happen in the future.

There was no point in asking.

"Let's leave it at that."

Jin Qiu waved a hand, signaling that the conversation was over.

"I'm sure I've made myself clear enough.

Hurry back to your Divine Realm. If you wait any longer, the Divine Realm might really be crushed by the Spacetime Turbulence.

When that happens, even if you want to protect Tang Wulin, you won't get the chance."

As soon as he finished speaking, Tang San's figure flickered sharply and became much more transparent.

Clearly, the Divine Realm was urgently summoning him back.

Tang San gritted his teeth and looked at Jin Qiu. He still had many questions to ask, but he had no time left.

He could only give Jin Qiu one long, deep look and leave behind the words, "You'd better keep your word."

Then he gradually shrank, eventually turning into a sphere of light that quietly floated within the Spirit Sea.

"Looks like his hostility toward me isn't that strong anymore."

Jin Qiu chose to admit that he was a transmigrator because, in his view, to Tang San—the father of Tang Wulin—

A transmigrator like himself, even one whose intentions were completely unknown, was still better than a Golden Dragon King that hated him to the extreme.