"Listen to me!" Xu Tianran's tone suddenly grew sterner. "You're still too weak right now. There's no rush to heal my legs. If you wear yourself out, who's going to heal me? And you mustn't reveal this ability. There are plenty of people who cling to life and fear death, after all."
Xu Jingyao smiled. "Got it, Brother."
He turned to leave, and Xu Tianran's voice came from behind him. "As for Shadow Douluo, he's Father's man on the surface, but in reality, he's mine too. And yours, of course. You can order him around as you please, but don't bare your heart to him. And about the assassination..."
Xu Jingyao paused and glanced back.
Xu Tianran sat in his wheelchair with a smile curling at his lips, but his gaze was as cold as if it had been tempered in frost.
"If anything like this happens again, don't hold back. The bigger a stir your talent creates, the bigger this matter becomes. Trust that your imperial father knows how to choose between a few pieces of trash and an exceptionally gifted future."
"All right."
When Xu Jingyao walked out of the Crown Prince's Residence, the sunlight fell squarely on him.
He narrowed his eyes and raised his left hand. The bracelet rested quietly against his wrist, an emerald-green sheen flowing faintly over it.
When he had been treating Xu Tianran just now, the bracelet seemed to have grown slightly warm.
Xu Jingyao pulled down his sleeve to cover it.
Looks like this should be one of the Divine Artifacts. It's just that with my current strength, I have no way of using it. Once I'm strong enough, though!
Two Super Divine Artifacts. Hell, yes!
I have to say, once Xu Tianran puts his trust in someone, he's really quite a decent person!
Just like back then, even with everything Ju Zi did, I don't believe Xu Tianran never noticed!
Still, there were probably very few people who could enter Tianran's protective circle. To those who couldn't, however, he was a thoroughly terrible boss.
But that was all right. He could help smooth all of that out for him.
Xu Jingyao went over to a nearby window, sat down cross-legged, and began regulating the Soul Power within him.
I should be able to start building up my own forces at full speed too. Sigh!
Although he wasn't sure whether he needed the Power of Faith to grow, he would make every preparation first anyway. At the very least, he couldn't leave something like the Power of Faith to Tang San!
Besides, as long as he grew steadily, step by step, and wasn't schemed against by that bastard Tang San, becoming a god was practically his destiny.
Clashing with Tang San was probably inevitable too!
As for having some great desire to save all living beings, he had none!
Perhaps he had spent so long among the imperial family that he now felt those people were nothing more than expendables!
Of course, if protecting them served his own interests, he naturally wouldn't treat them harshly either.
After all, water could carry a boat, but it could also overturn it! As a transmigrator, he still understood such principles.
What was more, he would probably be making his money in areas concerning people's livelihoods, so he might as well do it under the banner of pleading for all the people beneath heaven and giving the citizens of the Sun Moon Empire a good life.
That would benefit them too!
Time passed quickly amid his wandering thoughts, and the Soul Power within him rapidly replenished itself.
Xu Jingyao slowly opened his eyes. Reflected in those violet and emerald-green eyes was the cloudless blue sky stretching above Mingdu.
"Ready? Let's go see His Majesty." Xu Tianran had already changed into his crown prince's attire and was quietly waiting for Xu Jingyao to awaken.
Xu Jingyao rose and nodded. "Yes, I'm ready. Brother, I'll take you."
With that, he immediately stepped forward to push Xu Tianran's wheelchair. He had to admit that his physical attributes had clearly improved considerably.
Before awakening his Martial Soul, he hadn't been able to push Xu Tianran's wheelchair.
Who knew what had been installed inside it? It was ridiculously heavy!
Xu Jingyao pushed the wheelchair outside at a run, heading swiftly toward the imperial palace.
Feeling the fierce wind beside him with one hand, Xu Tianran laughed and scolded him. "You little brat, slow down!"
He didn't treat Xu Tianran like a disabled man, and clearly didn't treat him like a human either!
Part of Xu Jingyao wanted to take Xu Tianran out to go a little wild and vent some of his gloomy mood.
The wheelchair rolled over the bluestone steps in front of the Crown Prince's Residence and flew straight off them.
Xu Tianran's entire body jolted upward, nearly bouncing out of the wheelchair. He clutched the armrests tightly with both hands, yet there was little anger on his face. Instead, he narrowed his eyes against the wind.
"Xu Jingyao! Are you trying to kill me in a fall so you can inherit my position as crown prince?"
"Brother, listen to yourself. Even if you died, I wouldn't get to be crown prince. I'm not actually of imperial blood." Xu Jingyao sprinted along behind the wheelchair, the wind pouring into his mouth and making his words come out muffled. "Besides, if you died, who'd back me up? Those princes would swallow me alive and skin me raw."
Xu Tianran sneered. "You little brat, so you do know fear?"
"Of course I'm scared. How could I not be? But I can heal your injuries anyway, so let's go wild for once, right, Brother?"
Xu Tianran didn't answer.
The wind howled through Mingdu's streets. The Soul Guidance Lamps on either side had yet to go out, and their multicolored lights were left behind by the wheelchair, trailing into blurred afterimages.
Pedestrians spotted the crest of the Crown Prince's Residence from afar, but before they could salute, the man and wheelchair had already swept past them, leaving only a fierce gust and mouths full of dust.
Xu Tianran sat in his wheelchair, his hair blown into a mess. The mask he usually wore, cultured and gentle yet keeping everyone a thousand miles away, was torn clean off by the wind.
He suddenly laughed.
"Brother, what are you laughing at?"
"I'm laughing at how bold you are." Xu Tianran's voice came in broken snatches through the wind. "Ever since my legs were broken, everyone has respected me, dreaded me, feared me. Only you have had the nerve!"
"That just means they don't know any better. You're my brother. What's wrong with me pushing you around for a little run? It's not like I'm pushing you off a cliff."
"As if you wouldn't like to."
"No way. I'm still counting on you to make me a Carefree King once you're emperor, so I can cultivate in peace."
Xu Tianran said nothing, but the corners of his mouth rose a little higher.
The wheelchair rushed across an arched bridge, and the wind stirred fine ripples over the river below.
Xu Jingyao pushed the wheelchair down from the bridge's highest point. The wheels rattled over the gaps between the stone slabs, making the entire chair shake.
Xu Tianran released one hand from the armrest and stretched it out, as if trying to catch the wind.
His hand lingered in the air for a while before slowly withdrawing to rest on his knee.
Pushing from behind, Xu Jingyao couldn't see Xu Tianran's expression, but he could feel that the weight in the wheelchair seemed a little lighter.
It was as if something that had been stretched taut all this time had finally been scattered a little by the wind.
Xu Jingyao suddenly thought of something.
How old was Xu Tianran this year?
In his early twenties? Or twenty-five?
He couldn't remember clearly, but he certainly wasn't old.
A young man in his twenties, sitting in a wheelchair, scheming about this and that every day, even having to calculate the angle of his smile before smiling-he lived like an old fox in his seventies or eighties.
An ordinary person would have gone mad long ago.
Xu Tianran had gone mad too, of course!
Before you continue