Chapter 6: The Thousand-Year Gamble
The decision was made that same night.
Qian Renxue did not speak of it again in the open training room. She only had Renyu wash, eat, and rest for two hours before summoning him to the innermost study of the crown prince residence—a room deeper than the library, with thicker walls and fewer lamps, the sort of place reserved for secrets that were not meant to survive as rumors.
When Renyu entered, a low table had already been prepared.
On it lay several sheets of copied notes, each one in Qian Renxue hand.
He recognized the contents at a glance.
Dates.
Temperatures.
Amounts.
Pulse changes.
Endurance times.
Recovery intervals.
The trial records from their whale glue tests.
Qian Renxue sat at the far end of the table, still wearing Xue Qinghe face, though tonight the mask felt thinner than usual. She did not bid him to sit immediately. Instead, she slid one of the sheets toward him.
Renyu looked down.
It was the summary of the last external validation test—the one she had conducted through hidden channels, far from Heaven Dou and far from any court physician curiosity. The subject had been an teenager commoner with no formal childhood body training, only crude labor conditioning, and just under two months of processed whale glue use.
A line near the bottom had been marked in red.
Absorption of the tolerable spirit ring limit approaching nine hundred years.
Renyu eyes lingered on the number.
Qian Renxue watched him and said, "What do you think?."
He raised his head. "This is still the lower standard. As they weren't train specially from childhood. It came from all the labor that he endure to do before, now couple with the taking of the processes version that this man done for two months, it can be said the result to be quite good."
He looked back at the sheet. "Then my limit should be higher."
Qian Renxue gaze sharpened, satisfied not by the answer itself, but by the fact that he stated it as a conclusion rather than just a baseless assumption.
"For two years," she said, "your body has been trained deliberately. For two years, your intake has been measured. Your martial spirit itself rejects ordinary compatibility logic and values endurance instead." She tapped the red-marked line once with one pale finger. "This number can be increase more than usual."
Renyu felt his chest tighten, not with fear, but with the weight of hearing the gamble spoken so plainly.
"Then the safest bet will be that, a thousand year spirit ring should be the maximum that my body can endure."
The lamp flame to her left shifted in a small draft and settled again.
A thousand-year first spirit ring was madness by any normal standard in Douluo Dalu. Children his age were supposed to start with a yellow ring, along four hundreds years spirit ring. Safe. Conservative. Manageable. Something their immature bodies and undeveloped spirits could absorb without courting death.
But Renyu was no longer measuring himself by the standards of ordinary children.
Not after the crystal manifest, the secret strengthening of the body and combine with the data he obtain, this will be the safest bet.
Qian Renxue studied him for any trace of hesitation.
He did not give her a chance to see it.
That seemed to please her.
"Good," she said softly. "Then we proceed."
She lifted one hand and knocked once against the table.
Not hard.
Not loud.
Yet within three breaths, the hidden door on the right side of the room opened.
An old man entered in plain dark clothing, broad-shouldered and spear-straight despite his age. His face was lined, his eyes narrow, and there was something about the way he carried himself that made the room feel suddenly smaller. Not because his aura was unleashed—it was not. In fact, his soul power was so tightly leashed that Renyu could barely sense it.
That was what made it frightening.
A man at that level did not need to prove he was dangerous.
He only needed to exist in the same room.
The old man bowed first to Qian Renxue.
"Young Mistress."
Not Your Highness.
Not Crown Prince.
Young Mistress.
Renyu eyes sharpened at once.
So this was one of the people who knew.
Qian Renxue inclined her head. "Elder She."
Snake Lance Douluo.
She Long straightened and only then let his gaze fall on Renyu. It was not contemptuous. Not dismissive. Just direct enough to feel like a spear tip testing wood grain.
"So this is the child."
Renyu returned the look as steadily as he could.
She Long brow moved by a fraction, perhaps surprised that he did not flinch despite the young age. He approves of this kid.
Qian Renxue said, "He will obtain his first spirit ring within the next few days. You will accompany him."
The old Title Douluo did not answer immediately.
That told Renyu enough already.
When he finally spoke, his tone remained respectful, but doubt lived plainly beneath it.
"Young Mistress, for a first ring?"
"Yes."
"What age?"
"A thousand years."
This time, even She Long expression shifted.
Not much.
Just enough.
"With respect," he said slowly, "that is beyond ordinary risk." He know about the test that Young Mistress conduct secretly as Porcupinefish Douluo always said that he got impress with the method. But that old man just keep it a secret about the detail.
Renyu said nothing. This was not his place to interrupt.
Qian Renxue rested one hand on the table. "I am aware."
"A child first ring is not chosen by ambition alone."
"It is not ambition." Her voice remained level. "It is calculation."
She slid the red-marked report across the table. She Long took it, scanned it once, then again more carefully. His eyes narrowed as he moved down the lines.
"Whale glue? Commoner ?" he said while reading. The more he read the more shocking that She Long felt.
This method if they can take it back to the spirit hall, how many people can rise.
"So the latest one take for two months before absorbing the spirit ring close to nine hundreds."
"Less than Renyu has had in a tenth of the time," Qian Renxue said.
She Long lifted his eyes from the page to the child in question.
For the first time, the look changed from simple observation to true assessment.
She Long let the paper lower into the desk.
The room quieted.
Renyu understood what was happening. Not persuasion. Not exactly. A recalculation. The old Douluo was taking Renyu out of the category of sheltered child and putting him somewhere else—still fragile, still young, but not ordinary.
At last She Long said, "If the data is sound, then nine hundred years is not the upper boundary. Only the proven lower one."
"Exactly," Qian Renxue said.
He glanced at Renyu again. "And the martial spirit?"
Qian Renxue did not answer at once.
When she did, every word came sharpened.
"A red crystal mutant tool spirit with unusually high tolerance. The rest does not concern you."
That was a warning.
A clear one.
She Long accepted it without the slightest sign of being offense. "Understood."
Then he looked at Renyu and said, "Summon it."
Renyu did.
The red crystal bloomed above his palm, cold and beautiful as cut blood.
The old Douluo eyes fixed on it. He did not speak for several breaths.
Then, unexpectedly, one corner of his mouth moved.
"This is not an ordinary martial spirit." he said.
"No," Qian Renxue replied. "It is not."
She Long stepped closer, close enough that Renyu could feel the pressure of a great soul master attention even through the man's restraint.
"How does it respond to soul power?"
Renyu answered plainly. "It refines control. The ring type does not matter. Only age and whether my body can endure the absorption."
She Long gaze flicked once toward Qian Renxue, confirming that the child had not misspoken. She gave no correction.
That, more than anything else, seemed to settle his skepticism.
He let out a quiet breath through his nose. "Then the beast choice becomes simpler."
"Stronger," Qian Renxue corrected.
"Yes," he said. "Stronger."
The three of them spent the next stretch of time not discussing whether Renyu would attempt a thousand-year ring, but what kind of thousand-year ring would best serve his first step.
The conversation felt strange to Renyu. It was the kind of planning usually reserved for much older soul masters, yet here he was, a six-year-old, listening to a disguised future god and a Title Douluo decide how far beyond common sense his opening move would be.
In the end, Qian Renxue made the final call.
"You will leave before first light," she said. "No palace carriage. No official escort. Commoner clothing only."
She Long nodded once.
"Outer forest, not deep center," she continued. "A thousand-year target is sufficient. Do not chase rarity for its own sake."
That was aimed as much at Renyu as at the Douluo.
He accepted it without protest.
She Long added, "The child will learn how to handle the first beast that he kill then."
Renyu almost objected to being discussed like luggage.
Almost.
Qian Renxue eyes slid toward him, catching the spark before it could become words.
"You will do as Elder She says once you enter the hunting ground," she said.
Renyu swallowed the argument and nodded.
"Good," she said.
That was the end of the discussion.
The departure was handled with the kind of efficiency only long habit could produce.
Before dawn, Renyu was dressed as the son of a minor merchant household—plain but not ragged, neat enough to avoid notice, forgettable enough not to invite a second look. His hair was tied back more simply than usual. The finer traces of palace life were stripped from him piece by piece until even he barely resembled the child who walked at Xue Qinghe side in the Heaven Dou residence.
Qian Renxue saw him off alone.
No attendants. No ceremony.
Just the two of them in the shadowed side courtyard where the story had once continue with a carving knife and an overly familiar correction of his grip.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then she adjusted his collar herself, fingers quick and practiced.
"You remember the breathing pattern for the absorption spirit ring?"
"Yes."
"The pain may be worse than you expect."
"I know."
"If it exceeds what your mind can hold, abandon the attempt."
Renyu looked up at her. "Would you?"
A pause.
Then, because this was Qian Renxue and not anyone gentler, she answered honestly.
"No."
His mouth twitched despite himself.
"So don't tell me to do what you wouldn't."
Her fingers paused at his collarbone.
Then she flicked his forehead.
"Presumptuous."
But the corner of her mouth had moved.
When she withdrew her hand, the crown prince face was calm again, yet her eyes were not that distant at all.
"Come back alive," she said.
Renyu nodded once. "I will."
She Long waited beyond the gate with one ordinary horses and the patience of a man who had lived long enough not to be inconvenienced by silence. He gave Renyu one look, checked the fit of the boy travel straps, and mounted without comment.
The journey out of Heaven Dou passed mostly without words.
The roads thinned. Stone gave way to dirt. Cultivated fields loosened into wilder growth. The morning sun climbed slowly, burning mist off the low ground in pale sheets. Renyu rode in silence, conserving energy, while She Long occasionally glanced at him as though still measuring what kind of child Qian Renxue had chosen to gamble on.
By late afternoon, the land had begun to change.
The trees grew denser.
The air carried the smell of damp leaves and old bark.
Birdsong thinned into the wary quiet that lived at the edges of soul beast territory.
She Long finally reined in his horse beside a rise overlooking the darkening tree line.
"This is far enough," he said.
Renyu dismounted and stood beside him.
Ahead lay the forest—broad, green-black, and waiting.
Somewhere inside it, a thousand-year soul beast was breathing.
Somewhere inside it, his first real step into this world was waiting too.
She Long looked down at him once and said, "From here onward, every decision matters."
Renyu's hand curled once at his side, remembering the phantom weight of the red crystal.
"Yes," he said.
And together, Title Douluo and child, they faced the forest where the gamble would begin.