The man who rose from the Fountain of Eternal Life was transformed—no scorch marks, no cracks—whole again. Young. Regal. Handsome enough that Li Ming almost blurted, "Brother Jet!" and begged for an autograph.
The Emperor flexed his fingers, opening and closing them as if testing the truth of his own existence. Disbelief flickered across his face. Could revival really be so easy? He shifted into a stance, snapped out a few shadowboxing cuts, and for flourish exhaled a ribbon of fire.
Li Ming's brows knit. Once upon a time this man had held the world in his palm. Now add immortality, near-invulnerability, and a slumbering army underfoot. Would he really choose quiet retirement? Or march again?
Li Ming kept his tone light. "Your Majesty, ever think about a name change? 'Ying Zheng' is a little too recognizable. Whether you're guarding borders or carving out new ground overseas, that name will draw fire."
The Emperor—revived and radiant—glanced at him with cool disdain. If not for the oath and the Unbreakable Vow, if not for the fact that Li Ming had just handed him resurrection, he wouldn't have answered at all. And yes, Li Ming had skipped over the "peaceful retirement" option entirely. The man had seen straight through him. No emperor liked his thoughts read aloud.
Still, the warning stuck. A century from now, if some science-obsessed nation discovered he could not die, they'd hound him endlessly. If he built a power base, visibility was inevitable. Carrying "Ying Zheng" like a banner would be asking for trouble.
He gave a wry shake of the head. "Not Ying Zheng. Call me Zhao Zheng."
Li Ming stifled a sigh. Ying clan, Zhao lineage—Zhao Zheng was still Zhao Zheng. But better than nothing.
He cut a glance toward Ziyuan, unconscious on the ground. "What about her?"
Zhao Zheng weighed the dagger she'd dropped, then breathed a thin stream of fire over it. Metal slumped to slag between his fingers. His smile held no warmth. "Any counsel?"
Li Ming wasn't blind. If he'd been trapped in clay for two millennia, vengeance would be his first act too. He stepped aside with a small gesture. "Your business. Do as you like."
That answer pleased Zhao Zheng. He nodded, strode toward Ziyuan, and said over his shoulder, "Have brush and ink ready. Pigments, not pens. When I'm finished with her, I'll give you the method."
Grinning, Li Ming flicked his staff. A boulder rippled into a low stone table. He set his grimoire upon it like a student on exam day.
Zhao Zheng knelt beside Ziyuan, expression conflicted. Gratitude—she had made his immortality possible. Hatred—she had caged him for two thousand years.
At last, he pressed a palm to her brow. Power stirred.
"What are you doing?" Li Ming asked.
"Soul-searching," Zhao Zheng said, glancing at the puddled dagger metal. "I want to know her traps, her allies. I won't fall to another petty schemer."
Li Ming thought, Once bitten, twice shy.
Soon Zhao Zheng's mouth tightened. "So. You have a daughter."
He didn't hesitate. A conjured blade flashed, and he drove it clean through Ziyuan's heart. An ancient story ended with a single stroke.
At the table, Li Ming tried not to watch. He focused instead on the man approaching, eyes bright with a boyish hunger.
"That felt good," Zhao Zheng said. "Have you wine?"
Li Ming spread his hands. "Beer exists here, but it doesn't keep. I didn't stock any." He tipped his chin toward Kreacher. "Food, then. His Majesty and I need to talk."
Zhao Zheng glanced at the elf, then picked up the quill from the table. He frowned at the nib. "This is the pen of your time? I dislike it."
"Oh, right." Li Ming smacked his forehead. Calligraphy brushes were a Qin man's weapon of choice. He wove a quick transmutation; the quill melted into a wolf-hair brush.
This time Zhao Zheng nodded. He dipped and began to write. Li Ming's excitement sagged fast.
Qin-era seal script. Classical prose. No punctuation.
When Zhao Zheng set the brush down, Li Ming stared at the page, eye twitching. One misplaced pause in a cultivation manual could kill you. He hadn't studied Qin characters, much less the rhythms of antiquity.
Give a man a divine manual and watch him choke on it, he thought. Clearing his throat, he said, "Your Majesty, would you… explain it to me?"
Zhao Zheng blinked, then remembered—different age, different tongue. He exhaled, half put upon, half amused. Fragments of grave-robbers' memories rose in his mind. He passed the brush back. "You write while I speak. Learn quickly. My soldiers wait to see the sun—and to follow me when I take the world again."
Li Ming rubbed his brow ridge, sheepish, and took his seat.
The text itself was barely a hundred characters—concise, sharp. But transcription into something he could use ballooned toward ten thousand words. Translation wasn't understanding. If it were, schools wouldn't need teachers.
He worked while Kreacher laid a feast. He kept working as Zhao Zheng ate with gusto, dictating hidden logic behind each phrase. Li Ming's stomach growled, but his pen didn't stop.
Only when Zhao Zheng slumped back, burping in contentment, did Li Ming pause, press for clarifications, and scribble like mad. By the time the method resembled something he could actually follow, Kreacher was already preparing the next night's dinner.
When food finally hit the table, Li Ming dropped pretense. He seized a roast chicken with both hands and tore in. Zhao Zheng stared, dumbstruck.
He might not have grown up with chopsticks, but he swore before Heaven he'd never again see anyone eat like that. Not even a starving ghost.
When the carnage ended, Li Ming leaned back, wiping grease from his chin. "So. Plans?"
"First, my soldiers," Zhao Zheng said. "They've longed too long for sunlight." His eyes narrowed, gleaming with a more distant hunger. "Then I learn—your sciences, your maps, your rules. Once I understand, I'll choose an overseas region and make it mine. You know the world. Any recommendations?"
Li Ming scratched his head, fox-smile curling. "I do. The males there are an eyesore. Cats, dogs, roaches, rats—if it's male, it annoys me. If every male creature dropped dead, it'd be paradise. Only drawback: the earthquakes get old."
He licked his lips in a wolfish grin. "Shall we take it together?"
"Earthquakes," Zhao Zheng echoed, eyes slitting. "The Sushi Kingdom?"
A short while later, over roasted lamb with the cave breathing night around them, the talk turned practical.
"Men without arms?" Zhao Zheng grumbled. "Shall they bite the enemy to death?"
Li Ming thumped his chest. "Don't let the travel clothes fool you, Your Majesty. As for pay—" He flicked two fingers. "Kreacher, the chest."
The elf slid a trunk forward and cracked the lid. Light poured over gold like a sunrise. Zhao barely spared it a look—until a bracelet lifted in Kreacher's fingers and the weight of it hit his calculations. Not a few days' rations. Months of grain. Gunpowder. Wages.
Zhao clapped Li Ming's shoulder, the rare warmth of a commander whose logistics had finally unclenched. "No reward without merit. Name your price."
Li Ming tilted his chin toward the oracle-bone grimoire on the stone table.
Zhao paused, then nodded. "Understood."
He turned to the cave mouth, mountains unrolling like a dragon's spine, and spoke without looking back. "You've never tasted worldly power. If you had, you'd know its sweetness. In my day, a word moved a nation." He exhaled, softer. "I envy your heart—chasing transcendence instead of clutching dust. You have power and don't hunger for the red world. I… cannot."
Li Ming scratched his head, a little abashed. It wasn't sainthood. It was malpractice-level allergy to hassle. Building something that mattered meant up-before-roosters, down-after-dogs, and a decade of grind before the galas. You didn't network your way to a throne with two cocktails and a smile.
He'd settle for being an exceptionally dangerous civilian. Let the future tycoons strut. If they wanted trouble, he could always ask whose bite was worse.
They ate. They planned. And—because Li Ming's mind loved a detour—he chased a thought he'd been turning over since Cairo: the old cosmopolitan cliché about "arriving" in life—eat Chinese cuisine, live in a French villa, drive American muscle, wear German tailoring… and marry a woman from the island nation. He was fully on board with the first half. No one worshipped a stove like China did; Kreacher's woksmanship alone could make a cynic believe in heaven. French villas? Sure—cathedrals to leisure. Detroit steel and Teutonic fabric? Built like bank vaults.
The "island bride" bit? Outdated and untestable. Life wasn't a showroom, and people weren't imports. You don't window-shop a spouse and check the manual. And back home they were debating children, not second spouses. Where exactly was he meant to "buy" one?
Which was why, when he nudged Zhao toward planting a flag in that quake-prone archipelago, it wasn't about trophies. He'd admit it: curiosity. About people. About the culture that built shrines that sanitized old sins and called it heritage. The country itself rubbed him wrong; the history doubly so.
Zhao's calculus ran colder. "Silver and ports," he said. "Guns and grain." Immortal didn't mean invulnerable. Cut a head off and a soldier still died; starve him and the body lingered while the spirit quit. To march, men needed food; to fight now, they needed rifles. Swords belonged in museums.
They sealed it over dinner: his new nation would be carved from the island empire across the sea. Zhao's next complaint was immediate. "Where do we buy arms?"
Li Ming's grin sharpened. "Leave procurement to me."
Zhao's gaze slid to the gold again. "Half a year," he said at last. "I'll study your wars and drill my men on modern weapons. After that the campaign begins and I won't be free. Those six months are all I can give you to guide your practice."
"Perfect," Li Ming said. Six months to etch the method into muscle memory. Even if he jumped back to Marvel, he wouldn't worry about a wrong turn driving him insane.
Night dropped hard. Two days and a night without sleep finally caught him. He washed his face, glanced at Zhao still standing at the cave lip, wind in his hair and old ghosts in his eyes, and said, "Good night," before crawling into the tent.
Snoring followed. Loud snoring. Cave-acoustics snoring.
Zhao's eye twitched. If he didn't owe the man his revival, he'd rip open the tent and punt him like a drum. Fine. If sleep refused him, work would. He rose, unfolded into dragon shape, and arrowed into the stars.
By noon, Li Ming stumbled out with towel and toothbrush, still half-asleep. He dipped a ladle into the Fountain—perfect for rinsing—then froze. A young woman stood a short distance away: thin robe, wrists bound, a rag in her mouth. Who climbs the Himalayas dressed like that? On a dare?
"She's Lin," Zhao's voice drifted from a boulder. He sat with a wine jar, pleased with himself. "Ziyuan's daughter. I fetched her last night."
"And?" Li Ming asked around his toothbrush.
"I will trade her immortality to give my soldiers flesh and blood again."
Li Ming lifted a shoulder that meant not my circus. He scooped shimmering water, swished, and spat.
Lin stared at him. Then at the pool. Then back, as if her brain had slipped a gear.
So did Zhao. He choked on his drink, coughing until his eyes watered. People would sell their souls for a sip and this brat was gargling? Yes, unhygienic—but if he swallowed it he'd be healthier. Did the man not understand "nonrenewable resource"?
Li Ming misread the looks, waggled his brush helpfully. "It's enchanted," he mumbled. "Cleans itself, cleans me. Hands-free too."
The portal never let mundane toiletries through; he'd made a magical toothbrush out of spite. He refused to live the non-brushing life.
Zhao pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tonight I revive my men. You stay here and practice. When I've settled them, I'll return and answer what you still don't grasp."
He shifted back into a dragon with a sigh, plucked Lin like a squirming kitten, and beat for the clouds.
Li Ming glanced at Kreacher: What was that? Kreacher looked equally blank and returned to laying out… brunch? Lunch? Breakfast at noon was philosophy.
Fed and warm, Li Ming slid into the pool, crossed his legs, and let the world fall away. He turned the wheels of the method.
Time thinned. Breath lengthened. Power—never vast in quantity—threaded a clean circuit, brightening as it flowed. He felt it refine, a fractional but undeniable purity. His mind sharpened; edges smoothed into a single point.
He opened his eyes, grinning.
Forget the piles of spells. Forget the fountain. The greatest treasure in this world wasn't a book or a pool—it was a path.
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