In the Imperial Garden.
The fragrance of the rice still lingered in the air.
Ying Ziye casually brushed the dirt off his hands.
He didn’t even glance at the priceless dragon tooth rice behind him.
Then turned and walked away.
“Is that all?”
With his short little legs, he headed straight toward a corner of the garden—the octagonal glazed well.
This well had a name.
The “Dragon Well.”
It was said that when Duke Xiao of Qin once saw a black dragon rising from water here, it became the focal point of the Qin dynasty’s water veins.
Qin Shi Huang was still holding the dragon tooth rice. Seeing his son run off, he hurried after him.
“Ziye, what are you doing there?”
“The well is deep—don’t fall in!”
Civil and military officials followed in a large crowd.
The Dayuan prince, still holding the half-broken jade plate, had a face uglier than crying.
He also followed.
He refused to believe it.
What else could possibly happen in this Qin imperial palace?
Ying Ziye stood by the well and peeked down.
It was dark and deep.
“This is the place.”
He pulled out the faintly glowing blue sphere again.
The spiritual spring eye.
Earlier, even the proud blood horse nearly knelt itself to death just to lick this thing.
Everyone stared at it.
A treasure.
An invaluable divine object.
The Dayuan prince’s eyes were about to pop out. He looked like he wanted to rush forward and snatch it.
The next second—
Ying Ziye let go.
Plop.
The glowing sphere dropped straight into the well like a useless stone.
The entire place fell into dead silence.
Li Si’s mouth opened so wide his jaw nearly dislocated.
Wang Li dropped his hoe with a clang—it hit his foot and he didn’t even feel it.
He just… threw it?
Just like that?!
“You… you wastrel!”
The Dayuan prince pointed at Ying Ziye, his voice sharp like a eunuch’s scream.
“That is a divine object!”
“You just threw it into a well?!”
“Squandering heaven’s treasures! This is absolute waste!”
He looked like Ying Ziye had just thrown away his ancestral tomb.
Ying Ziye rolled his eyes.
“It’s just a well. Why are you so worked up?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were the toad living in it.”
The Dayuan prince trembled in rage and was about to curse—
BOOM!
A deep muffled roar came from deep underground.
It wasn’t an explosion.
More like the earth itself let out a satisfied belch.
The stone slabs beneath their feet began to tremble violently.
From the well—
no water splashed out.
Instead, light erupted.
A blue pillar of light shot straight into the sky, punching through the clouds like a spear.
Then—
“Huuuu—”
A wave of white mist burst out from the well.
It was not ordinary vapor.
It was concentrated spiritual energy so dense it almost had substance.
The mist did not dissipate.
Instead, like something alive, it spread across the ground in all directions.
At incredible speed.
In the blink of an eye, it covered everyone’s ankles.
“What… what kind of smoke is this?”
The Qiuci envoy staggered back and stepped into the grass.
Then froze.
Because his ankle started itching.
He looked down.
“Ahhh!”
He screamed.
The originally yellow, frost-withered grass of late autumn was now turning green like it had gone mad.
Not only green—
but growing.
Dead blades of grass shed away as fresh green shoots burst out visibly.
A small wild flower suddenly bloomed beside his foot with a pop.
Bright red.
As if smiling at him.
“My heavens…”
Meng Tian rubbed his eyes.
He thought he had gone blind.
It was already the tenth month.
The Qin winter in Xianyang was cold like knives.
The garden trees had already lost all their leaves, standing like ghostly claws.
But now—
As the mist passed over the old trees…
Crack! Crack!
The bark split open.
Tender green leaves sprouted as if by magic.
An ancient locust tree, over a hundred years old, actually burst into full bloom in just three breaths.
White blossoms covered the entire canopy.
Petals fell like snow.
In that instant,
the entire imperial garden shifted from a bleak, murderous winter directly into a flourishing midsummer.
The fragrance of vegetation mixed with the scent of earth, rushing straight into the skull.
“So fragrant!”
Li Si took a deep breath.
But that single breath changed everything.
A warm current surged through his nasal passages into his dantian.
His old rheumatic legs—which used to ache terribly every rainy day—suddenly felt a wave of warmth.
The pain was gone.
Not only gone, but full of unexpected strength.
Li Si tried moving his legs.
They cut through the air like a tiger.
“I… I can do a backflip!”
The Qin Prime Minister was so excited his beard trembled, almost wanting to perform acrobatics on the spot for Ying Ziye.
Nearby, the old eunuch serving Qin Shi Huang collapsed to his knees in shock.
He touched his face.
His wrinkled, orange-peel-like skin had tightened.
His full head of white hair was visibly darkening from the roots.
“Rejuvenation…”
“This is rejuvenation!”
He slammed his head on the ground repeatedly, worshipping Ying Ziye.
“Ninth Prince is a god!”
“Ninth Prince has descended from the heavens!”
Qin Shi Huang stood within the mist.
He was the Emperor of Qin—carrying the fate of the nation itself.
He felt it most clearly.
The white mist entered his body like long-awaited rain after drought.
The stagnant blood and qi accumulated from years of exhaustion instantly flowed smoothly again.
Even his long-stalled martial bottleneck began to loosen.
“Huu—”
Qin Shi Huang exhaled a breath of turbid air.
It was black.
He clenched his fist.
His joints cracked loudly.
The sensation of overflowing strength made him want to draw his sword and strike something.
“This is the effect of that sphere?”
He looked at Ying Ziye, eyes shining.
Ying Ziye shrugged.
“It’s called Spiritual Charm Revival.”
“This bit of spiritual energy is just enough to turn Xianyang Palace into a blessed paradise.”
“From now on, living here means no illness, and living a few dozen extra years is as easy as breathing.”
A few dozen extra years.
Those words struck everyone like thunder.
Their ears buzzed.
Especially the Western Region envoys.
What did they spend their lives chasing?
Wealth, power, and a few extra years of life.
The Dayuan prince no longer cared about royal dignity.
The breath he inhaled felt ten thousand times more pleasurable than anything he had ever experienced.
He was intoxicated.
Every pore in his body screamed with delight.
“Breathe!”
“Quick—breathe!”
He crawled to the edge of the well like a dog, sticking his nose toward it.
That was where the spiritual energy was thickest.
He inhaled greedily, like a starving ghost.
“Get away!”
The Qiuci envoy panicked.
This was immortal energy that grants longevity!
Every breath was precious!
He shoved the Dayuan prince aside and shoved his own face forward.
“Let me breathe!”
“Don’t push! We found it first!”
“I am the court sorcerer of Loulan—let me go first!”
The Western Region envoys, who moments ago were refined and polite, were now—
fighting.
Hats fell, robes tore.
Hair disheveled, faces filthy.
They sprawled on the ground, scrambling and clawing like wild beasts, desperately trying to inhale the white mist.
Where was any dignity left?
They looked like a pack of starving boars fighting over scraps.
The civil and military officials of Qin stood aside watching their former “distinguished guests” turn into such a disgraceful mess.
It felt incredible.
Satisfying beyond words.
Wang Li hugged his hoe and chuckled foolishly.
“A bunch of bumpkins.”
“This is all it took to break them?”
Ying Ziye looked at the tangled mess of envoys and shook his head.
Disgusted.
“Father.”
“Have someone throw them out.”
“Don’t let them dirty our immortal energy.”
He turned his back on the spectacle of chaos, leaving the envoys rolling in the dirt behind him.
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