Chapter 48: Eternal Time

As the enforcers departed, Lawyer Zeng stepped forward and asked, "Miss Wei Zi, shouldn't we be heading back now?"

"Head back? Head back to where?" Wei Zi asked in a daze.

"Naturally..." Naturally, to General Xing's residence.

However, before Lawyer Zeng could finish, Wei Zi raised her hand to interrupt him. "Lawyer Zeng, please let me be by myself for a while! I want to stay at home alone! I don't want anyone to disturb me!"

"Well... alright then!" Seeing that Wei Zi was undoubtedly in deep emotional pain, Lawyer Zeng nodded in agreement.

"Please also inform General Xing that I wish to be left alone!"

"Very well!" Lawyer Zeng nodded and took his leave.

Gazing at her devastated, scarred home, Wei Zi felt not a single trace of attachment!

With everyone gone, Wei Zi remained alone in the house. She slumped in despair onto the bedroom carpet that had once belonged to Wei Dongming and Cheng Lan—a room that was now He Xiaohe's bedroom.

She had reclaimed her belongings, but they were already tainted. The bed her mother had slept in had also been shared by He Xiaohe, and the villa, once filled with the warmth of her mother, was now equally shadowed by He Xiaohe's curses and abuse.

Suddenly, she burst into loud, choking laughter, unable to catch her breath. Then, amidst the laughter, she began to cry.

She wept with absolute hysteria, as if trying to pour out a decade of accumulated pain all at once!

Her birthday came to a complete close amidst this heart-wrenching weeping!

...

Wei Zi ultimately decided to sell the villa. She had no wish to return here; happiness was always fleeting, but sorrow lasted a lifetime. She refused to let herself relive those memories ever again!

Leaving the villa behind, she took her mother's jewelry and precious ornaments. The remaining furniture and items that were inconvenient to sell were disposed of along with the property to the buyer.

After listing the villa with a real estate agency, Wei Zi felt entirely alone in the world, with no idea where to go!

Just at that moment, she suddenly remembered that her maternal grandfather had previously left her the key to a bank safety deposit box.

She made her way to the Imperial Capital Huatian Bank and, with the assistance of the staff, unlocked the safety deposit box!

The contents of the box were very simple: a bank card, a letter, and a small box.

Wei Zi opened the letter first. It had been written by her grandfather half a year before his passing.

Her grandfather's love for Wei Zi was deeply indulgent, but after all, he was old and in poor health, no match for Wei Dongming. The pressures of business had already driven him to exhaustion, leaving him with no way to properly care for Wei Zi.

Furthermore, Wei Dongming was not an honorable man. Fearing that Wei Zi might not be able to contend with him in the future, her grandfather had entrusted the key to Han Cheng as his secondary contingency plan.

"A-Zi, if your father is truly unkind to you, do not act on impulse. Grandpa hopes you will live well, healthy and happy, rather than locking yourself in a bitter struggle with your father. There are fifty million profound coins on this card, which will be enough to ensure you a life of wealth. As for the box, it contains the family heirloom of your grandfather. If you awaken your profound core and become a profound practitioner, you may wear it; if you do not awaken it, pass it down."

Looking at her grandfather's handwriting, Wei Zi's tears broke the levees once more. Ever since her rebirth, she felt as though she had grown fragile, or perhaps this physical body, having never experienced such deep sorrow, was simply too delicate, easily yielding to tears at the slightest provocation.

She carefully preserved the letter, put away the crystal card, and took out the only small box from the safety deposit box, opening it.

In an instant, a dazzling flash of silver entered her field of vision.

"This is..."

Wei Zi reached out and touched the ring. Instantly, profound runes surged forth, wrapping around her finger and piercing her skin.

A single droplet of blood welled up, and in a flash, Wei Zi felt as though her vital essence had been extracted, drawn directly into the ring.

The originally brilliant silver grew even more blinding, almost completely enveloping her.

At that moment, she could clearly sense that everything around her had slowed down, as if time itself had frozen!

The silver light lasted only for a single instant before retreating back into the ring, where the silver hue faded into transparency, leaving it looking like a completely ordinary diamond piece of jewelry—at most, slightly larger and more exquisite than usual.

Yet, just moments before, Wei Zi had undeniably felt its formidable power.

The fluctuations emanating from this ring were definitely on the level of a heaven-reaching profound treasure!

Wei Zi slipped the ring onto her finger and channeled her profound energy into it. The runes on the ring flared once more, expanding outward, and miraculously, time came to a standstill once again!

"It can actually stop time? Could this be that legendary treasure?" Wei Zi whispered in disbelief, recalling the legends of the profound realm regarding the supreme heaven-reaching profound treasure capable of freezing time: Eternal Time.

Terrified, she instantly cut off the flow of profound energy, her heart pounding wildly. How could this be possible? How could her grandfather possess a heaven-reaching treasure like Eternal Time? Wasn't this one of the top ten heaven-reaching profound treasures that had been lost and unaccounted for a thousand years ago?

Wei Zi took out the letter once more and examined it carefully. When she saw Cheng Qingping write that this item was a family heirloom, a sudden thought struck her.

Earlier, when she was inheriting the estate, she had found it strangely peculiar that there were numerous land deeds and property titles that even she had never known about. In the Imperial Capital, where every inch of land was worth a fortune, Cheng Qingping had appeared to be merely a merchant with some business acumen; the number of property and land deeds he left behind was simply overwhelming.

Those assets were the most valuable and covetous treasures of all. Wei Dongming had certainly never known about them before—at the very least, he had been unaware that Cheng Qingping owned so many.

"Could it be that Grandfather had some other background?" Wei Zi wondered internally, but since Cheng Qingping had already passed away and left no other relatives, she naturally had no way to ask. She could only harbor these doubts deep in her heart.

Her gaze returned to the ring, and suddenly, the more she looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

"This thing... it seems Wei Qing wore it in my past life!" Wei Zi suddenly grew startled and uncertain.

Back when Wei Zi had become a mercenary, Wei Qing had become an enforcer, both holding C-rank status. It wasn't that Wei Zi had never thought of killing Wei Qing, but Wei Qing's strength was actually superior to hers. On several occasions when Wei Zi had concealed her identity to assassinate Wei Qing, the other woman had managed to evade her.

In particular, rumor had it that Wei Qing possessed a special ability: her Falling Stone technique could stun enemies with a hundred percent success rate.

In reality, however, the Falling Stone technique was merely a second-rank profound technique with only a twenty percent chance of stunning a target—yet Wei Qing's success rate was a hundred percent!

Wei Zi had just used her profound energy to activate the Eternal Time ring; could it be that Wei Qing had made use of this ring back then?

However, this Eternal Time clearly required bloodline power to activate. Even if Wei Qing had obtained it, she could only have activated a tiny fraction of its ability; otherwise, the emergence of any heaven-reaching profound treasure could forge a supremely powerful profound practitioner!

If that was the case, how had this ring ended up in Wei Qing's hands?