Chapter 9: The Villain Complains First

Su Xiao'Er walked ahead with his head down, while Su Han followed closely behind. The old beggar hesitated for a moment before scurrying after them.

After turning two corners and passing through an alley, Su Han followed Su Xiao'Er along the high wall of a sprawling courtyard. Halfway down the wall, the sunlight above them was suddenly blocked out.

Su Han instinctively looked up, and his steps halted on their own.

"Crown Prince?" Hearing the footsteps behind him stop, Su Xiao'Er turned around and looked at Su Han in confusion.

Su Han didn't answer. His gaze was fixed straight on the... lush, leafy canopy above them.

At this moment, in his eyes, this was no longer an ordinary tree. That's right, this tree... was no longer ordinary. Who knew what it had been through, but right now, in Su Han's eyes, this tree had acquired an unconventional alternative name—a Skill Tree.

The kind of Skill Tree that granted skills when lit up. A Skill Tree exactly like the one planted by their ancestor Su Guangxing in the courtyard of Prince Jing's Residence.

To someone who could light up a Skill Tree and obtain skills from it, what did such a tree mean? It meant he couldn't wait to light it up, by any means necessary. Just as a doctor, upon seeing a rare, atypical case, would rack their brains to cure it. Or how a mathematician, encountering a Millennium Prize Problem, would go to any length to solve it.

However, since this massive tree was blocked by a wall and planted in someone else's courtyard, it naturally wasn't something Su Han could light up just because he wanted to.

Even though he was Crown Prince Jing, and the entirety of Lingzhou City was the fiefdom of Prince Jing's Residence, Su Han truly couldn't stoop so low as to bully civilians or seize property by force. Even if it was just a tree!

"Hmm... Su Xiao'Er, this tree... whose courtyard is this tree in?" he asked. Although he couldn't take it by force, there were other ways to go about it, weren't there? For instance... buy it, or just buy it straight up.

Su Xiao'Er glanced up at the branches protruding over the wall but failed to see anything special about them. He looked at his Crown Prince with a puzzled expression. He had no idea why the Crown Prince had suddenly taken such an interest in a tree out of the blue. Wait, no. The Crown Prince had seemed quite interested in trees lately.

Thinking of that highly significant tree—personally planted by the imperial ancestor—which his Crown Prince had torched, and for which he had acted as an accomplice, an absurd thought couldn't help but rise in Su Xiao'Er's mind.

He thought, "Is the Crown Prince... planning to burn another tree?"

This thought flashed by, only to be immediately dismissed by Su Xiao'Er. The Crown Prince wasn't sick in the head; why would he go around burning trees for fun without any reason? Besides, even if he was ill, no one had ever heard of a disease called "habitual tree-burning."

Repeatedly denying his own guesses, Su Xiao'Er replied with a slightly strange expression, "Crown Prince, the courtyard inside belongs to the Gao Family."

Su Han paused. "The Gao Family?"

Su Xiao'Er nodded.

"The same Gao Family of Gao the Third? The guy who fought with me over Miss Meng when I was eight, got eight of his front teeth knocked out by me, and exposed my brothel visit to my mother, causing me to lie flat on my stomach in bed for half a month?"

Su Xiao'Er nodded, his expression increasingly odd.

Su Han was speechless. This... was truly a coincidence.

He looked up again at the Skill Tree right above him. He recalled what he had just told himself about not taking things by force. Then he remembered his desire to find an excuse to teach Gao the Third a lesson and see if he could lend Wu Da a helping hand while at it.

Su Han couldn't help but gulp. Well... so much for principles!

"Su Xiao'Er, run back to the Prince's Residence as fast as you can. Bring some people and three barrels of kerosene."

Su Xiao'Er was speechless. He thought, "Am I just too ignorant? Is there actually a disease in this world called 'habitual tree-burning'? Can the Crown Prince still be saved?"

Despite his inner hesitation, seeing the earnest expression on Su Han's face, Su Xiao'Er nodded in compliance. He jogged swiftly toward the Prince's Residence, disappearing from the outside of the Gao Family courtyard in the blink of an eye.

In less than fifteen minutes, Su Xiao'Er returned, flanked by two young maids. Each of them was hugging a barrel of kerosene as they appeared before Su Han.

"Crown Prince, the kerosene you requested." Su Xiao'Er lined the three barrels up in front of Su Han, fully embodying the role of a dedicated and responsible servant.

"Mm, good work." Su Han nodded and patted Su Xiao'Er on the shoulder. "Find a way to pour all this kerosene on that tree. Try not to let anyone catch you."

Su Xiao'Er nodded to show he understood.

Su Han took a few steps back with the two maids, clearing the area beneath the giant tree.

Su Xiao'Er picked up a barrel of kerosene and lightly tapped the ground with his toes. He leaped onto the wall of the Gao Family's courtyard, then bounded again, landing squarely in the tree's canopy. He opened the barrel and poured out the kerosene. It cascaded down over the canopy, sliding along the branches and down the trunk.

After emptying one barrel, Su Xiao'Er jumped down from the canopy to grab the next one. He repeated this three times until all three barrels of kerosene drenched the Gao Family's massive tree.

"Crown Prince, the entire tree is covered in kerosene." Placing the third barrel on the ground, Su Xiao'Er reported back to his master.

Su Han nodded. "Did you clean up your footprints?"

Su Xiao'Er nodded again. For something like this, there was no way he would leave behind such crucial evidence as footprints.

"Good." Su Han nodded. He turned his head and glanced at the maid on his left, Qin, who had a chest as flat as an airport runway. He shook his head and then looked at the maid, Hua, who came equipped with twin Mount Everests. "Hua, take me up there for a second."

Hua nodded with a soft smile. "Understood."

Su Han's gaze shifted to Su Xiao'Er. Catching the hint, Su Xiao'Er took out a flint and handed it to him. Su Han took the flint. Hua wrapped her arms around him and lightly tapped the ground with her toes, leaping up onto the courtyard wall with Su Han in tow.

Supported by Hua as he stood on the wall, Su Han blew on the flint to catch a flame. He touched it to several spots on the branches within his reach before tossing the lit flint directly onto the trunk.

FWOOSH!

The kerosene met the open flame, and a roaring fire instantly ignited. By the time Hua brought Su Han back down to the ground, the massive tree belonging to the Gao Family had already been engulfed by the inferno.

Su Han retreated a dozen meters. When he looked at the giant tree again, its status had changed to: Skill Tree (Lit).

With a mere thought, the skills within the lit Skill Tree were listed before him.

Optional Skill 1: Gao Family Ancestral Alchemy (3-Star).

Optional Skill 2: Basic Boxing Skill (Mastery).

Coincidentally, there were exactly two skills to choose from again. He didn't know if every Skill Tree offered exactly two choices upon being lit, or if it was just a coincidence that two options appeared both times. Since it had only happened twice, he couldn't draw a definitive conclusion just yet.

Faced with these two options, Su Han chose the first skill without a second of hesitation.

3-Star Alchemy! The Gao Family was Lingzhou City's premier Elixir Medicine Family. Currently, the Alchemy of the Gao Family's Supreme Elder—their strongest alchemist—was apparently only at the 2-Star High-Grade level. Yet even with that, the Gao Family had secured a pivotal position in Lingzhou City through their Elixir business. Thus, the value of this 3-Star Alchemy was plainly evident. At the very least, it was vastly, immensely more valuable than some Mastery Level Basic Boxing Skill.

The moment Su Han made his choice, a surge of Dao Rhyme was instantly extracted from the Skill Tree. It transformed into specks of light that poured into Su Han's Sea of Consciousness, absorbed by his mind until it became instinct.

With the Dao Rhyme gone, the flames on the tree rapidly intensified, entirely consuming the branches and trunk. In a matter of minutes, it would be reduced to nothing but ash.

He had burned the Gao Family's tree and acquired the Gao Family's Alchemy. Su Han subconsciously went to flick off the soot clinging to his clothes. But just as he raised his hand, he pulled it back.

Glancing at the ash that had smoked his garments, Su Han's eyes darted around as another scheme surfaced in his mind. He cautiously crept over to the base of the wall and picked up a broken twig that still bore a few glowing embers. Pinching the corner of his robe, he used the twig to burn a hole right through the fabric.

Tossing the twig aside, Su Han violently kicked over an empty kerosene barrel beside him. He waved his hand grandly and declared with fierce indignation, "The Gao Family's tree caught fire and ruined my clothes! Come, we are going to the Gao Family to demand an explanation!"

Everyone was speechless. They wondered, "Crown Prince, is it really okay to be this shameless?"