Alone in his study inside of the Lian Clan, Chengwu sat brooding over reports received from the guards since his daughter's disappearance. He seemed to have aged several years as the worry and stress on his face made him look older.
When the sound of hurried boots echoed up the stairs and entered the room, he didn't even bother to look up.
"Speak," he ordered, his voice deep and steady.
A breathless guard knelt behind him. "Patriarch, a report from the gate. A young girl, blindfolded, in dark red robes… she claims to be your daughter."
The words didn't register for a heartbeat.
"What did you say?" Chengwu turned sharply, the air around him chilling.
"She's alive, Patriarch. She just walked in from the direction of the Emerald Mountains."
He didn't wait for guards, did not inform the elders, and he didn't even summon a carriage. He simply tore through the corridors like a man possessed, boots slamming against tile, robes flaring behind him. He barreled through the front courtyard, down the main avenue, and toward the city's gate at a full sprint.
The gate came into view, the guards already crowding the entrance. A few citizens had gathered too, murmuring in hushed awe. And there, standing just past the threshold of the city, was the unmistakable figure in dark red robes, her blindfold fluttering softly with the wind.
Chengwu stopped short, chest heaving. His heart thundered against his ribs as if it didn't believe what his eyes were seeing.
"Xue'er…" he breathed, his voice raw.
At the sound, Lian Xue tilted her head toward him, her lips curling ever so slightly. "Father."
And then he was moving again—crossing the final distance in long strides before falling to his knees before her. He grabbed her shoulders, checking her face, her arms, the state of her robes. She was real. She was alive.
"I thought I'd lost you…" he whispered hoarsely.
"Well, you didn't. I'm back," she responded as warmth filled her heart from his care.
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Later, within the quiet heart of the Lian Clan compound, her father's study was steeped in lamplight and memory. The room, once a place of orderly scrolls and ledgers, now felt like a shrine to all the things left unsaid. The warm glow of the lanterns flickered gently across polished wood, illuminating the furrowed lines on Chengwu's face as he sat beside his daughter—watching her as if afraid she'd vanish again with the next breath.
Xue sat on a low cushion across from him. Her posture was upright and still, composed with the poise of someone no longer innocent. The scent of forest mist and dried blood still clung faintly to her travel-worn robes. Her frame was thinner than he remembered, and the hollows beneath her cheekbones told stories of hunger and hardship, but her presence now radiated something he couldn't name—something stronger, quieter… forged.
"You've… changed, Xue'er," Chengwu said at last, his voice softened by awe and grief. "You're calmer than I expected. Stronger, too."
A faint, almost wistful smile touched her lips. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. "I had a lot of time to think. A lot of time to survive."
His jaw tightened, shame dancing in his eyes. "You shouldn't have had to. I failed you. As your father, as Patriarch... I should've protected you."
"No," she said, her voice slicing clean through the guilt in the room. It wasn't angry, just resolute. "You didn't fail. I made the choice to leave. That was mine to make."
"Why? Why did you leave Xue'er?" he asked, the word rough and raw. He had an idea, but he both wanted to hear it and did not want to hear it at the same time.
Her gaze turned downward. She was blind, but the weight of the past pressed behind her blindfold all the same.
"I wanted to die, father. I went out there to seek my own end."
The silence that followed seemed to stretch time itself. Seconds felt like hours as the laws of time seemed to break for this moment.
"What?" Chengwu breathed, his voice barely able to carry his words from his mouth. "Xue'er… why?"
Her reply came like stone. It was solid, steady, and impossible to lift away. "Because I didn't want to live in a world where I had to marry a monster just to serve the clan's convenience. I didn't want to wake up one day owned by someone like Jin Wei… with no way out. I would rather be dead."
"Xue'er… you know how clans work," Chengwu said softly, his shoulders sagging under a lifetime of duty. "I never wanted that for you, but the elders—"
"So you would've been fine with me marrying him?"
The words cut sharper than any blade. Chengwu flinched.
Silence returned, but it was no longer empty. It was thick with memory, regret, and the weight of roads not taken.
"That isn't fair Xue'er, you know I wouldn't be," he said after a long moment. "I was never fine with it. I planned to fight it every step of the way until I could find a way to dissolve the engagement. You left before I could even try."
Xue didn't reply. For the first time since she'd returned, warmth flickered inside her chest. She knew deep down he was most likely on her side. Even still, her heart held fear inside. She had feared he'd chosen the clan over her. In her emotional state since the engagement, she felt trapped under a rockfall. It felt hard to breathe and it felt like everyone around her was trying to stack more rocks upon her back in an effort to crush her. It was hard for her not to feel like the entire world was out to get her and make her miserable.
Another silence settled, softer this time.
"Anyway," he said gently, "what did you find out there?"
She tilted her head toward the ceiling, as if listening for an answer in the wind.
"Silence. Loneliness. Hunger. Pain." Then, after a breath, "But also… clarity. I know what I want now."
Chengwu studied her carefully. Even blindfolded, she looked straight through him. She seemed strangely more mature. A father can't help but view his daughter as a precious child forever. Even still, he had to admit she seemed so grown up after returning. He wished he could describe why that was, but he was at a loss.
Shaking off his thoughts, he asked, "Then why come back? What changed?"
Xue hesitated. "I met someone from the Zhao Clan—Wenlong. He told me about everything. The tension with the Jin Clan… the elders blaming you. I realized… I couldn't let you be punished for my freedom."
She paused, her tone shifting, her words more measured. "More than that, more than anything really… I realized I didn't truly want to die. I just wanted to live on my own terms. I didn't understand it then, but now I do. I don't want to disappear. I just want to be free. I know that is probably a stupid and silly thing to wish for. I realize it goes against the clan, but I refuse to settle for anything other than living my life by my own terms."
Chengwu looked down, his expression a mix of sorrow and pride. He knew what she wanted wasn't possible. At the very least, certainly not in a clan like theirs, not with the elders looming like old gods clinging to their power. But he saw no point in speaking those words aloud. She already knew.
"Xue'er… no matter how bad things get, I want you to kn—"
A knock broke the moment. The door creaked open as a servant entered, bowed low, and cleared his throat.
"By order of the elders, the Patriarch and Young Miss are to report to the audience chamber. That is all."
He bowed again and left without waiting for a reply.
Chengwu exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand across his brow. "Here it is, then… Go change. I'll meet you there."
Xue stood. Her voice was soft but unwavering. "No. Let's go together. I'll go as I am."
He looked at her—really looked—and saw not a daughter returning home, but a woman standing on her own edge of destiny. Her blindfold didn't conceal her anymore. It crowned her.
He reached out and took her arm gently. "Then let us go."
And together, they stepped out into the storm.
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"So, our little runaway finally returns. Tell me, where were you? Why did you run?"
Elder Baishi's voice rang out the moment Lian Chengwu and Lian Xue stepped into the audience chamber. His tone was sharp, accusing, and filled with restrained fury. The other elders sat in a semi-circle behind him, their expressions tight with disapproval and scrutiny.
Before Xue could open her mouth to respond, Baishi continued, voice rising.
"You have nearly destroyed this clan's reputation. The commoners whisper behind our backs. The Jin Clan all but prepared for war. All because of your cowardice—and your father's weakness in letting you run wild. Now speak! Explain yourself!"
His voice boomed through the hall, and at the height of his fury, a wave of pressure rippled outward from his body. Whether intentional or not, it was suffocating. His cultivation base, deep into the Qi Gathering Realm, weighed down on the room like an avalanche. Xue could feel it settle on her like a leaden cloak, her skin dampening with sweat, her muscles tensing beneath the weight.
But her voice, when it came, was steady.
"I ran because I could no longer live under your tyranny. I ran… because death felt more merciful than staying."
A cold silence fell. For a moment, even the braziers along the walls seemed to flicker quieter.
Baishi narrowed his eyes. "And? Where did you go, girl?"
Xue tilted her head slightly toward the sound of his voice. "Don't pretend you care. It doesn't matter to you where I went. So stop pretending you give a damn."
"INSOLENCE!" Elder Heng bellowed, slamming his staff to the floor with a metallic clang that echoed through the hall. "You stand before your elders and speak with such defiance? KNEEL! Kneel and repent!"
A suffocating force, even heavier than Baishi's, surged down upon her. Spiritual energy—raw, oppressive, unfiltered—poured from Elder Heng like a mountain crashing from the sky. Her knees buckled under the invisible weight, her breath hitching as her body trembled.
Her father moved in an instant.
"Stop this now!" Chengwu's voice cut through the air like a blade.
His own cultivation surged outward, clashing violently with Elder Heng's aura. For a breath, the two pressures met in the center of the hall, twisting and tearing the air between them in a howling vortex of energy.
Then, in a moment of unified discipline, the rest of the elders rose to their feet.
Their combined auras descended like a hammer.
Chengwu's Qi shattered beneath the weight. He stumbled back several steps, blood bursting from his mouth in a ragged cough.
"Father!" Xue screamed, rushing to his side as he dropped to one knee, chest heaving. She knelt beside him, panic rising in her throat as she reached out to steady him.
She didn't need eyes to know he was injured. His heartbeat was irregular and his breath shaky. He had taken a serious hit, and he had taken it for her.
Rage flared in her chest, hot and wild.
The elders stood still, unmoved.
Baishi's voice came again, quieter now, but no less venomous. "This is the result of your disobedience. The chaos you've sewn, the blood you've drawn from your own father… All because you couldn't endure a simple betrothal."
Chengwu wiped the blood from his mouth and growled, "That's enough."
But Xue spoke over him, standing with slow, deliberate defiance.
"I left because I was already broken. And now you try to break me again. Let me say this—if you think forcing me to kneel or marry scum will fix anything, you understand nothing about what I've become."
Baishi's eyes narrowed to slits, but the elders made no move to stop her this time.
There was something about her. Something was different. She had no cultivation, so why did the elders all feel as if she were holding a knife to their throats?
The air in the chamber grew still once more. Silent tension coiled through the room like a drawn bowstring.
"In a month, you will marry. Try to escape again, and your father loses his position. Do not test us."
With finality, Baishi shrugged off that odd feeling and declared heartlessly.
"This was never about your feelings. You are useless. If you are to burden our clan with your uselessness, the least you can do is serve some purpose to us by warming his bed. Now, get out of my sight, you have disgusted me enough."