In terms of appearance, Su You had always been the one who attracted attention and received praise from childhood to adulthood.

His skin was a cold white color, and whether smiling or not, he always appeared gentle and refined, like a famous painting hanging on the wall for people to admire, executed with utmost skill. Beautiful, but always maintaining a sense of distant separation.

But at this moment, it was as if splashing water across a smooth mirror surface—his facial features became magnified and exquisite in detail. That unapproachable side melted away like ice and snow thawing, and when he lowered his eyes and pressed out a smile, those rich and alluring colors he deliberately hid and rarely displayed before others were completely and gradually revealed without reservation.

After watching for two glances, Jiu Feng couldn’t help but also follow Yin Ling’s “tsk,” turning to say to Shen Jingshi: “It’s not that I won’t help you, but speaking objectively, when you lost to him back then, you still have to accept it.”

Shen Jingshi was about to speak when he accidentally pulled at the bruise on his lips, hissing as he patted his jaw with his palm.

Sui Yu wasn’t Sui Jinyu after all. With just this distant glance, he seemed to sense something and turned to look at Jiu Feng, completely changing from his usual lazy demeanor of never being able to sleep enough: “What’s going on here?”

Jiu Feng played with her tender, onion-like fingers, demonstrating considerable patience as she enlightened him: “Look for yourself, look carefully.”

Su You quickly walked to Xue Yu’s side. In front of so many people, he was about to say “Your Highness,” but Xue Yu lowered her eyes and grasped his hand hanging at his side, quite gently pressing one of his finger bones as she asked: “Which hand is injured?”

It wasn’t particularly intimate or lingering gesture, but Xue Yu had always been careful about such things. In front of so many people, this was indeed the first time.

Her wrist was clean and tender, slender as a section, with a silver bracelet circling it. A small bell hung carefully from the bracelet’s edge. With this movement, the date-pit-sized bell steadily fell onto the back of his hand with a crisp sound.

The surrounding gazes immediately changed flavor.

Since she intended to examine it, Su You placed his entire hand into her palm, meaning something close to indulgence, allowing her to control it at will. He said gently: “Left hand. It’s fine now.”

With such a strange scene, the originally whispering Sui family members had already begun looking at each other, exchanging uncertain glances with surprise, like suddenly throwing ice cubes into a pot of bubbling boiling water—all noise quieted down.

“We’ll go up first.” Shan Shu pulled Yin Ling, then tugged at Jiu Feng, finally giving Shen Jingshi, who was watching with great interest, a look, before saying gently to Xue Yu: “The Emperor has passed away, the palace is under martial law, and news won’t come out for a while. If there are any clues, I’ll send someone to tell you.”

This was making time and opportunity for the finally reunited family and the two of them to spend time together.

Xue Yu nodded, her earrings swaying slightly with the movement: “Thank you for the trouble.”

After all the unrelated people left, Xue Yu glanced at the Sui family brothers and sisters standing in a row by the corridor pillars, then looked at the face so close before her, containing a smile. After thinking, she said softly, “Go meet them first. I’ll wait for you in the room—there are still matters from Yedu that need handling.”

“Alright.”

Only after that figure, pulled slender and long by light and shadow like a spirit butterfly, stepped around the corner and disappeared into the dark doorway did Su You slowly withdraw his gaze. In an instant, when Sui Yu met those glassy-colored pupils, he perceived that the enthusiasm, romance, and rich beauty within had all been restrained and subtly withdrawn.

It was still the same face, even the arc of his mouth hadn’t changed, but everything was different.

Sui Jinyu couldn’t perceive this. Seeing Su You in a good mood, he gathered the enthusiastic and curious Sui family members around him, introducing them one by one: “Nineteen, this is your cousin, ranked second in our generation, called Sui Youning… This is…”

Fool!

Sui Yu couldn’t bear to watch and averted his gaze, pressing heavily on half his wrist, using all his life’s patience to wait until Su You had recognized everyone and could finally say a word or two. Only then did he prop up his body, which had been leaning against the wall, and look at Su You: “Nineteen, come with me.”

Su You slightly raised his chin and followed him downstairs.

In just this short time, First Grade Residence had hung white silk throughout, and the server’s face had magically shed its enthusiastic smile, instead revealing an appropriately solemn and dignified expression. He draped a towel over his shoulder and led the way, guiding the two men into a spacious private room.

The two sat down in turn.

Su You looked at Sui Yu.

This Sui family member of the highest seniority who had appeared so far wasn’t much older than Sui Jinyu. Due to his cultivation technique, he suffered splitting headaches all day long, so he was either drinking heavily and hungover or sleeping deeply. But undoubtedly, he was intelligent.

At least more intelligent than Sui Jinyu.

Sui Yu leaned back against the cushion behind him, his fingertip pressing against the sharp protruding corner of the table. Many words turned round and round in his mind, but when it came time to speak, he didn’t know how to begin.

After a long silence, he looked at his nephew across from him, who was as upright as pine and bamboo with outstanding temperament, and began: “When you were not yet born, still in your mother’s belly, Grandfather had already chosen a name for you.”

“Sui Qingxiao.” Sui Yu pulled at the corner of his mouth in a smile: “Qingxiao, clouds soaring in the sky, destined for extraordinariness. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

Su You pushed the tea cup aside, the smile at his lips carrying no warmth: “I want to know about what happened two hundred twenty-two years ago.”

Sui Yu made a sound of agreement: “I called you over to explain the whole cause and effect clearly.”

This was a knot in his heart. Until it was removed, Su You could never truly accept them.

“Speaking of it, your loss back then was due to my negligence.” Sui Yu took a sip of strong liquor, lifting a corner of the dusty past he was unwilling to mention, revealing all the helplessness before the greatest victim.

“The Sui family is a branch of Tianpin, and though our bloodline isn’t pure, we still gained some benefit from that connection.”

“After that catastrophe in ancient times that affected all living beings and races, the Fusang Tree wasn’t stingy. All races that made great contributions to sealing ‘Mei’ received opportunities and rewards sufficient to restore their vitality. Both the Tianpin and Azure Dragon orthodox lines were exterminated, leaving only our branch with over ten survivors. We inherited part of the spiritual treasures and objects that should have belonged to Tianpin, and from then on, followed ancestral teachings to live in seclusion.”

Unlike the Azure Dragon clan that could decide the fate of heaven and earth with a word and strongly advocated exterminating all demons, Tianpin didn’t voice opinions at that time but followed the Human Emperor’s commands. When they acted, they also showed restraint, so when retribution came, they were able to leave descendants who inherited scattered portions of the bloodline to struggle on until now.

Calling it a struggle wasn’t wrong—even after ten thousand years had passed, the clan’s population remained small.

Sometimes even fewer than the Nine Phoenix clan.

The turning point and anomaly came from Sui Yu’s lineage, namely Su You’s grandfather. First, they had Su You’s father, and when they thought that was it, within less than a century, Su You’s remaining four uncles were born respectively. Shortly before Sui Jinyu’s birth, Sui Yu was born.

The Sui family was like spring bamboo shoots breaking through soil after absorbing rain and receiving sunlight nourishment, instantly stretching their bodies and developing toward towering trees in the sky.

For a race that had been lukewarm for over ten thousand years, this was undoubtedly a good thing, a great thing. But behind the jubilation, intense unease was equally hidden.

When things go against the norm, there must be demons. No pies fall from the sky.

Everyone knew these two sayings, especially such clans with history and heritage.

He still remembered that because of this matter, Sui Yu’s father had been so worried for a long time that he couldn’t calm his mind. What occupied his thoughts wasn’t that their fortune had turned, but fear that great disaster was approaching. He felt this was heaven giving their family one last prosperity, a brilliant illusion like an epiphyllum’s brief bloom.

Such worries surged up increasingly after the sons grew up and began establishing careers, marrying and having children. The reason was simple—the number of Sui family grandchildren kept climbing rapidly, soon breaking into double digits.

And gradually approaching the number twenty.

Later, Sui Yu’s father’s hair fell out handful by handful from worry, and he was restless day and night. No one’s persuasion worked.

He consulted many ancient texts, and one day, suddenly gathered his five grown sons who could be relied upon, spreading a thick book on the table. Both worried and finally able to breathe out: “Our family might be producing an auspicious beast.”

In ancient times, the Tianpin clan would produce an auspicious beast every ten thousand years or several tens of thousands of years.

Some called it an auspicious beast because it could guide mysterious fortune to bring blessings to those around it, and was also key to whether they could safely survive when disasters came. Others called it a disaster beast because its birth would inevitably be accompanied by worldly upheavals, meaning peaceful life would come to an abrupt end.

But such legends gradually faded from outside memory and were denied along with the fact of Tianpin’s extinction.

Only in books could evidence of their once real existence be found.

Indeed, this theory was confirmed. Su You showed various divine anomalies even before birth, and the whole family looked forward to this child’s arrival. The name “Qingxiao” with its noble righteousness was decided early on.

Until Su You’s mother was about to give birth, she entered the ancestral land early and discovered that ancient ancestral spirits appeared one after another. Across her highly protruding belly, they touched and caressed the child about to be born again and again, as if gazing across space at the rising sun on the horizon.

Sui Qingxiao, this child ranked nineteenth among the family’s brothers and sisters, was not only an auspicious beast but also a Tianpin with a complete and pure bloodline.

A true Tianpin.

The family atmosphere suddenly became frozen.

Ancient matters—the Fusang Tree and Heavenly Mechanism Book followed heaven’s command to erase all memories, but some races, some people, could still learn some clues through generations, such as Tai Hua, one of the Six Sacred Lands, and the secluded Tianpin branch.

The source of the gloomy clouds was that the Fusang Tree had once decreed ten thousand years ago that Azure Dragon and Tianpin orthodox bloodlines could never emerge, never live. The so-called karmic cycle—those who denied other races’ right to exist ultimately tasted their bitter fruit. This was the most painful lesson.

Sui Yu squinted as he recalled events from a century ago: “For blood kinship and all living beings in the world, you couldn’t have problems, much less die young. If the Tianpin bloodline was your death warrant, then your auspicious beast identity became your only support for survival.”

“Father cast divinations that day, using the family’s ancient array formations to petition the two sacred objects, the Fusang Tree and Heavenly Mechanism Book, declaring your identity and placing a bamboo slip with ‘life’ written on one side and ‘death’ on the other.”

“When placed inside, the slip stood upright—life and death undetermined.”

“The Fusang Tree governs all things and only emerges for great matters. This wait could take countless years. You were already formed in the womb then, and your parents couldn’t bear to give you up. So, regardless of the arduous journey and impending birth, they packed their things the next morning and headed to Xihe Sacred Land, hoping to meet the Fusang Tree and fight for a chance at life for you.”

“I was young then, thought highly of myself, and was stifled by the clan’s secluded ascetic days. Everything outside seemed fresh and colorful to me, so I volunteered to accompany them.”

“Whether it was the unpredictability of worldly affairs or heavenly mandate, almost on the night we arrived at Shanhai City, your mother suffered severe abdominal pain. After struggling for two days and three nights, she finally delivered you safely but dangerously.” Speaking of this, Sui Yu looked at Su You and gestured: “When you were born, you were only this big, your face all wrinkled, but fortunately, you had big eyes and white skin. You didn’t cry or fuss, as quiet as a doll. Not only us, but even the workers at the inn liked you very much.”

More than liked—they were simply enamored.

“The flesh in the belly and a living child sleeping before your eyes are completely different. Your parents decided at first sight to protect you at all costs, but we still didn’t have time to enter Xihe. Sensing your bloodline, the pursuing thunder tribulation arrived as expected.”

“At that time, your parents wrapped you layer by layer with treasures that concealed aura, handed you to me, and said that if they hadn’t returned after a month, I shouldn’t hesitate and should immediately take you back to the clan. If they returned within a month, we would still go to Xihe to fight and ask for clarity for you.”

“Then they led the thunder tribulation away.”

Sui Yu noticed Su You’s eyelashes stop moving for an instant. He drank some clear tea, feeling his chest thump along: “On the second day after they left the inn, a bolt of heavenly thunder fell from the sky without warning. I only had time to push you aside before losing consciousness.”

“I failed to protect you.”

When he awoke, Sui Yu’s mind was dizzyingly chaotic, and any movement caused bone-deep pain. Upon examination, his meridians were damaged, and almost all his bones were shattered except for a few intact ones. Most critically, his whole body looked as if it had been robbed—everything was gone, even the spirit talismans for contacting relatives and friends.

As for Sui Qingxiao in swaddling clothes, he was nowhere to be found.

Sui Yu couldn’t care about healing and spent three or four days running and flying to finally return to the clan. Before fainting, he only managed to support himself with his last breath to say to the hurriedly arriving Sui family head with an anxious expression: “Father, Nineteen is missing.”

“The world is too vast, and the human race is too chaotic, with all kinds of people mixed. Three or four days were enough to do many things.” Sui Yu smiled bitterly and pulled at his mouth: “That thunder tribulation’s relentless pursuit—we didn’t know whether you were dead or alive. As for finding someone, an infant’s face changes every three days, and the Tianpin identity absolutely couldn’t be disclosed. This made it like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“Your mother’s vital energy was greatly damaged giving birth to you, and later she led away the thunder tribulation. After losing you, she was heartbroken. Your father fought the heavenly thunder head-on. Both were seriously injured and haven’t emerged from seclusion until now.” Sui Yu said, “Just when we thought you might have died early under the thunder tribulation and were preparing to give up, by chance we discovered that the wooden slip your grandfather had placed in the array formation had changed—it had turned a circle and landed on the word ‘life.'”

The Sui family was overjoyed, but time had passed hastily. It had been over two hundred years since Sui Nineteen went missing.

In the vast sea of people, where could they begin searching?

Like a heavy, small hammer cracking open a thick layer of ice bricks at the bottom of his heart, strange and complex emotions rose. Su You thought that after going in circles, he had been born amid his relatives’ countless expectations.

No abandonment, none of no coldness, and no unbearable things he had imagined. To ensure his safe birth, his relatives had made every effort they could.

From the first-floor private room to the lacquered red pillar corridor beside the second-floor rooms, Su You walked quickly with swift steps, as if hurrying to an overdue appointment. But when he leaned against the tightly closed door, he stopped and lowered his eyes to steady his breathing.

Just as he was about to push the door open, rhythmic footsteps came from the end of the second floor. A young man dressed in imperial city law enforcement hall disciple robes, wearing a brand-new waist token, stopped beside him. Looking somewhat nervous, he summoned almost all his courage to hand over the paper in his hands: “Is His Highness Xue Yu staying here? This is the fine for Your Highness crossing imperial city airspace at noon.”

He said in one breath: “The total fine is five thousand eight hundred spirit stones. Please see—”

Su You took the slip, his gaze quietly falling on it. After looking for a few moments, he raised his eyes to look at the door before him, stepped aside, and gestured for the person to follow. After turning to a corner with fewer people, he rotated his spirit ring while asking: “How much?”

“Five thousand eight hundred spirit stones.” The young man from the law enforcement hall seemed inexperienced, his voice falling quite loud as if to embolden himself.

Just then, Shen Jingshi passed by holding a small attendant. Seeing this scene, he stepped back a few paces and found time to pat Su You’s shoulder: “Not just this—learning you were injured, His Highness Yedu said nothing, but stood at your door for an entire afternoon.”

He emphasized in a teasing tone: “A whole afternoon.”

When he pushed the door open, Xue Yu had just put down her ink brush. She opened the window and beckoned to the solitary-looking man: “Remove the concealment technique. Let me see the real wound and how badly it’s rotted.”

The Emperor’s jade seal wasn’t just another spiritual treasure—it contained countless concentrated powers of common people’s faith, so wounds caused by it couldn’t heal immediately just because one wanted them to.

Su You casually grabbed a chair and sat beside her.

Since leaving the private room, his aura had sunk deeper and deeper, almost reaching the point where his exterior couldn’t hide it and unconsciously seeped out dangerous intent. But at this moment, extending his hand before Xue Yu and slowly removing the concealment technique, he appeared exceptionally quiet and peaceful.

A sword cultivator’s hands were second only to spirit array masters’—each finger long and slender, joints smoothly connected, cold white skin showing a kind of cool, sharp intent. Only the area centered on his wrist extending outward in a semicircle showed the withered, ulcerated color of being burned by fierce fire, deeply colored and bloody.

Xue Yu frowned at the sight.

But Su You didn’t mind. His intact right hand pressed the fine slip against the table surface, his voice even carrying a hint of light sighing: “Ah Yu, the law enforcement hall sent over the fine.”

Except for that one time deliberately targeting Lu Chengze, this was the first time something under Xue Yu’s name had been caught by the law enforcement hall.

After sprinkling a layer of white medicinal powder on his hand, Xue Yu heard this and couldn’t help straightening up, glancing at the slip with a light tone, not denying: “Mm, I was afraid I’d be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

Su You knew his emotions were somewhat off at this moment, but he couldn’t control his instinct to be close to her. He wanted to hear her say more intimate things—anything would do, whether coaxing him, lying to him, or deliberately accommodating him.

Xue Yu stared at his face for a long while, speaking directly and honestly: “Afraid the palace would be under martial law, afraid if I was any later, I wouldn’t be in time to save you.”

Looking at each other, Su You suddenly tilted his head and smiled.

The next moment, he suddenly hooked Xue Yu’s waist with his right hand, bringing her close before circling his arms around her. With one hook and one press, she sat on the goose-down cushioned reclining chair. Her long skirt spread out, a soft section floating on the ground like colored ribbons.

“Ah Yu.” Those restless emotions and feelings with nowhere to surge in his heart made a soft sound, transforming into another kind of gentle, sour taste. He lowered his body, kissed near her lips, nuzzled against them, then said in a restrained and patient tone: “I missed you.”

This kind of low-voiced, hot-breathed hint—Xue Yu understood.

Her neck lifted slightly, revealing a section of tender skin like the neck of a white porcelain vase. It was unclear what kind of meaning this conveyed—like a posture allowing him to pick at will, yet also like a superior nodding to grant permission.

But Su You only used his fingertip to delicately caress her chin, then the slightly protruding throat bone, lingering and pausing at her neck side. With a bow of his head, he could see her expression of slight frowning, yet inexplicably appearing wanton.

With reason burned to mere embers, he finally couldn’t endure the torment and completely bent his spine.

When things got out of control, he hissed and turned his head, biting neither lightly nor heavily at the small piece of flesh on her earlobe, requesting with almost grinding heat: “Ah Yu, don’t always block me.”

Xue Yu slowly wiped her lips, the color brilliant like freshly made lip rouge. Her breathing was somewhat unsteady, her chest rising and falling slightly faster. At such close distance, he could clearly see her pupils, a transparent layer like being moistened with several drops of water, her whole person nourished into a vivid and fragrant beauty.

“Why did you tear the Emperor’s lock?”

Her fingertip hooked Su You’s waist sash, her tone carrying unrestrained nasal sounds. But unlike the previous few times with angry questioning, this was pure inquiry, or perhaps curiosity aroused by Shen Jingshi’s few words.

She didn’t realize that asking such serious questions in this voice was like little hooks of panting.

Su You grasped her fingertip, his pupils deeply colored. His injured left hand naturally fell to her waist, testing the weight—that palm-sized area of skin was almost completely controlled, melting like water in his palm.

Xue Yu pushed him once.

In the vague entanglement, he pecked at the corner of her lips, barely stopping his actions like drinking poison to quench thirst, whispering in her ear: “It’s nothing.”

Nothing.

“The human world you so cherish—I’ll try it, and work hard to like it a little too.”

For her.

Only for her.

Hearing this, Xue Yu’s eyelashes fluttered up and down in confusion, her fingertip using a bit more force. Su You was pulled forward two steps by her, and the two almost skin-to-skin pressed together.

He followed the direction of her falling finger and glanced down. The spirit array master’s slender and delicate finger joints intertwined with his dark green official robe’s waist sash—that color contrast was enough to tear any man’s rationality to shreds.

He hissed and grasped half her finger bone, raising his head to bring the alluring intent in his pupils that could bewitch anyone before her, saying: “Ah Yu, do you want to untie it?”