Who was she?

Or perhaps it was better put this way: they were father and daughter, yet not truly father and daughter.

And yet this bond of father and daughter had missed each other by the narrowest thread — strangers face to face.

Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze drifted past him, sweeping across the scorched ground ahead — unable to bring herself to imagine the depth of despair that had possessed whoever had been here. Her voice was quiet, without a ripple of emotion: “Who am I — I am likely someone closely bound to Fourth Master.”

“What do you mean by that?” A faint trembling threaded through Fourth Master Rong’s voice.

“Before I answer that, you might as well first answer me — why did you assume I was Ren Yao’s daughter?” Lang Jiuchuan looked at him. “Fourth Master, have you met her?”

Fourth Master Rong shook his head. “It was simply that for a moment I felt you resembled her in her youth. Her child would be about this age by now.”

As he spoke, a trace of bleakness and bitter sorrow crept into his words, alongside a great deal of helplessness and complex feeling.

Lang Jiuchuan felt increasingly that something was wrong — but before she could speak, Fourth Master Rong suddenly seemed to think of something. “No — wait. Yaoyao’s husband’s family was surnamed Li. Yet you — Lang Jiuchuan?”

His eyes sharpened, and his bearing shifted with it. “You are not her daughter!”

“Whether I am or am not — that remains to be verified.” Lang Jiuchuan said with cold mockery. “But you, Fourth Master — rumor has it that back then, for the sake of Ren Yao, you took the family’s most precious treasure, the Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Elixir, and even defied fate itself — lending her twenty years of your own lifespan to sustain hers?”

Fourth Master Rong’s expression went cold. “Where did you learn of this?”

“That is not important.” Lang Jiuchuan said coldly. “You say Ren Yao’s husband is surnamed Li — does that mean she has married and is living?”

The icy aura around Fourth Master Rong began to stir and flow. “What do you mean by that question? Of course she is alive.”

“Who told you that?”

Sande raised his hand slightly. “Although Master never went to disturb her, he did have someone secretly keeping watch. They say that Mistress…”

“What Mistress — she is Young Madam Li!” Fourth Master Rong snapped. “Don’t speak nonsense and ruin her reputation.”

Sande scratched his nose sheepishly.

Lang Jiuchuan was momentarily stunned — then she started to laugh, laughed until tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. But Fourth Master Rong could see no trace of genuine laughter in her eyes — only mockery and derision.

That sense of foreboding surged up in him again, along with an indescribable suffocating weight pressing down on his chest.

“It’s enough to make one die laughing. They all say Fourth Master Rong is a rare devoted romantic among the Xuan Clan — yet I see that is hardly the case. Not even knowing whether the one you love is alive or dead, married or not — is this what you call devotion? The word ‘devotion’ is nothing but hollow vanity. Rong Qingcang — you call yourself Wu Youzi, ‘without worry’ — truly, you have achieved that most thoroughly, hiding inside the cage of lies you wove for yourself and not even knowing it. What a pity for that woman. For you, this faithless scoundrel, she bore a daughter, lost her life, and her entire family was annihilated.”

Lang Jiuchuan’s voice seemed to carry ice and frost within it, each word a spike of ice driven into his most vulnerable nerves.

“What did you say?” The aura of power radiating from Fourth Master Rong condensed into something solid, as he stared at her with unblinking ferocity. “Who lost their life? Say that again!”

“Saying it ten thousand times changes nothing — the facts remain. Ren Yao is dead. Even her soul is lost, beyond knowing where…”

Her words were not yet finished when the force surging from Fourth Master Rong became a gale that swept toward her. “Insolent child!”

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flashed with fury. She retaliated instantly — yet before her attack could be released, a figure had swept her away. The gale tore through the scorched courtyard and reduced it to dust in an instant.

Jiangche let out a low growl. Damn — this deadbeat father had meant it!

Lang Jiuchuan was furious too — it was no exaggeration. That attack had carried real killing intent. He had meant to end her life!

“Let go of me.” Lang Jiuchuan pushed Gong Tinglan away. “I’ll kill this faithless scoundrel!”

Gong Tinglan clutched his aching head. “Hey, hey — the conversation was going along perfectly fine, how did it escalate to a real fight?”

“Shut up!”

Lang Jiuchuan and Fourth Master Rong spoke in unison — then glared daggers at each other.

“If there’s a misunderstanding between father and daughter, talking it out should do it — why bring out real weapons?” Gong Tinglan said again.

“Who is his father and daughter, this faithless scoundrel and I?”

“What father and daughter?”

Fourth Master Rong gave a violent shudder, and stared at Gong Tinglan in disbelief. What was coming out of this mouth? It was clearly the height of summer — so why did what he just said feel as cold as a winter’s chill?

Sande let out an astonished sound and said, “No wonder I felt a flash of the Master’s likeness in this young lady when I first looked at her. You’re my Master’s daughter?”

“I am not.” Lang Jiuchuan’s tone carried a thread of cold derision. “I imagine Fourth Master Rong would be no less reluctant to claim it.”

Fourth Master Rong looked at her — all her rebellious edges already laid bare — and drew a deep breath. “I have no intention of arguing with either of you. What exactly is going on here? Gong family’s young one — you explain.”

Gong Tinglan let out a long sigh. He had only come to watch the proceedings and prevent anything from going wrong — and a good thing he had come. Had he not, wouldn’t these two have leveled the entire estate to the ground?

He looked toward Fourth Master Rong, cupped his hands in a Daoist greeting, and said, “The specifics are not entirely known to this junior. But in broad terms — Fourth Master and the young lady of the Ren family produced a daughter back then. That would be her.”

The heart that had been held suspended finally fell dead.

Fourth Master Rong’s eyes went wide as copper bells, staring at Lang Jiuchuan, his heart slamming against his ribs so wildly that it seemed about to burst from his throat. His lips trembled. “Wh — what?”

Lang Jiuchuan gave him a cool, sidelong glance and said nothing.

Fourth Master Rong’s gaze remained fixed on Lang Jiuchuan without release — he felt he could glimpse a fragment of a long-ago lover’s shadow within her face, yet she was not wholly like her at all. But she was his child — he was the father?

A daughter fallen from the sky?

“Impossible!” His voice came out dry and rough as he pushed back, shaking his head with a frown.

Seeing this, the mockery in Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes deepened — and along with it, a trace of pity. She lowered her gaze.

“Though Ren Yao and I had pledged ourselves to each other in our hearts, I never once stepped beyond the bounds of propriety. And after I married Qi Yun, I had even less reason to — how could I have presumed?” Fourth Master Rong’s mouth went bitter even at the mention of that name. Countless complex emotions surged in his eyes — pain and longing alike, but predominantly the helplessness and despondency that had been worn smooth by over a decade of time.

He said, with dry bitterness, “Ren Yao was a good woman. I cherished and held her in high regard. When her life hung by a thread back then, I took the clan’s most precious Soul-Returning Elixir to save her — and the price of that was an oath sworn on her very life. I promised to sever all ties with her, and then to marry Qi Yun. So how could I then gamble with her life once more? After I was married, as another man’s husband, I had even less justification to act on selfish desire and ruin her. Within a few years she had married into the Li family of Longxi, and word came that she had borne a son and a daughter, that she lived a peaceful and easy life — I was naturally glad and relieved. Why would I have disturbed her peace?”

But was he truly glad? The one he loved had married another — that could only ever bring unending suffering.

Gong Tinglan and Lang Jiuchuan exchanged a glance.

“Who told you she had married into the Li family of Longxi and borne children? Was it the Rong Family Head?”

“If the old bastard had told me, would I have believed it? He is not someone who fails in his every scheme — why would he be so kind as to tell me anything about Ren Yao? I went and confirmed it myself, in secret.” Fourth Master Rong said with irritation. “So she is living well in the Li household — even if she has a daughter, that daughter is a daughter of the Longxi Li family. How could she be this…”

This rebellious wretch of a girl.

“Impossible.” Lang Jiuchuan cut off his words, gesturing toward the scorched estate around them. “You say she was living well — then how do you explain the annihilation of the entire Ren household in a single night? Ten-some years ago, she came home quietly, clearly with child, gave birth — and then the entire family was slaughtered in a night. This, is the proof.”