Limitless Cultivation System: From Trash to Immortal

Chapter 144: Before We Left

[ Eyes front. Su Qingyue’s talking to you, so put yourself here first. ] Mira, brisk and unbothered. [ I’ll keep the watch on the Blood Fang elder. They’ve only just walked Han Ying through their gate and they’re busy fussing over their long-lost prodigal, so nothing’s burning yet. Go on and look after your guests like a civilized person. ]

’Understood. It’s yours, then. But if anything important breaks, don’t wait on me, call.’

[ Done. ] A pause, and the grin slid back into her voice. [ And do try not to frighten her off. I know you. (¬＿¬) ]

Xuan didn’t answer that. He’d let the quiet run a beat too long already, standing there with a frost heir’s eyes pinned to his face, and any more would tip him from distracted over into strange.

He brought himself the rest of the way back to the woman in front of him and gave her the apology he owed.

"Forgive me. My mind wandered off for a breath there." He tipped his head, a little rueful. "If that came off as rude, I’m sorry. It wasn’t the welcome you crossed a hundred miles for."

"Not at all." The cold line of her mouth eased by a hair. "It’s good to see you again, Lin Xuan."

As she said it, Xuan caught the byplay over her shoulder. Su Han had turned a look on Lin Zhen, nothing spoken, but the meaning carried plainly across the space between the two old men: You see. Exactly what I told you last time. We sit down to negotiate the one thing, and a marriage falls out the other side whether either of us plans it or not.

Lin Zhen read it just as fast, and let out a breath that was half sigh and half surrender. Whatever he made of his old friend’s matchmaking, he put it away and stepped forward with both hands open.

"Old friend." Warmth roughened the words. "I hope the road was kind to you. Come in, sit, be at home under our roof."

The two patriarchs fell into the easy back-and-forth of men who’d known each other across decades and a few negotiating tables, the state of the passes, the late spring, some mutual acquaintance’s new grandchild.

Yu and Lin Hua closed in to flank their husband, gracious and unhurried, already shaping the evening between them: who sat where, when the tea came out, how the banquet would flow. The whole machinery of hospitality eased into motion around the courtyard.

Partway through, Su Han glanced back toward the gate. "I’ve brought more of my people than any tea room will hold, so they’re waiting below the wall rather than crowd your courtyard. They’ll want somewhere to rest, if it’s no trouble to you."

"None at all." Lin Zhen turned his head. "Kai."

Lin Kai stepped up from the edge of the family line, his mother’s red scabbard at his back. "Patriarch."

"See to Lord Su’s people. Quarters in the east courts, food, whatever they need for the stay. They’re our guests the same as anyone walking into the hall."

Kai dipped his head. "I’ll see it done." No argument, no flicker of the old resentment; he turned on his heel and went to do it, and Xuan watched him go with a small private note of approval.

A few months back the boy would have bristled at being handed an errand like a steward. He’d climbed a long way out of the room he’d once locked himself inside.

Which left the two heirs a step apart from the gathering of their elders, in the specific awkwardness of two people who’ve just been quietly handed to each other.

The protocol here, as far as he had it straight, put her in his charge: heir receiving heir, his rank-peer, his to look after while the old men carved up the future indoors. That suited him fine. He’d sooner steer his own conversation than sit through theirs.

"They’ll be at this a while," he told her, tipping his head at the patriarchs. "Tea beats standing in a courtyard listening to two men relive someone’s grandchild. Walk with me? I’ll show you the hall, and we’ll find you something hot to drink that isn’t snow."

"Lead on." She fell into step at his side, unhurried, matching his pace without being asked. The frost that had chased her boots across the flagstones thinned now that she’d stopped making a point of it.

They walked. The small talk came easier than he’d braced for, the tournament, who’d risen and who’d washed out since, the absurd theatre of two sects pretending a hundred-mile march was a friendly drop-in.

She still carried the same dry slant on all of it he remembered, the one that had made two days in the tournament stands survivable. For a stretch he lost track of the fact that he was playing a role at all, and only talked to her.

"You’ve changed," she said, as they passed beneath a fresh-hung banner. "Last time we spoke, you could barely keep a sword up through a full bout. Now your sect has stripped two mines from Blood Fang, and you’re standing at your father’s left hand."

Xuan glanced at her. "You heard about that already? It hasn’t been long."

"News travels quickly while you’re on the road," Su Qingyue said. "Especially when half the region has been waiting to see whether Skyedge would keep bleeding or finally bite back."

"Interesting." He let the word turn over. "Coming from you, I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or the opening move of an interrogation."

"Both, most likely." The corner of her mouth shifted. "I seldom do only one thing at a time. You’d know that if you’d paid closer attention in Yuncheng."

"I spent some of Yuncheng’s time behind a pillar."

"I’m aware. You weren’t as hidden as you believed."

It should have put him on guard, being read that precisely by the very person he was meant to charm into a treaty. Instead he found he didn’t mind. After a year of people who feared him, wanted something from him, or both at once, there was something almost restful about one who simply looked at him and marked what was actually there.

They had nearly reached the hall doors when she spoke again, her voice level and unhurried as before, though something had settled beneath it now. Something aimed.

"Before we left Yuncheng," she said, "I put something to you. A question about the two of us, and what our houses might choose to make of it." Her eyes lifted to his, that unnerving Frostmoon attention turned fully on him. "I’ve wondered, all this time. Did you ever think about what I asked you?"