Limitless Cultivation System: From Trash to Immortal

Chapter 153: A Room Across the Hall

Lin Zhen looked first at their joined hands.

Su Han did the same.

For a breath, neither patriarch said anything. Earlier that evening, the hall had been a banquet. Long tables had been filled with dishes from both sects, musicians had played softly in the background, and disciples had moved between toasts and polite conversation.

Then, as the feast wound down, the atmosphere had shifted. The servants cleared away most of the food, the musicians were dismissed, and the remaining guests withdrew, leaving only the people who mattered. Maps were unrolled across one end of the banquet table, treaty papers stacked beneath two seals, and wine cups left half-filled while both men discussed alliances, disciple exchanges, and the future relationship between Frostmoon and Skyedge.

Yet even while speaking of business, both patriarchs had spent the last stretch of time waiting for two younger people to decide something far more troublesome than politics.

Lin Zhen’s face changed first. The tired lines around his eyes softened, and for once the patriarch did not try to hide what the father felt. He looked from Su Qingyue to Xuan, and his voice came out quieter than the room deserved.

"Then say it properly, son. Let us hear it from you."

Xuan kept Su Qingyue’s hand in his. It was colder than his, but she did not pull away, and that steadied something in him more than he wanted to admit.

"I accept the betrothal," he said. "I will not pretend the alliance does not help Skyedge. It does. But that is not why I am saying yes. I am saying yes because she asked me herself, and because I want to know her without pretending this is only politics."

Lin Zhen held his gaze for a while. There was pride there, but not the loud kind.

Su Han leaned back in his chair, cup in hand, and looked at his daughter. "And you?"

Su Qingyue’s expression did not change, though her fingers shifted once against Xuan’s palm. "I accept it as well. Frostmoon will send disciples to Skyedge, and I will remain here to supervise them. That explains why I stay on this mountain." Her eyes moved briefly toward Xuan. "It does not explain why I chose the room across from Silent Peak. That part is mine."

Xuan lowered his voice enough that only she would hear him. "So you could have chosen another room, but you did not."

Su Qingyue did not blush this time. The earlier crack in her frost had sealed itself with impressive speed. She only tilted her head a fraction, calm and impossible.

"I chose the one with the best view."

"Of the mountain?"

"Among other things."

Xuan had no answer to that, which was probably the point. Su Han caught enough of the exchange to laugh into his wine cup, a real laugh, open and warmer than anything Xuan had heard from him before.

"Good. Good." Su Han set the cup down harder than necessary. The wine had already done some work on him, and honesty had started slipping through the formal edges. "Who would not want this? Champion of Yuncheng. A talent every sect in the region is already whispering about. A young man who recovered two mines for his house and made Blood Fang choke on their own arrogance. If my daughter brought me a worse choice, I would be offended."

"Father," Su Qingyue said.

"What? I am praising your judgment."

A woman in Frostmoon colors, elegant and pale-haired, stepped closer from behind Su Han’s seat and placed a hand on his shoulder. She had come with the delegation and had spent most of the evening looking as if she knew exactly how much wine her husband should not be allowed near. "Husband. Perhaps praise it with less volume."

Su Han looked up at her. "Am I wrong?"

"No. You are loud."

Lin Zhen laughed at that, and the sound loosened the room. He turned toward the side cabinet. "Yu’er. Lin Hua. The bottle."

The two women who remained beside Lin Zhen had been quiet until then, seated a little behind him with the patience of people who had watched the whole road form before Xuan had noticed he was walking it. Madam Yu rose first. Madam Lin Hua followed her, the corner of her mouth curved as if she had been waiting for this exact order.

Together, they brought out a narrow bottle of dark glass wrapped in red silk.

Xuan looked at them.

Madam Yu smiled. "We bought it just in case."

Madam Lin Hua added, "For celebration, if this happened."

Xuan glanced between the two of them. "You both expected this?"

Madam Lin Hua’s smile deepened by a harmless amount that was not harmless at all. "We hoped."

’So I was the last one to understand where this was going.’

Madam Yu placed the bottle before Lin Zhen, and the patriarch unwrapped it with the care of a man opening something older than the table beneath his hands. The scent that rose from the wine was deep and sweet, edged with spirit fruit and smoke.

Su Han’s eyes brightened immediately. His wife sighed behind him.

"That," Su Han said, "is not ordinary wine."

"It is not," Lin Zhen said. "It was being saved. For something worth opening it."

The cups were filled. Lin Zhen poured for Su Han first, then for Su Qingyue, then for Xuan, then for the wives who had brought the bottle. Su Han lifted his cup with the solemnity of a man who had already decided the night was going to be far better than the treaty negotiations had promised.

"To their choice," Lin Zhen said.

Su Han lifted his own. "And to the houses that will have to honor it."

The cups touched. The first drink burned all the way down, warm and expensive and far stronger than Xuan had expected. Su Qingyue drank less than half of hers and set it down with the discipline of a woman who knew exactly when celebration became a trap. Xuan tried to do the same and failed by one careful sip.

The room grew louder after that and warmer than any room full of patriarchs and alliance papers had any right to be. Su Han praised Xuan again, this time with more examples and less restraint. Lin Zhen argued that recovering the mines had been a family achievement, which lasted until Su Han pointed out that Xuan had been the one standing in the dirt with a sword while everyone else arrived later with paperwork. Lin Zhen had no good answer for that and drank instead.

By the time the bottle had lowered past the red silk mark, even Su Han’s wife had stopped trying to calm him and had accepted a cup of her own.

Su Qingyue leaned slightly toward Xuan. "If we stay much longer, my father will begin naming our future children."

Xuan almost choked on the last sip. "He would not."

"He absolutely would."

"Right. We should leave."

"Yes. I am tired."

That was a lie. She looked no more tired than when she had claimed his storeroom. But Xuan accepted the mercy of it and stood before Su Han could discover a new speech.

"Father. Patriarch Su. Qingyue has had a long day. I will walk her back to Silent Peak."

Lin Zhen waved one hand, still smiling into his cup. "Go. The room across from yours will need to be prepared."

"It has already been chosen," Su Qingyue said.

"So I was told," Lin Zhen replied, and the look he gave Xuan was deeply unfair.

They left the room before anyone could make the night worse.

Lian was waiting near the lower path with a lantern in hand, as if she had known the outcome by the sound of the room alone. Her eyes moved once to Su Qingyue, once to Xuan, and she bowed without asking the question sitting plainly on her face.

"Young Master. Lady Su."

"Qingyue," Su Qingyue said.

Lian paused. "Lady Qingyue."

"Better."

Xuan looked between them and decided, wisely, to stay out of that.

The walk back to Silent Peak was quieter. The night had cooled around the mountain, and the main pavilion’s warmth faded behind them with every step. When they reached the room across from his, Lian set the lantern inside and began working at once. She opened the shutters, cleared the old cloth covers, dragged two smaller crates toward the wall, and found dust in places Xuan had been confidently ignoring for months.

Su Qingyue watched her with interest. "You take care of him well."

Lian’s hands slowed on the folded bedding. "He needed someone to."

"And now?"

Lian looked toward the closed door across the hall, where Xuan had already retreated to give them space. Her voice lowered, careful but honest. "Now he needs people who can keep up."

Su Qingyue accepted that without smiling. "I will try."

Lian looked at her then, really looked, and something passed between them that had very little to do with dust, bedding, or rooms.

Inside his own chamber, Xuan closed the door and let the quiet take him.

The warmth of the wine lingered in his chest. The feeling of Su Qingyue’s hand lingered in his palm. Across the hall, he could hear the faint movement of Lian preparing a room that had stopped being storage and become the first real change Silent Peak had allowed in years.

’Step by step, then,’ he thought. ’I can keep knowing her like this.’

The thought had barely settled before Mira appeared at the edge of his vision.

[ Xuan. They are calling Han Ying in. We are finally meeting someone. ]

Xuan sat down on the edge of his bed.

The room across the hall rustled with new life.

He closed his eyes, and Blood Fang opened.