“Ah! Qin Zhi!” Minghui looked at this scene in shock and anxiety, instinctively wanting to stop those people’s violence, but very quickly remembered Luo Yuan standing beside her, and could only stand there helplessly, calling out softly in a pleading voice, “Sister An.”
Luo Yuan comfortingly smiled at her and waved toward a parked car nearby. Two bodyguards in black suits immediately got out and hurried over. Because of her request, this time going out, besides Minghui, only two people of the Qin family accompanied her.
“Go over and help, tell them to stop hitting him.”
The young man with silver-gray hair was kicking enthusiastically, cursing all sorts of unpleasant things, when he was suddenly stopped. He turned back violently, glaring at the two bodyguards and the approaching Minghui and Luo Yuan.
“Where did you wild chickens come from, sticking your nose into other people’s business? Get lost if you’ve got nothing to do, or if I’m in a bad mood I’ll beat you up too!” He waved his hand impatiently as if shooing flies away.
Before Luo Yuan could react, Minghui and the two bodyguards’ expressions had all darkened. Minghui, who had always been steady and shy in front of Luo Yuan, changed completely, saying bluntly, “What kind of thing are you? On Yuzhou territory, you dare talk to us like this, and you dare bully our Qin family’s people—are you looking to die?” Her tone did not lose in arrogance to that young man at all.
The silver-gray–haired young man sized them up, his voice mocking. “Yo, you’re also from the Qin family? So what if you are? It’s not like only your Qin family has a clan deity. Who are you trying to scare? Isn’t your clan deity shut up in the old house all the time? He can still come out here to teach me a lesson? Besides, the one I’m teaching a lesson to is Qin Zhi. He’s already been erased from your Qin family’s records. Even if I beat him to death right here, your Qin family’s ancestor won’t care—believe it or not?”
“I care.” Luo Yuan stood beneath the shadow of the black umbrella and said, “I don’t care who you are. Leave here now.”
“Fuck, acting all high and mighty—who are you putting on a show for in front of me? I hate it the most when someone acts like that in front of me.” The silver-gray haired young man was clearly someone used to doing whatever he wanted. Unexpectedly, he rushed forward and aimed a kick at the two of them.
Luo Yuan quickly pulled Minghui back a step to avoid it while the two bodyguards charged up to restrain the young man. But the people he had brought were not ordinary either, and they were twice their number. They quickly pulled the young man out from the bodyguards’ grasp.
“Damn it, what’s your name? Whose wife or mistress of the Qin family are you? I’ll remember you!” The impulsive young man, whose arm had almost been twisted off by the bodyguards, was held behind his subordinates, face twisted in rage, still cursing nonstop.
Luo Yuan was dressed in long sleeves and a long dress, wrapped in a shawl. She pulled the shawl down a little to cover the back of her hand and said calmly, “Luo Yuan, wife of the Qin clan deity.”
The young man’s first reaction was disbelief. He sneered. “Who are you trying to fool? Your old fossil’s wife isn’t kept locked up in the ancestral shrine? What are you doing running around here with two little lackeys?”
But one of the men beside him showed a grave expression. He quickly looked over the black umbrella and Luo Yuan, grabbed the young man, and whispered something to him. The young man’s expression shifted slightly. Unwilling, he glanced at Qin Zhi curled up on the ground with his head lowered. Enduring his anger, he forced his mouth into something like a smile and changed his tone. “Forget it, whether you are or not, I’ll give your Qin clan some face.”
With that, he quickly led his people away. But before leaving, likely still unwilling to swallow the humiliation, he passed by Qin Zhi and kicked him again, hard.
“You—!” Minghui trembled with fury at this little thug’s behavior. If not for the years of teachings as a clan daughter, she would have already cursed him out with countless foul words.
The silver-gra –haired young man slipped into a sports car parked casually at the roadside and sped off, cursing with an ugly expression, “Fuck, did I get duped by that grandson Qin Zhi? No wonder he hid for so long I couldn’t find him. Today there was suddenly news he was here. I just blocked him off and gave him a beating, and I ended up encountering their clan deity’s wife… That bastard did it on purpose, he planned it!”
After cursing Qin Zhi, he still asked the person beside him in disbelief, “You’re sure you didn’t get it wrong? That was really the wife of that old fossil from the Qin clan? Aren’t they the type that’s all about grand displays? How could she appear here with just a few people?”
The buzz-cut man next to him looked serious. “People of the Qin family wouldn’t dare impersonate that identity to scam others. Recently there’s been news that the Qin family really does have a wife now. Young Master Liang, your words just now were somewhat disrespectful. If they choose to hold it against you, in a place like Yuzhou, we’d have no way to deal with it. To be safe, let’s return to Jinzhou.”
The young man clearly knew to be afraid as well, but refused to lose face. He forced himself to say, “So what if it’s true? Haven’t our Liang clan and their Qin clan always had a good relationship? I didn’t do anything, just said a few unpleasant words. At worst they’ll scold me.”
After speaking, he couldn’t help adding, “Forget it, things here are almost done anyway. Let’s just go back to Jinzhou. This crappy place can’t compare to our Jinzhou.”
───♡───
Qin Zhi was helped up by the two expressionless bodyguards. He wiped the blood at the corner of his mouth, glanced at Luo Yuan’s gentle and harmless appearance, and with his gaze faintly flickering, expressed his thanks. “Thank you… Is your identity really…?”
Since Luo Yuan had already said it herself, Minghui didn’t need to hide it anymore. She directly answered, “Of course it’s real. Qin Zhi, are you alright? Who was that just now, why was he hitting you? And he actually dared show zero respect toward us Qin clan people, and even dared call our clan deity an old fossil—what kind of attitude is that! I’m definitely telling the clan elders so they’ll teach him a lesson!”
The clan deity was the spiritual symbol of their lineage, the faith of their Qin clan. How could he be so offended!
Qin Zhi shook his head and gave a bitter smile. “He’s Liang Wenye, the young master of the Liang clan. His status in their Liang clan is quite high. I offended him over something before, and afterward, every time he saw me, he’d beat me once.”
“Too arrogant!” Minghui’s face tightened, her disgust toward Liang Wenye reaching its peak.
As Qin Zhi spoke, he kept secretly observing Luo Yuan’s reaction. She only listened quietly, without any intention of speaking—only Minghui was talking. She looked like a completely gentle, helpless woman without opinions, not strong in the slightest.
“We should go back.” Luo Yuan looked at Qin Zhi. “Can you go to the hospital on your own?”
Qin Zhi: “…I can.”
Sitting in the car, Minghui hesitantly glanced at Qin Zhi’s slowly fading figure outside the window and whispered, “Sister An, Qin Zhi seems pretty badly hurt. Shouldn’t we help him?”
Luo Yuan smiled. “Didn’t he refuse? That means he’s a strong boy.”
“That’s true. He’s been strong-willed since he was young, much better than those pampered boys in the clan.” Minghui’s words revealed a bit of a young girl’s thoughts. Luo Yuan heard it, but didn’t react.
Following her original plan, she specifically went to buy some things. Although Minghui holding a big black umbrella for her attracted some attention, with the sun so strong, there were many people shading themselves with umbrellas on the street. It wasn’t too noticeable.
Carrying many items back to the old residence, Luo Yuan held a bag and walked into the shrine.
“Er-ge, I’m back.”
As soon as she entered, the white figure floated down from the altar, slightly bending toward her, lifting the hand she had hidden under her shawl. As the sleeve slipped down, a patch of blackened skin on the back of her hand was revealed.
It was from when she clashed with Liang Wenye earlier. In order to avoid his sudden attack, she accidentally exposed her hand under the blazing sun.
The clan deity, carrying that lofty divine coldness, lowered his head and lightly licked the small blackened patch on her hand. His expression and actions gave off a completely opposite feeling.
Luo Yuan felt as if the burned back of her hand, under his gentle touch, had its pain soothed. Not only did it stop hurting—it even tickled a little.
Then, the clan deity, like treating a child who had been wronged outside, guided her toward the altar, hugged her, let her bury herself in his embrace, stroked the back of her head, and continuously rubbed the blackened patch on her hand.
Luo Yuan: “.…”
Luo Yuan: “…Er-ge? I’m fine, it’s just a small issue.”
She forced herself to crawl out of the warm embrace of beauty, took the small bag she brought, and rummaged through it.
“Look, this is a stand. In the future, if I need to go out, I’ll put my phone here. We can video call, and I can show Er-ge the outside. Er-ge will also know what I’m doing…”
“…And this, a comb and a hair tie. I always thought that with Second Brother’s hair so long and loose behind you, it must be inconvenient. Why don’t I tie it up for you?”
Luo Yuan had only tentatively asked, but immediately received the treatment of brushing his hair. In truth, the clan deity’s hair was not merely ordinary hair, but seeing her eagerness, he still complied with her wishes.
The long black hair was incomparably smooth, like silk in her hands, slipping away with the slightest inattention, floating faintly in the air. Luo Yuan hummed an unknown tune as she combed it neatly, braided it, and tied it with a red hair tie. Laying the long braid over his shoulder, she examined it, unable to resist touching it again, her eyes slightly dazed.
So beautiful, like a delicate doll one could play with. Even though the word “play with” felt like blasphemy, she still wanted to use it, because he looked so harmless and soft.
───♡───
The old residence was the ancestral hall of the Qin clan. The ancestral hall only opened during the first lunar month and the month of the god’s birth for ritual ceremonies and was usually cleaned and maintained by clan daughters.
It was Luo Yuan’s first time entering the ancestral hall. She walked alone into the slightly gloomy and ancient courtyard, passed the layers of memorial tablets in front, and read through the genealogies placed inside.
These genealogies were revised once every ten years, an immense task, for from the birth of the clan deity onward, through such a long span of time and such a vast family, everything had been recorded.
Based on the years she had heard from Minghui, she roughly calculated and searched through the genealogies from a hundred years ago. After searching for a long time, she finally found something that seemed like what she was looking for.
Around a little over two hundred years ago, one branch of the Qin clan disappeared from the genealogy—about four hundred people. A once-prosperous branch seemed as though erased by an invisible hand, wiped clean from the genealogy belonging to them, leaving behind only a silent blank space. And for the destruction of these four hundred plus people, only one line was recorded in the genealogy:
—The clan god extinguished this bloodline.
Luo Yuan’s fingertip slid over this sentence. She opened another volume of the genealogy and continued searching. Nearly in the same year, another branch gained an adopted son. This adopted son’s name consisted of only two characters. Among the many genealogies, only this “adopted son” had a two-character name, not arranged according to the Qin clan’s naming conventions. Thereafter, the descendants born from this adopted son all had only two-character names.
Following this sequence downward, indeed, in the newest genealogy, she saw Qin Zhi. This genealogy had been revised two years ago, and at that time, in Qin Zhi’s branch, he was already the only one left. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father had fallen ill and passed away some years ago. Since then, twelve-year-old Qin Zhi had been supported by the clan.
Besides this, she also found many special markings across the genealogies. Almost every generation had several to dozens of names circled in red ink. The unfaded red pressed atop the black names was strangely shocking. In the newest genealogy, four names were circled. This reminded her of the Qin clan tree she had seen earlier, and the four Qin clan members whom the clan god had judged to have death outcomes. The red circles dated back over two hundred years, the same period as the disappearance of those four hundred-plus people.
Closing the genealogy, Luo Yuan left.
“Sister An, there’s an invitation letter for you.” Before she entered the shrine, Minghuang hurried over and handed her a white envelope with red lettering.
“This is the Liang clan’s emblem—quite formal.”
The letter was sent in the name of Qi Ji, wife of the Liang clan’s clan god, inviting her to visit the Liang clan in Jinzhou. Just as she finished reading the letter—its wording refined and elegant—her phone suddenly rang, an unfamiliar number.
Very few people knew her current phone number, and those who did would never dare call her, so she had a guess in her heart.
She answered. On the other end, Qi Ji’s voice was casual and natural. “It’s me. Did you receive my invitation?”
Luo Yuan pinched the letter. “I just received it.” Then why not simply call from the start?
“I originally didn’t want to invite you so early, but a naughty child in our family didn’t know your identity and said a few offensive things to you. So this time inviting you over is also for him to apologize to you in person so we don’t damage the harmony. How about it, want to come over to play? We can also chat about some little secrets regarding your clan god.”
Luo Yuan: “I see. Sorry, I don’t want to go.”
