Reunion of Father and Daughter
Shang Yan Fei ends his meditation and flashes into the outer city in a burst of blood-colored flame, startling the crowd. Few recognize him. Following the pull of blood, he finds Shang Xin Ci at a jewelry stall with Xiao Die, and the moment their eyes meet, before either speaks, she feels a bloodline calling and knows him for her father. ch. 259
Years earlier, the young Shang Yan Fei loved a woman of the Zhang Clan, met in the rain under a shabby hut, but chose ambition over her, later defeating his own siblings to take the Shang clan leadership and marrying widely. Old enmity between the clans meant he could never seek her out again. Seeing Shang Xin Ci’s face, so like her mother’s, waves surge in his heart, and years of buried guilt overflow into a sea that submerges him at once. ch. 259
He crosses the distance in a step and asks her name; she says nothing, only weeps. She is torn between resentment, for the pain he caused her mother and the discrimination she suffered growing up because of it, and the plain fact that this man is her father. She faints, and Shang Yan Fei catches her. Guards arrive to enforce the no-Gu rule, then recognize their clan leader and kneel; he takes Xiao Die’s arm too, and the three vanish in flame. ch. 259
In a queue at the city gate, Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing pay twenty primeval stones and pass beneath a Bai Clan warrant posted for their arrest without a glance. Shang clan enforces such warrants loosely. Demonic Gu Masters routinely pay their way in to sell loot and restock Gu worms, and both sides keep a tacit understanding. An inn tout propositions Bai Ning Bing, mistaking her for a man; her sharp reply gives away her voice, and the other touts laugh at the mistake. ch. 259
An hour on, the two reach the Four Seasons Restaurant. A waiter turns them from the mortal hall until Fang Yuan flashes snow-silver primeval essence, and a hostess lists the floors: mortals on the first, rank one Gu Masters on the second, rank two on the third at a twenty percent discount, rank three on the fourth at fifty percent, and rank four free on the fifth. Fang Yuan picks the fourth floor. ch. 259
