Chapter 167 - 166: Night Sky
Night descended over Sky Jade City, and high above the city, at the absolute apex of the Celestial Summit Palace, the air was pristine and cool, carrying a faint, crisp fragrance.
On the expansive, open-air balcony of the master suite, Lin Yuan stood bathed in the silvery moonlight. He had shed the formal robes he had worn during the tribunal, now dressed only in a loose, comfortable tunic. His deep purple eyes gazed out over the sleeping metropolis and the jagged mountain peaks beyond, his mind already calculating the tournament that awaited him when the sun rose.
Beside him, sitting comfortably in her wheelchair, was Bai Qingyue.
She wore a thin, elegant nightgown of pure white silk, a thick shawl of silver-fox fur draped securely over her delicate shoulders to ward off the high-altitude chill. The moonlight caught the black strands of her unbound hair, making her look like a celestial deity who had briefly stepped down from the heavens to rest.
For a long time, the only sound between them was the gentle rustling of the mountain wind through the ornamental plum trees dotting the terrace. It was a comfortable, anchoring silence, the kind that only exists between two souls whose Daos are perfectly intertwined.
Bai Qingyue reached out from beneath the fur shawl. Her slender fingers found Lin Yuan’s hand where it rested on the wooden railing of the balcony.
Lin Yuan immediately turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers flawlessly with hers.
"Thank you," Bai Qingyue murmured, her voice incredibly soft, yet carrying a profound depth of emotion.
Lin Yuan looked down at her, a faint warmth entering his gaze. "For? You never have to thank me for anything, Qingyue."
"No, I do, Yuan," she replied, her eyes looking up to meet his. The moonlight reflected in her gaze, revealing a sheen of unshed, deeply rooted tears. "For today. For stepping onto that floor. For protecting Chen’er."
Lin Yuan’s expression softened. He gently ran his thumb over her knuckles. "He is my brother-in-law. He is family. I did what any patriarch, what any head of a household, is obligated to do when one of their kin is dragged through the mud by arrogant fools."
Bai Qingyue shook her head slowly, a sad, nostalgic smile touching her lips. She looked out toward the distant horizon, her mind drifting back to a time before she had met the man standing beside her.
"You call him kin, and you treat him as such, but you must understand how rare that is, Yuan," she whispered, the memories heavy in her throat. "When my cultivation was crippled... when I fell from the absolute pinnacle and was reduced to a crippled mortal... the world turned its back on me. But the world’s abandonment was nothing compared to the coldness of my own blood."
Lin Yuan remained perfectly silent, listening intently, his hand tightening slightly around hers to anchor her as she spoke of her deepest traumas.
"The Bai clan," she continued, her voice trembling by a mere fraction, "was a prestigious, proud lineage. When I was it Saintess, they worshipped the ground I walked on. They paraded my name to secure trade routes and political alliances. But the very day my cultivation was destroyed, I became a liability. A stain on their name. The elders convened and stripped me of my titles. My own uncles looked at me not with pity, but with disgust, as if my shattered meridians were a contagious plague."
A cold, terrifying flash of killing intent sparked deep within Lin Yuan’s spiritual sea at the thought of her being treated like disposable trash, but he instantly suppressed it, refusing to let the violent aura disturb the peace of the balcony.
Someone as kind and loving as Qingyue should never have been forced to endure any of this. The more Lin Yuan thought about everything she had suffered, the colder his heart became toward the Bai Clan.
As the saying went, "A tree may grow tall, but its roots determine whether it stands or falls." The Bai Clan had chosen its roots long ago, and now they would bear the consequences of the poison they had nurtured.
To Lin Yuan, that clan was nothing more than a venomous nest. Whatever misfortune awaited them in the future, they had brought it upon themselves.
And Lin Yuan had no intention of personally harming them. He had already shown restraint when he visited their estate to settle the karma between himself and Xu Canghai, and he would continue to do the same now.
He knew Qingyue’s heart too well. No matter how deeply the Bai Clan had wronged her, she would never wish for him to bring bloodshed upon them. And because it was her wish, Lin Yuan would respect it.
As the saying went, "For the sake of one person, one may forgive an entire world."
He could ignore the Bai Clan.
He could even let their past offenses fade into the river of time.
But if anyone dared to harm Qingyue again, then whatever mercy he had shown would end there.
"They cast me out to die in the slums, hoping I would fade away quietly so they could erase my failure from their history," Bai Qingyue continued, a single tear escaping and tracing a silver line down her pale cheek. "Everyone abandoned me. Everyone... except Bai Chen."
She turned her head back to Lin Yuan, her eyes shining with a fierce, unwavering loyalty to her cousin.
"He was just a boy then," she smiled, a shaky, beautiful expression. "But when the elders decreed that anyone who aided me would share my exile, Bai Chen stood in the center of the ancestral hall and told the patriarch to go to hell. He was the only person in the entire Bai clan who was brave enough to stand by me. He carried me when I could not walk. He threw away his own future in the clan just to make sure I didn’t freeze to death in the outer city."
She squeezed Lin Yuan’s hand with surprising strength.
"Since that day, he has never been just a cousin to me," she declared softly. "He is my little brother. He is my blood in the truest sense of the word. Watching Mu Tianyang parade him around that hall today, watching that arrogant monster try to break his spirit and ruin his life... it felt as if my own heart was being ripped out. If you had not been there, Yuan, I don’t know what I would have done."
Lin Yuan stepped closer to the wheelchair. He reached out with his free hand, his flawless fingers gently brushing the silver tear away from her cheek. His touch was so infinitely tender it completely belied the Spirit Severing power humming beneath his skin.
"You would have endured, because you are the strongest woman I have ever known," Lin Yuan said, his voice a low, resonant rumble that vibrated pleasantly in her chest. "But you do not have to endure ever again. I am here."
Lin Yuan looked out over the sprawling capital, his expression turning contemplative, bearing the weight of his responsibilities.
"In truth, Qingyue," Lin Yuan confessed, a rare vulnerability entering his tone, "I feel as though I have done far too little for the boy. I have been so entirely consumed with everything else that I have merely allowed him to follow in my shadow. I gave him a few pills and manuals, yes, but a true patriarch must provide a foundation."
Bai Qingyue’s lips curved into a gentle smile.
"Yuan, you are too hard on yourself."
She squeezed his hand softly.
"Chen’er has never once complained. In his eyes, you are already the person he looks up to most. You protected him when everyone else was ready to condemn him today. You stood before an entire hall of cultivators and told them that no one would touch him."
Her gaze softened.
"To Chen’er, that is worth far more than a few pills or cultivation manuals."
Lin Yuan fell silent.
He knew she was right.
But knowing that did not lessen the responsibility he felt.
"If he has chosen to call me family," Lin Yuan said quietly, "then I will treat him as family."
His eyes gradually hardened with determination.
"A tree cannot shelter those beneath its branches forever. One day, it must teach them how to grow tall enough to stand beneath the heavens themselves."
"And I will give him the sky," Lin Yuan promised, his deep purple eyes flashing with conviction. "That is why, during those two months of peace in the Emerald Valley after I consolidated my realm, I pushed him so hard. I helped him refine his cultivation, temper his bones, and reach the Peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm. But that is merely the beginning."
Lin Yuan knelt down on one knee upon the balcony floor, bringing himself perfectly to eye level with his wife. He kept her hands enveloped in his, his gaze burning with a devotion that outshone the lanterns of the palace.
"After this tournament is concluded," Lin Yuan swore, his voice carrying weight, "after I shatter the Upper Division, request Void Refinement Emperor Tianxu’s aid, and finally heal your meridians... I will turn my full attention to our family’s ascent. I will forge Bai Chen into a sword that the Nine Provinces will fear. But more importantly..."