Chapter Ninety-Two: Settling Family Disputes with Force

“I disagree.”

Inside a villa in Peacock Manor, on the east side of the city, an argument had broken out—something rare enough to be startling.

“I absolutely will not agree to this.”

In the room, a grown woman and a young girl stood face to face in open conflict. Su Xiaoyan, Chu Zihang’s birth mother, was glaring fiercely at the daughter who had always been so well-behaved, so sensible, so obedient. Her eyes burned with anger.

Beside the two of them stood Lu Tianming, the stepfather, helplessly frozen in place, not knowing what to do.

It was quite an extraordinary family: both sides had been remarried.

In her youth, Su Xiaoyan had been the leading dancer of the city dance troupe. When she performed Silk Road, Flower Rain, she moved like an apsara descending from a mural, and her suitors had been as numerous as fish in a river after rain. In the end, she was deceived into marriage by Chu Tianjiao, who had disguised himself as a driver, and she bore Chu Zihang before the marriage eventually ended in divorce.

Though Su Xiaoyan had wept bitterly for days after the separation, for Chu Zihang’s sake she had carefully chosen another man from among her suitors and remarried within a month.

That man was Lu Tianming.

Lu Tianming owned three companies. He had been divorced once and had no other children. In his first marriage, he had been so consumed by work that he neglected his family; after remarrying, no matter how busy he was, he always set aside one day each week to spend with Su Xiaoyan and Chu Zihang.

Though, being an ordinary man, he was not as strikingly handsome as Chu Tianjiao, with his parted hair and glasses he still carried an air of refinement, and his appearance could at least be considered above average.

Lu Tianming was a man Su Xiaoyan had carefully selected: outstanding, responsible, and well-mannered. Although she did not love him very deeply, he loved her, and he was also kind to Chu Zihang out of affection for her. That was enough.

Having endured one failed marriage, Su Xiaoyan understood that, compared with everything else, a father who was wealthy, responsible, and capable of giving Chu Zihang a good environment in which to grow up mattered far more than her own liking.

That was precisely why, in Chu Zihang’s eyes, Lu Tianming had always been easy to deal with. After all, everything between them had existed because Lu Tianming intended to honor his promise.

Especially after Su Xiaoyan became pregnant again and began preparing for a second child, Lu Tianming had completely let Chu Zihang run free.

So long as Chu Zihang insisted, Lu Tianming would not interfere too much. At most, he would handle the final cleanup.

Of course, anything he had promised before, Lu Tianming would fulfill faithfully. That was a man’s word.

In fact, he had already notarized the agreement among the three of them, proving that he would never go back on his promise.

But Su Xiaoyan would never agree. She could hardly believe that after Chu Zihang had failed to show up to pick her up on a typhoon day, disappeared for an entire day, and returned, she was now saying she wanted to run off with a boy she had never even met.

Who was that boy? What was his name? How many people were there in his family? How much land did they own? Where did he live?

Chu Zihang refused to say a single thing about even these most basic details. She only kept insisting that she had promised him she would move out and live with him.

She seemed bewitched, and it made Su Xiaoyan think of her former self—that stubborn mule who could not be pulled back by ten oxen.

Precisely because of that, Su Xiaoyan would absolutely not agree. She had already failed once; she would not stand by and watch Chu Zihang follow in her footsteps.

And Chu Zihang was only fourteen years old this year, for heaven’s sake. Who was this boy?

This was outright criminal.

“Aah, what an utter mess of a family dispute.”

Just as the three of them were deadlocked, Liu Tian, who had somehow arrived at the scene unnoticed, spoke up slowly.

“Come to think of it, I don’t recall saying that anything about me had to be kept secret.”

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Lu Tianming instinctively moved in front of Su Xiaoyan to protect her, and at the same time reached out to pull Chu Zihang over to his side.

But Chu Zihang ignored him, merely turning and stepping around him to stand beside Liu Tian.

“Sorry. I wasn’t able to convince Mom and Dad.”

“Zihang, you didn’t tell them anything at all except that you’re a boy. Of course you couldn’t convince them,” Liu Tian said with a shrug. “No wonder the people at school call you an ice mountain snow lotus—you really don’t seem to know how to talk to people.”

“Though I’m not all that good at it myself.”

“You’re the one who lured my daughter away?” Taking advantage of her position as the former star, Su Xiaoyan slipped around Lu Tianming at once and sized up the unfamiliar boy from head to toe. “You’re not even that handsome. What on earth did you do to my daughter?”

Seeing that the two women he had meant to protect had both gone around him, Lu Tianming did not know what expression to make. He could only stand there and watch with a blank, helpless look.

“What do you mean, lured away? Zihang and I are engaged in a fair and proper transaction.” Liu Tian smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Liu Tian—Liu as in the blade-radical character, Tian as in unrivaled heaven.”

“As for my identity: a strong one. That is all you need to know.”

As he spoke, as if to prove the credibility of his words, Liu Tian raised two fingers together like a blade and drove them into the wall. With a light stroke, he sliced the wall open. Then he casually grabbed at the thick glass dining table, which seemed to leap into his hand of its own accord. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it flying so that it slammed into the second floor like a nailed spike.

“I made a deal with Zihang,” Liu Tian said. “I’ll give her enough power, and she’ll sell herself to me.”

“Oh, right.” His gaze swept over Lu Tianming, and then he stamped his foot lightly.

Silently, without warning, the ground sank by a full two meters.

“Best not call anyone. The toys those people you want to summon are carrying are meaningless to me.”

Looking up at the doorway, now suddenly a full head higher than his own, Lu Tianming felt a bead of cold sweat slide down his forehead. The hand he had been raising to make a call froze mid-motion.

What the hell kind of monster was this?

Even Su Xiaoyan, who had been blazing with fury a moment ago, was brought to her senses by something so impossible.

“Immortal? Monster? Devil?” she asked cautiously. “What is so special about my Zihang? Can this, can this transaction be canceled?”

“Just an ordinary martial artist anyone could run into on the street,” Liu Tian said with a smile, and Chu Zihang beside him visibly relaxed as well. “As for what’s so special about her, it isn’t really that she’s the best of the best. Maybe it was simply her determination that moved me.”

“As for canceling the deal, I’ve already paid the deposit. You lot couldn’t afford the penalty. Besides, following me is far better than being an ordinary person. The world isn’t as peaceful as you imagine.”

“But Zihang, I’ll give you one last chance. You can go back on your word. So, what do you say—do you want to cancel the deal? Once this chance is gone, it won’t come again.”

Hearing Liu Tian’s words, Su Xiaoyan’s eyes lit up. With tears welling in them, she looked pleadingly at her daughter.

“Zihang, are you really going to abandon your mother? Just like your father, no, just like that bastard Chu Tianjiao?”

“No.”

Meeting her mother’s gaze, Chu Zihang showed no trace of wavering. All doubts had long since been cast aside in the twenty-four-hour vigil she had endured before. She shook her head firmly.

“Once I decide on something, I never regret it.”

“Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!”

Suddenly, Su Xiaoyan covered her face and burst into tears, huge drops of water falling from her cheeks.

“You… you’re all the same, one after another. You all are…”

But before she could finish, Liu Tian cut her off.

“What are you people doing, making a soap opera out of this? It’s not like someone’s dying or being torn from life forever. I live at Xuanyuan Residence on Coiling Serpent Mountain, not far from here. It’s only a half-hour drive, and I never said Zihang couldn’t keep seeing you, did I?”

“Wait?” Su Xiaoyan’s face suddenly lit up with joy. “You’re not taking Chu Zihang somewhere I’d never be able to find her?”

“Did I ever say that from the beginning to the end?” Liu Tian asked back. “Enough. I can’t be bothered with the lot of you. Something that could be solved in a few minutes, and you’ve been yammering for three hours. What a pain.”

“Zihang, bring your clothes tomorrow. And remember to buy groceries and bring me dinner.”

With that, Liu Tian turned around. As if he had never entered at all, he vanished instantly before the others had even had time to react.

“Yes,” Chu Zihang said. “I’ll remember—”

“So Zihang, you weren’t planning to abandon your mother after all?” Su Xiaoyan rushed forward at once and pressed her daughter tightly against her chest with a sweeping embrace. “Mother thought I’d lost you forever, waahhh…”

“I…”

Her breathing cut off, Chu Zihang instinctively tried to push her mother away. But the moment her hands touched that trembling body, she hesitated, then slowly returned the embrace.

“No, no…”

And so the mother and daughter clung to one another. In that instant, Su Xiaoyan had already forgotten who it was that had been insisting all along that she would never agree.