[Young Master Xian]—❈—67:: Family Dinner [I]

The Xian family has seven scions, myself included, meaning that, with my mother and father, a family dinner means nine people at the dinner table. And that’s assuming no one brings a plus one, because, as I understand it, my four oldest siblings are married.

So, at minimum, that’s nine people.

Nine cultivators.

Good Heaven, this is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I’m overreacting. It is. I’ll allow for that.

In fact, I hope with every fibre of my being, that I am overreacting.

Unfortunately for all of us involved though, it really doesn’t look like I am.

A dinner with just Mother, Weiju, and Zexi ended with both my sisters walking out before it was done, and those two are very likely the... tamest of my siblings.

Weiju, for whatever reason, clearly doesn’t want to be here, in The Capital entire much less the Xian estate, and she makes do by ignoring everyone and everything. Meanwhile, Zexi is too eager to please our mother to act out too much as is evident from her… everything.

I don’t know anything about the rest of my siblings though, and all I know about my father is his name, Xian Wei.

But then again, I don’t really need to know a whole lot about them to make some educated guesses. Like, for one, I’m sure none of them knew Xian Qigang personally, and from what they did know about him, I am a hundred percent certain that none of them had any love for the wanker.

I’m also sure that, like it was with Zexi, there will likely be one or two others who won’t be particularly enthused to have the useless exile back as a hero of the empire and Mama’s new favourite.

All I can hope is that whichever of my siblings feel this way are like Zexi, who wears her emotions on her sleeve and doesn’t try to play the viper.

Few things are worse than people who will befriend you and win your trust just for the chance to stab you in the back.

Meng Yi pats me on the thigh as the carriage rolls down the path to Mother’s manor.

“Everything will be fine,” she says.

I don’t believe her, but I appreciate the sentiment.

At Mother’s door, what usually happens at dinner events happens, and I come across other arriving guests.

They’re both women, both decked in fine, qi-rich clothing, and both trailed by servants, but I only recognize one of them, Zexi, my immediate older sister whose fist I headbutted so hard about a week ago, her arm damn near exploded.

The other woman is clearly our sister, her resemblance to our mother clear as day. She looks about the same physical age as our mother too, that is mid-twenties, but with cultivators that means very little.

Her cultivation is very impressive, this unknown sister of mine, sage rank, Domain Realm, but there’s something about it that stands out to my qi sense in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. Something off.

I don’t dwell on it much though, because while something is off about her cultivation, the thing that’s ringing alarm bells in my head is the conversation going on between her and Zexi.

If you can even call this a conversation.

They’re standing right in front of the door, blocking the path.

The unknown sister, the shorter of the two, leans in, almost looming over Zexi, who seems to have shrunk in on herself in a way that is honestly disturbing to watch. And, right there, blocking the door and in front of servants with dipped heads and downturned eyes, she is eviscerating Zexi with cutting words the likes of which I’ve never heard someone say to another person.

“You useless waste of air,” she’s saying. “At this rate the Matriarch should trade you to one of those barbarian warlords in the South for a few casks of Spirit Rice wine. Even that disgusting beverage would be better than having you continue to leech the family’s resources for zero gain.”

Her eyes roll up and down Zexi, a deep loathing in her gaze.

“Though with how revolting you are, they’ll probably ask her for remuneration to take you, wouldn’t they?” she says. “Heaven, how useless can one creature be? You’re not just weak, you’re ugly too. Can you not have at least one redeeming quality, you ugly cow?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say, and a special kind of stillness settles over the scene.

The sister whose name I don’t know turns to me slowly, looking for all the world like she only just noticed my presence. Which is definitely bullshit, because she’s a Domain Realm cultivator and I’m barely ten feet away, the only way she could have missed me all this time is if I were a rock, and probably not even then.

“What did you just say to me?” she asks.

She sounds almost polite in her query, so of course I oblige her.

“I asked ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ You can’t talk to her like that, she’s a person, you… psychopath.”

She stares at me with wide, round eyes, then her lips curl with hate, body so tense with rage that she seems to vibrate.

“You cretin!” she screams, and a deluge of qi colder than the coldest winter drowns me.

My cultivation immediately rises to meet it.

Almost without my control, my technique activates—

Glory of The Sun

—and my fledgling domain pours out of me to the fullest of its authority.

The sun within my soul glows with life and heat and power, its potency fuelled and boosted by the peasant rank Ginde Pepper I consumed what feels like so long ago now.

The very qi within my meridians feels like liquid sunlight, so hot and powerful that I’m sure it would endanger me were it not for my unnaturally durable soul and physique.

All the power I have, all of my cultivation, my qi and my will, all of it rises up to push against the cold. And it’s like a match in a blizzard.

The last time I faced the ire of a Domain Realm cultivator, I stood strong. More or less.

But this isn’t the soul-arresting control of a subjugation technique. Nor is it the pressure of a cultivator’s aura. Besides, The Empress hadn't actually wanted me dead. She probably hadn’t even wanted to cause true harm.

Not like this.

No, this is a power so great that, even though this is the first time it’s been used on me, I know what it is… this is the sheer, undiluted power of a cultivator’s domain.

Against this, it doesn’t matter if I’d eaten a million Celestial Plums… this is where I die.

Honestly, I should be dead already. But there’s something wrong with this domain. With the cultivation entire. Like it isn’t formed quite right. Like it’s damaged.

No… crippled. Her cultivation is crippled.

Even with the supernatural heat pouring through my body, the cold seeps in. Fast.

If this was a natural frost, the freezing would start from my extremities: my digits, my nose, my ears.

This cold doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that though. Frozen fingers won’t kill me. They likely won’t even inconvenience me, with how insane my healing is.

The cold runs straight for my heart. My lungs. My brain. My very cultivation.

This is a cold with an intent behind it. And that intent aims to see me dead.

The sunlight within my meridians turns into frost. My brain stabs with a sharp, icy pain. Within my chest, I feel my heartbeat begin to cease as my cultivation flickers like a candle about to quench.

My vision begins to darken. Consciousness fading.

The final thing I see is my sister’s face, twisted with hatred and a wicked glee as she watches me die at her hand.

A man places a hand on her shoulder.

“That’s enough, Mei,” he says calmly, and suddenly the cold is gone.

I try to inhale, but my lungs won’t work.

The sun within my soul, almost extinguished by the cold, begins to ramp up again, but its progress is slow and gradual.

Meng Yi and Xiuying press their bodies against me from the side, offering what insignificant warmth they can. They seem to be shivering already.

My sister, whose name I now know is Mei, stares down at me with a twisted kind of pleasure, like her life is now somehow better because she’s hurt me.

She turns and walks off into the house after a moment, her retainers following smoothly.

“Hey,” I call with the first breath my lungs can take.

Mei stops and turns to look at me.

“Y-your c-c-cultiv-vation… is s-s-shit,” I say, teeth chattering so hard I can barely speak.

Mei freezes, and her eyes blaze with an almost insane rage as her qi begins to swell once again.

“Mei,” the man says, not as calmly as the last time.

He doesn’t flex his qi, or do any of the grandstanding common with cultivators, but that doesn’t stop us all from sensing his power. Domain Realm, noble rank. And unlike Mei, Xian Wei, our father, is not a cripple.

Mei stops, looking almost to be boiling with her rage, but she obeys, turns around once more and walks off.

Zexi stares at me for several seconds, a complicated expression on her face, but in the end, she does exactly what I expect and walks away too.

My cultivation is recovering now, well enough that I can find the strength to use the glory of the sun to properly heat up, not just myself, but my shivering friends who seem to have given themselves an awful cold trying to help me.

I rise slowly, Meng Yi and Xiuying coming up with me.

My father watches.

“I see your recovery is as good as I’ve heard,” he says, then adds: “and that you still have that penchant for making stupid decisions.”

“Nothing stupid about standing up to an abuser,” I say.

“Abuser?” He considers the word, like he doesn’t understand my use of it.

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that you didn’t hear what Mei was saying to Zexi?” I ask him.

My father shrugs. “Zexi stood there and took it,” he says.

I stare at him. “Congratulations,” I say, “you’re father of the fucking century.”

His brows dip into a scowl.

“Do you expect me to believe that this is bravery, Qigang?” he asks. “Like we both don’t know that the only reason you had the confidence to stand up to Mei is because you knew that your mother would step in to protect you?”

He’s not wrong.

I knew I was relatively safe.

Honestly, I’d expected Mei to not go as far as she did, but I’d been fully confident that, however far she went, Mother wouldn’t let her go too far.

But does that mean that if I were to come across a situation like between Mei and Zexi out in the wild, far from the umbrella of Mother’s protection, that I wouldn’t step in?

I… don’t know. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Until then though, while I do have the umbrella of Mother’s protection hanging over my head, you bet your ass I’ll be stopping shit like that when I see it.

And sure, maybe that makes me a hypocrite or whatever, but at least, I won’t be a piece of shit father who let’s his daughter get vilified because ‘she just there and took it.’

Seeing that an answer isn’t forthcoming, Xian Wei turns and walks back into the house.

After several seconds, Meng Yi pulls me forward gently, the message clear. ‘The dinner still awaits.’

I let out a slow, heavy breath, and with steady footsteps, we walk into the manor.

—❈——❈——❈——❈—

—❈——❈——❈——❈—

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