Hua took another careful look and let out a heavy sigh of relief.
So she'd seen it wrong…
She thought, 'So Jingliu had only been sitting closer to Father…'
'So Father had just fallen asleep… come to think of it, the medicine Mr. Zandar prescribed really worked…'
'Looks like Jingliu was just sitting there, staring at him in a daze…'
'Wait, no, that's even stranger?!'
Hua hurried downstairs. After walking for a few minutes, just as she was about to step into the courtyard where her father was, she ran into Jingliu head-on.
When Jingliu saw Hua, her expression turned slightly unnatural.
Jingliu said she had already taken the Marshal back to the bedroom.
Hua responded with a flawless smile, offering her congratulations to Jingliu, who was about to be reassigned to the Luofu to serve as a Cloud Knight.
The two chatted briefly. Just before they parted, Jingliu brought up her father and asked Hua to pass along a message.
Jingliu lowered her eyes, her tone carrying a faint, almost imperceptible sense of melancholy.
"May he…"
"Have joy and peace, be calm and free of misfortune."
Hua nodded with a smile, agreeing to the request. She brushed past Jingliu, crossed the courtyard, and entered her father's bedroom.
She stood by the bed for quite a while, but couldn't figure anything out.
'No, what exactly is Jingliu thinking?'
———
The next day, Hua relayed Jingliu's blessing to her father word for word.
After hearing it, his expression turned wistful.
His words were filled with the loneliness of children leaving home to strive on their own, while the elders remained behind in their hometown.
After thinking it over again and again, Hua decided to keep the matter hidden.
If Akivili hadn't noticed the problem first… if it weren't for Mr. Zandar…
With his current mental state… something would have already gone wrong.
He absolutely could not be subjected to any more stimulation.
That concealment lasted for hundreds of years.
Hua never expected that even now, Jingliu still liked her father…
'No, what exactly is Jingliu thinking?!'
No matter how much she thought about it, Hua couldn't understand. She followed along with her father's words, chatted a bit, then hung up the call.
She couldn't fall asleep, so she went to the study to handle documents.
Hua waited until the time when the Cloud Knights gathered in the morning.
At this hour, Jingliu must be awake.
Hua took out her jade communicator and made a call. As soon as it connected, she went straight to the point, "Jingliu, he wants to adopt you."
Before Jingliu could respond, Hua added meaningfully, "At his age… he likes raising children."
What Hua said was meant to remind Jingliu of two things.
One, her father only saw Jingliu as a junior.
Two, the man was old, and couldn't handle any kind of stimulation.
Hua spoke half-jokingly, "You don't need to worry about me. If you can take over the position of Marshal of the Xianzhou, that would be great."
"Even if you refuse him, it's fine. With your talent, even without being the Marshal's daughter, you'll still rise smoothly."
Hua was testing Jingliu.
She laid out the options her father was about to present in advance, while also making her stance clear. She didn't mind having another younger sister, nor did she mind someone else taking the Marshal's position.
Jingliu should go along with him and completely cut off that line of thought.
Once she became the Marshal's daughter, her future career would be smooth. Power and wealth, everything she could want.
Even if she refused the proposal…
'Jingliu, you're a Cloud Knight. You can't let the Marshal of the Xianzhou fall into "Mara" just because of your own desires, can you?'
Without him… the people of the Xianzhou wouldn't receive massive subsidies, nor enjoy the welfare system envied across the stars.
Between the lines, Hua was urging Jingliu to handle this properly and not do anything that might provoke him.
Jingliu fell silent for a moment, then replied, "…I understand."
At some point, the call on the other end disconnected.
Jingliu stood there, stunned, staring into empty space.
Only when the alarm on her jade communicator rang did she take a deep breath, turn it off, and log into the star network to search for the most remote affiliated planet of the Xianzhou Alliance.
After memorizing the name, she stood up, found a blank sheet of paper in her room, and copied out a work transfer application according to the internal Xianzhou template.
With the application in hand, Jingliu went to the top-floor suite.
The attendants selected in advance by General Tengxiao had already prepared breakfast and fresh clothes for the Marshal early in the morning.
He usually bathed first, then ate breakfast in his sleepwear.
But this time was different.
The ends of the Marshal's hair were still slightly damp. He raised a hand to refuse the attendant who wanted to dry his hair, took the towel himself, and draped it over his shoulders in a perfunctory way.
He was fully dressed, a black silk shirt on top, black trousers below.
Jingliu glanced at the floor-to-ceiling window, where an attendant was cleaning the ashtray.
She then looked at the dishes on the table that the attendants were about to clear away. The Marshal had barely touched them.
There was no expression on his face. He slightly lifted his chin, signaling Jingliu to sit.
Jingliu quietly pulled out a chair and sat opposite him.
She handed over the transfer application with both hands.
As she expected, the Marshal's expression turned cold. His tone was stiff as he asked, "…What are you doing?"
Jingliu looked back at him and asked calmly, "Didn't you already know last night?"
Zero let out a long sigh, then placed the light sheet of application paper on the table.
He frowned deeply, trying to search his memory for information about that planet.
Finding nothing, Zero instantly understood Jingliu's real intention.
How could he let Xianzhou talent be buried over something like this?
How could he allow Jingliu to go to such a remote, barren planet?
Zero closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up to meet Jingliu's gaze.
He looked at her with an extremely complicated expression, as if she were some unsolvable problem.
"When did it start? How long has it been?"
Jingliu lowered her eyes, avoiding his gaze.
She heard herself say, "Not long."
Just a few hundred years. Not that long.