Gu Qingxuan walked along the stone corridor at an unhurried pace, his hands resting behind his back.
The inner grounds of the Gu Clan were calm and orderly. Ancient trees lined the paths, their branches heavy with age, while spirit streams flowed quietly beside jade railings carved with clan patterns. Scattered pavilions stood half-hidden among the greenery, dignified and unhurried, as if time itself had learned restraint within these walls.
Lin Xingyu walked beside him without speaking.
Behind them, maids and attendants followed at a respectful distance. From afar, the scene looked harmonious—almost unreal—like figures from an old scroll painting. To outsiders, it might even seem romantic.
Only Gu Qingxuan knew his thoughts were far from peaceful.
They had already drifted to a name he disliked recalling.
Li Mo.
The so-called Son of Heaven.
At this stage, Li Mo was still nothing worth mentioning. His cultivation was mediocre, his reputation unremarkable. In the original timeline, he remained in obscurity until the conflict between the Lin Clan and the Ancient Demon Clan erupted.
That war was where everything changed.
Gu Qingxuan remembered it clearly—not as legend, but as an inevitable sequence written by fate itself. The Lin Clan had clashed with the demons over a rare resource buried near Demon Echo Forest, a spiritual crystal vein capable of nurturing entire generations of cultivators. Li Mo, as the First Elder's adopted son, was sent to the battlefield alongside Lin Clan elites.
Most of them never returned.
Li Mo did, barely.
He had been hunted relentlessly by demon cultivators, wounded until his body could no longer respond. By sheer chance—or rather, by fate's indulgence—he escaped into a forbidden grotto hidden deep within the forest.
The Heavenly Abyss.
That was where Li Mo encountered the Heaven-Sundered Moon Vein Crystal, a heavenly-ranked treasure that should never have appeared in such a place.
Qi Refining to Gold Core in a single breakthrough.
The world called it a miracle.
Gu Qingxuan only felt irritation.
If I seize such luck for myself… will the Heavenly Dao turn its eyes on me instead?
That thought alone was enough to make him abandon the idea. Li Mo's rise had never come without a price, and it was never Li Mo who paid it.
From that moment onward, his fate soared. Opportunities followed him relentlessly, while those around him were dragged into turmoil. Lin Xingyu, who had once treated Li Mo as nothing more than a familiar junior, slowly changed. Admiration grew into reliance, then into something far more complicated.
Gu Qingxuan did not like remembering what came after.
Lin Xingyu's purity had not been lost out of love or choice. It was simply the story pushing her forward, sacrificing her dignity so the Son of Heaven could continue walking his destined path.
That was Li Mo's way.
Those who stood too close to him never ended well.
Gu Qingxuan let out a quiet breath.
He had no interest in clashing with destiny's favored child. Not out of fear, and not out of envy. He simply valued peace. Someone like Li Mo, whose enemies multiplied endlessly and whose fate dragged others into disaster, was not worth crossing paths with.
That was precisely why he wanted nothing to do with the engagement.
Then—
Ding.
The familiar sound echoed within his mind.
Mission triggered.
Condition: Fulfill any request from the Heroine.
Reward: Heaven Eyes.
Punishment: Host will be unable to absorb spiritual qi or advance cultivation.
Gu Qingxuan's expression darkened slightly.
"So even ignoring someone is unacceptable now?" he thought.
The system, as always, offered no response.
Lin Xingyu, however, had already noticed something was wrong.
In the past, Gu Qingxuan had always hovered near her—sometimes awkward, sometimes persistent, but never distant. Today, he felt strangely detached, his attention clearly elsewhere.
More importantly, the path they were walking felt familiar.
Her gaze shifted ahead.
This route led straight toward his private villa.
"Young Master Gu," she said calmly, "are you taking me to see your residence?"
The servants behind them exchanged quiet glances.
Gu Qingxuan stopped.
Only then did he realize where his steps had unconsciously led him. He turned to look at her, his expression composed, though a trace of apology surfaced.
"My apologies," he said. "I was distracted."
Lin Xingyu studied him in silence.
There was no eagerness in his eyes. No attempt to flatter her. No trace of the man who once followed her relentlessly.
That absence unsettled her more than disdain ever had.
"I asked whether you intended to show me your villa," she said again, her voice cooling slightly, "or the Gu Clan itself."
Gu Qingxuan paused for a moment before replying.
"Where would you like to go?" he asked.
Her lips pressed together.
She did not like this feeling—this sense of being overlooked. Without thinking too deeply, she spoke.
"I've heard," she said casually, "that Young Master Gu keeps several powerful mounts, yet rarely rides them. I would like to see them."
The attendants stiffened.
Gu Qingxuan looked at her.
Those mounts were not ordinary beasts. Each possessed a temper and pride equal to that of cultivators.
Troublesome.
And yet—
The system's silent pressure lingered.
"…Very well," he said at last, turning to change direction.
Lin Xingyu watched his back as he walked ahead, her expression unreadable.
For the first time, she realized she could no longer tell what Gu Qingxuan was truly thinking.