Gu Nan Yi also looked at the fish with a serious expression. Although his eyes were on the fish but he was actually thinking about the idea he had been pondering for about three days. He just didn’t know how to bring it up to his daughter, but he seemed to have finally found an opportunity and immediately said, “You can be freer than fish.” 

Gu Zhi Xiao turned her head to look at him, her eyes forming a straight line with her smile, “You came to take me back?” As she spoke, she was about to jump off his lap and pull him away, but was held back by Gu Nan Yi. 

Gu Nan Yi held his daughter still, carefully examining her eyes, and gently stroked her delicate little face with his fingers.

In his usually calm and steady gaze, there was a rare trace of tenderness and reluctance, as if he were watching the most cherished thing in his life about to be taken from him by his own hand in an instant.

He said, “Xiao Xiao.”

It was the first time Gu Nan Yi had ever called his daughter this way, yet he said it fluently and naturally, as if he had called her that many times in his heart, certain and unshakable.

Behind the rock garden, Feng Zhi Wei, who was secretly eavesdropping, suddenly felt her heart tremble.

Gu Zhi Xiao stared at those sparkling eyes behind the veil and suddenly quieted down as well.

After saying the first word, Gu Nanyi finally seemed to calm down as well. His expression and tone both became much smoother.

He had always been an extremely determined person. As a child, just to push past a bottleneck in martial arts, he once buried himself in a snowbank for three days and nights, nearly dying. He had promised to protect Feng Zhi Wei for life, so he had never once wavered. Once he made up his mind, there was nothing he could not do.

The words he was about to say today, to him, were just as difficult as that brush with death during his martial arts training as a child.

“Xiao Xiao,” he spoke to his daughter as if to an adult, with a hand pressing on her shoulders. Following what Feng Zhi Wei had taught him, that in a conversation, you must look the other person in the eye. Gazing steadily into Gu Zhi Xiao’s eyes without blinking, he said. “Daddy needs you to have a lot of freedom.”

Gu Zhi Xiao also stared back without blinking, her gaze was bright and clear. “Freedom, Daddy gives.”

“No,” Gu Nan Yi, after being personally trained by Feng Zhiwei, had reached a decent level in having a proper back-and-forth exchange. “Daddy can’t give it.”

Gu Zhi Xiao tilted her head, her eyes full of questions.

However, Gu Nan Yi was seriously pondering how to begin his process of “persuasion”. Though he had the most eloquent and clever Feng Zhiwei at his side, he had never managed to learn the cunning ways of the world. After thinking for a good while, he gave up and said directly, “Daddy needs you to be able to control the lives and deaths of many people, to hold greater power, so that no one else can make you stay, but you can make anyone stay. That is true freedom.”

“No.” Gu Zhi Xiao shook her head immediately. “No one else. No one else.”

She tilted her head and wrapped her arms around Gu Nan Yi’s neck, pressing her little face against his. Squinting her eyes, she said, “Daddy, take me home.”

Gu Nan Yi wanted to pull her away so they could talk properly, but Gu Zhi Xiao wouldn’t let go. Her small hands clung tightly. Gu Nan Yi’s hand, which had reached out to remove hers, paused in mid-air before slowly coming to rest on her back. He gently stroked her smooth black hair. After thinking for a moment, he tilted his head toward her as well and whispered in her ear.

All of his movements today were gentle, very careful, as if handling porcelain. As he leaned in close, the gesture was almost cozy, yet the words he spoke were nearly heartless “If you refuse to control others, then Daddy… don’t want you.”

Gu Zhi Xiao’s head shot up abruptly. She stared at her father, stunned.

But Gu Nan Yi had already turned his face away, refusing to look at her. Rarely had he spoken so quickly as he did now  “You promised me before, to either protect your aunt with your life, or you would leave me. Now, I don’t want your life. I want you to promise me this: stay, and from now on, obey every decision I make.”

Gu Zhi Xiao stared at him blankly, seemingly struggling to process his words. But she was an exceptionally intelligent child after all. After a moment, she asked in a low voice, “Stay… and control others?”

“Yes.”

“But I only want Daddy.” Gu Zhi Xiao’s eyes shimmered with tears. The tears were welling and trembling, clinging to the corners of her eyes.

“Only if you do this… can Daddy be your Daddy.” Gu Nan Yi looked at his daughter, letting his gaze repeatedly caress her face and the confused, pained expression on it. Almost as if he wanted to smooth out the first creases that had been carved by the pain of life with his gaze.

What he didn’t know was that his own gaze was filled with pain too. Added together, it was just the pain of two people.

The little girl in front of him was not of his blood, but was more than blood to him. He had held her in his arms since infancy and raised her with his own hands until the age of three. Among all the fathers in the world, none resembled a father less than he did, because it was he, personally, who handled every trivial task, from her eating, drinking, to sleeping, and care in every way. And yet, among all fathers, none were more worthy of being a father. No father had ever so completely and thoroughly participated in the entire process of a child’s growth.

All the warmth and resolve of his life, he had given to only two women. Both were his blood and his life. To part with either would feel like his very heaven and earth were crumbling, like forever being incomplete, like losing everything. The mere thought brought a penetrating pain deep to his very bones. He had never imagined and refused to imagine. He thought he could stay by the two of them, for a long long time. But it had come to this point, he had no choice but to choose.

He chose to tear it apart with his own hands.

To send away the child who had grown up dependent on him, who had never left his side, banishing her to a distant foreign land.

To push her into a palace throne, completely isolated, utterly alone. 

Just the thought of it left a hole in his heart, and a sharp, insistent ache crept up, a pain that corroded his bones.

Only now did he finally understand, truly understand, that snowy year when Feng Zhi Wei, holding the coffin, walked out through the palace gates to where he was waiting for her, and the desolate, soul-piercing sorrow in her eyes.

That was despair.  A plunge into the bottomless dark abyss.

This kind of pain… colder and longer than an eternal night.

Just like now, when he looked into Gu Zhi Xiao’s eyes, the pain in this little child’s eyes was actually the same, all because of the ruthlessness and threat from her father, who had always doted on her until now. 

Gu Nan Yi turned his gaze away and stared blankly at the half-withered lotus leaves floating in the pond.

He was hurting, but he did not regret it. As long as it benefited Feng Zhi Wei, then there was nothing worth regretting.

After spending so much time by Feng Zhi Wei’s side, he had gradually come to realize that his help to her wasn’t what she needed most. No matter how powerful an organization was, it could only protect her physical safety. But for those vast, lofty ambitions that were simmering deep in her soul, the strength of their organization was not enough.

As for himself, he couldn’t match Zong Chen when it came to healing others through medicine. He couldn’t match Zhi Wei with her unmatched brilliance and cunning.  His martial arts could only clear a path when blades and arrows came her way, but she faced a far greater threat from the treacherous schemes and sinister traps buried within the imperial courts and the shifting political tides of this world. He watched those brewing storms with thunderclouds heavy with unspoken, hidden dangers and was completely powerless. That sense of helplessness had long ago taken root in his heart. Whenever that feeling rose up inside him, he could only comfort himself—- She still needs me. I can protect her.

But now… when Feng Zhi Wei could defend herself with her own martial arts skills, when her extraordinary intellect was more than enough to navigate any danger, when her status had risen so high that she traveled with three thousand guards and had no need to worry about her own safety…he began to feel just how thin and fragile his presence and his strength had become.

He was willing to spend his entire life as nothing more than her bodyguard, but he was not willing to be someone who could do nothing more for her.

Now, when he could finally do something useful for her, he was causing her to give it up for his sake. That he could not accept.

Zhi Wei.

I once thought that separation meant complete ruin. But now, at this very moment, I discovered that sometimes, separation is another form of fulfillment.


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