Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 307; Celestial Family
"I will understand why you’ve shut us all out."
"And I will make it right, whether you want me to or not."
"Because that’s what fathers do."
"Then you’ll be wasting your time," Shuyin said flatly.
Long Tian turned toward the door, his brothers falling in behind him, all of them looking shaken and hurt.
At the threshold, he paused and looked back one more time.
"I love you," he said simply.
"I’ve always loved you."
"And nothing you do or say will ever change that."
Shuyin said nothing, her face an expressionless mask.
And Long Tian, the Sea King of the Eastern Seas, walked out of his daughter’s home with the bitter knowledge that love, apparently, wasn’t always enough.
But before he could take more than a few steps toward the door, Lu Yuze’s hand suddenly caught Shuyin’s wrist in a firm grip.
Without warning or explanation, he pulled her forward, dragging her toward her departing father despite her immediate resistance.
"Lu Yuze...." Shuyin startled, her voice sharp with warning, her eyes flashing dangerously.
"Be good," Lu Yuze said quietly but firmly, continuing to pull her along with unyielding determination.
"Apologize and forgive. It’s your father. He has missed you just like any loving parent would. He came all this way because he loves you."
Shuyin dug her heels in, trying to pull back against his grip, her body going rigid.
"Let me go. This isn’t your place to..."
"You’re my wife, and at the same time you are a daughter, don’t do something that you would regret sooner..." Lu Yuze interrupted, his voice still calm but carrying unmistakable steel underneath.
"Sorry, but your well-being is exactly my place. And holding onto this much anger, this much bitterness, it’s poisoning you just as surely as those toxins poisoned your mother."
He stopped them a few feet from Long Tian, who had turned back at the commotion, hope and wariness warring on his weathered face.
His brothers had also paused, watching this unexpected development with barely concealed anticipation.
"Lu Yuze, you don’t understand...." Shuyin tried again, her voice dropping lower, almost pleading now.
"You don’t know what...."
"You’re right, I don’t understand," Lu Yuze agreed, turning to face her directly, his silver eyes holding hers with unwavering intensity.
"You won’t tell me what happened. You won’t tell anyone. But I do understand this: you have a father who loves you enough to search for five years without stopping. Who’s standing here begging to know what he did wrong so he can make it right."
He gestured toward Long Tian with his free hand, his voice carrying quiet conviction.
"Do you know what I would have given to have that? To have a father who cared enough to search for me? To want to make things right?"
His voice dropped, becoming more intimate, meant mostly for her ears but loud enough that everyone could hear.
"My father looked at me as a burden, as competition, as something to be managed and controlled. He never once asked me what I wanted, what I needed, what hurt me. Yours looks at you like you’re the most precious thing in all the realms. Don’t throw that away because you’re too angry to see it."
Shuyin’s eyes had widened slightly, the ice in them cracking just a fraction.
She’d heard about Lu Yuze’s difficult family situation from Yuyan during one of their conversations, but hearing him reference it directly, using his own pain to try to reach her, it hit differently.
"That’s different," she said, but her voice had lost some of its sharp edge.
"Your father actively hurt you. Mine....." At the thought that he could be poisoning her mother and probably having a mistress out there irked her even more.
"Yours is standing right there, trying everything he can think of to reach you, and you won’t even meet him halfway," Lu Yuze finished.
"Whatever he did or didn’t do, he clearly doesn’t know what it was. And you won’t tell him."
He squeezed her wrist gently, his thumb brushing across her pulse point in a grounding gesture.
"I’m not saying you have to forgive everything. I’m not saying you have to forget whatever hurt you. But I am saying you need to at least talk to him. Really talk. Do not throw accusations and walk away."
"All right, all right..." Shuyin relented, the fight draining out of her under her husband’s steady insistence.
She had to calm down in front of Lu Yuze, had to at least try for his sake.
He nudged her forward gently, and she stumbled slightly, falling into Long Tian’s waiting arms.
Her father caught her immediately, pulling her into a tight embrace that spoke of five years of desperate longing.
"My dear... I missed you so much," Long Tian whispered hoarsely against her hair, his voice thick with emotion.
"Mmnh..." Shuyin made a noncommittal sound.
She had missed him, too; that much was undeniable.
But she couldn’t forget.
Couldn’t let go of the knowledge that had poisoned everything between them.
After a moment, she gently pushed away from him, putting physical distance between them once more.
When she looked up at him, her eyes were sharp and assessing.
"Father, I will ask you once, and you’d better be honest with me."
Long Tian straightened, sensing the weight of what was coming.
"Of course. Anything."
"Are you the one who has been poisoning Mother?"
The question fell like a stone into still water, ripples of shock spreading through the room.
"No!"
Long Tian’s response was immediate and vehement.
He raised his right hand, his fingers positioned in the formal gesture of celestial vowing.
"I swear and vow, I have never poisoned her. I would never do such a thing! I didn’t even know she was poisoned. Every doctor who examined her found nothing but a gradual weakening they couldn’t explain and said it was grief."
The vow settled into the air, binding and absolute.
If he were lying, the celestial laws would strike him down on the spot.
