[The Emperor's Struggle]
In the flickering candlelight of the study, Hades You Nian sat in a heavy silence. His red eyes were fixed on scrolls he wasn't reading. To his soldiers, he was a god; to his daughter, he was a stranger.
"I do not know how to be a father," he confessed to Qing Fei, his voice cracking with a rare vulnerability. "I speak in commands. I fear she only sees the Emperor, and never the man."
Qing Fei took his hand, her gaze tender yet firm. "She doesn't need a god, You Nian. She needs a father who can say, 'Don't be afraid, Father is here.' Try, even if it's clumsy. Don't lose her again."
[The Truth of the Forsaken]
At the ancestral shrine, You Nian stood with Gu Xingyu. He began to explain the origin of the Rift-曜 (裂曜) people. He pointed to a maid with snow-white skin and silver hair, and a man who looked like a child despite being thirty years old.
"They were cast out of the Yao Realm at birth," You Nian said, his voice heavy with suppressed pain. "Viewed as omens of disaster or monsters because they looked different. The Underworld is not a kingdom of monsters, Xingyu. It is a sanctuary for the abandoned."
Xingyu's heart tightened as she looked at them. To this world, they were "demons." But to her, the truth was clear. Albinism. Dwarfism.
"They are not omens," she whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. "Father... where I come from, these are called medical conditions. They are not sins, and they certainly are not monsters. They are just people whose bodies were born different."
[The Bridge of Blood]
The word "Father" hit You Nian like a thunderbolt.
He froze, his red eyes widening as the breath caught in his throat. For twenty years, he had lived with the phantom of a daughter, a void that no victory could fill. And now, she had finally called him Father. Not out of protocol, but out of a shared understanding of pain.
"Father," Xingyu continued, her voice trembling with conviction. "They shouldn't have been discarded. They deserve to be seen for who they are."
You Nian's throat constricted. He reached out, his large, scarred hand closing around hers. For the first time, he didn't care about his imperial dignity. He only cared about the warmth of his daughter's hand.
Qing Fei stepped forward, placing her hand over theirs, joining the three of them in a silent, tearful circle. "This is your home, Xingyu," she whispered. "This is what we have waited twenty years for."
In that cold, dark shrine, for the first time in two decades, there was the unmistakable scent of home.