Chapter Eighty: Answering Questions and Clearing Doubts (Part One)

Su Nanxing paid no heed to Tao Sisi's words. He kept his eyes fixed on Tao Ming, closely watching her expression, worried she might be frightened.

Once Tao Ming regained her composure, she asked, "Why have you never told me before?"

"Even if I had, you wouldn't have believed me!"

Tao Ming thought to herself that this was perfectly true. If Qin Youchuan hadn't said it himself in front of so many people today, she would never have believed it, not in a million years.

Tao Ming leaned in close to Su Nanxing, cupping his face in her hands and scrutinizing him carefully. "Is there any difference between a blessed one sent from the heavens and an ordinary person?"

Su Nanxing couldn't help but laugh. "I haven't noticed any difference."

She pinched his cheeks, giving them a tug, then kneaded them with both hands, her voice soft and childlike: "Mama, you're bullying Papa again!"

Then she turned and said, "Great-grandpa, the story you told just now was nice, but I couldn't quite understand it. Could you tell another one that I can understand?"

Nuo Nuo patted Ruan Ruan on the shoulder and said, "Papa was once a little star."

Ruan Ruan pouted. "No! He's Papa, not a little star."

After finishing the hotpot meal, the Qin family wanted to keep chatting with Tao Ming, but she politely declined. On one hand, she was truly exhausted after the long ordeal; on the other, there were many questions she wanted to ask her own parents.

She followed her parents back to the courtyard named "Spider's Lair." Ding Xiang led their family of four to a side room, opened the door, and said, "Sleep here tonight. If you decide to stay long-term, we'll change you to another courtyard."

Tao Ming took Ding Xiang's hand and said, "Auntie Ding Xiang, please let my parents know that I'll come find them later. There are some things I need to ask before I can sleep soundly."

Ding Xiang agreed and left.

By now, the two little ones were nodding off from fatigue. Tao Ming quickly washed them up and coaxed them to sleep. Then she turned to Su Nanxing. "I want to talk to my parents about a few things. You go ahead and sleep."

Su Nanxing pulled her into his arms, leaned in, and whispered in her ear, "When you get back, I’ll let you thoroughly investigate what makes me different from an ordinary man."

Tao Ming rolled her eyes. "Can’t you be serious for a moment?"

Su Nanxing put on an innocent look. "You are my serious business!"

With Su Nanxing’s relentless teasing, Tao Ming was out of retorts. She tossed him a fierce, "Just you wait," before turning on her heel and leaving.

When she entered her parents' main room, Tao Ming saw Qin Siyu sitting in the hall drinking tea, alone. She asked, "Where's Mother?"

Qin Siyu motioned for Tao Ming to sit, set down his teacup, and said, "Your mother is simple-hearted. There are many things I’d rather she not know, so I coaxed her to bed."

Tao Ming thought to herself, And what about me? Am I supposed to be the complicated one? Who’s really the baby here?

"Ding Xiang said you wished to speak with me?"

A thousand questions surged in Tao Ming’s mind, and for a moment she didn’t know where to begin. She fell silent.

Qin Siyu, seeing her hesitate, said, "Ming Ming, it’s your parents who’ve wronged you, leaving you alone in another world at such a young age. It’s only natural that there’s some distance between us."

Tao Ming was momentarily taken aback, then said belatedly, "I don’t blame you. But it’s true we need time to get to know each other. I have so many questions, I hardly know where to start."

Qin Siyu felt a pang of guilt and replied gently, "Ask anything you wish. I’ll answer all that I know."

Tao Ming reached up, removed the ornaments from her head, and tied her hair back into a ponytail. Her head felt lighter, and her thoughts clearer. Though there was much she wanted to know, she had to take it one step at a time.

"Father, in the letter Mother left me, she mentioned that shortly after I was born, the jade pendant you wore turned to powder. That’s why you returned to Weishui. Can you tell me what happened after you got back?"

Qin Siyu gave a soft "hmm," his sword-like brows furrowing slightly, a trace of confusion in his eyes. "It was a strange affair, a secret within the Qin family. But since you ask, I’ll tell you.

"When your mother and I returned home, we found it wasn’t just my pendant that broke—all the jade pendants worn by members of the Qin family since childhood had shattered, even those of relatives far away in other provinces.

"The Qin family has a hidden place where a large piece of jade is kept, brimming with spiritual energy. Every time a child is born in the Qin family, the head of the family chips off a piece and carves it into a pendant for the child to wear."

Tao Ming listened quietly, making a mental note of all this.

"The odd thing is, though the Qin family is ancient and numerous, with countless pendants taken from it, the mother stone never seemed to grow smaller—it was as if it could restore itself.

"Each completed pendant is somehow linked to the mother stone. No matter how far away, whoever wears a pendant can sense disturbances in the mother stone. So whenever something important happened, the family head would tap out a code on the stone, and all kin would know at once.

"After finding that all the pendants had shattered, my father immediately went to the hidden place. As soon as he opened the door, he saw the floor thick with powder—the mother stone itself had broken. The dust was dull and lifeless, as though every trace of spiritual energy had been drained away.

"Careful inspection revealed no sign of an intruder, so we could only let it go."

Perhaps because she’d encountered so many strange things lately, Tao Ming felt oddly calm and didn’t show the slightest surprise.

She took a moment to digest all she’d heard, then asked, "Father, do many people know where the mother stone is kept?"

Qin Siyu shook his head. "Usually, only the current family head knows."

"This happened about seven years ago, didn’t it?"

Qin Siyu thought for a moment. "It was shortly after you were born—about seven years ago."

Tao Ming carefully noted the time. "Father, I heard from Mother Banxia that the Qin family once had a Saintess without a contract. But that doesn’t match what Grandpa said earlier about unity."

Qin Siyu smiled. "That was during the reign of the emperor before last—forty or fifty thousand years ago. After that incident, the family head was punished, and the Qin clan began to unite."

He added, "In the past, whenever a new head was chosen, their peers would have to take their wives and children to other provinces to manage the family business and rarely returned to the old home. Now, they may come and go as they please.

"In the old days, the family head appointed people to run the overseas fleet and tally the goods, and profits were distributed by him. Now, management is rotated and profits are shared equally."

Tao Ming asked, "Didn’t those relatives need to come back for ancestral rites?"

Qin Siyu seemed puzzled by her question. "Weishui is different from the other world. Cultivators vary in talent, and it’s common for sons to die before their fathers. So there’s no ancestral shrine here."

Tao Ming frowned. "Without rituals to maintain family bonds, wouldn’t such a clan easily fall apart?"

Qin Siyu laughed. "That’s what marriage alliances are for."

Tao Ming was even more puzzled. "But both Mother Banxia and Grandma Qiluo said the Qin and Su families have always married into the royal family."

Qin Siyu’s smile widened. "Cousins marry cousins, keeping it all in the family—the royal clan can’t interfere.

"And besides, when a woman marries in, we say she’s a branch of the Qin family. Who would dare say otherwise?"

Tao Ming couldn’t help thinking, Is that really allowed?

Then she recalled the Seventh Prince saying his mother was Qin Siyu’s sixth sister. She asked, "Father, could it be that the Seventh Prince’s mother was just an outsider sent in under the Qin name?"