Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 306; Celestial Family

"What can I say that will make you look at me like I’m your father again instead of some stranger you despise?"

"Nothing," Shuyin said simply.

"There’s nothing you can say."

"Nothing you can do."

"Some things can’t be fixed, Father."

"Some damage is permanent."

"The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on with your life."

"Move on?"

Long Tian’s voice was barely a whisper now, thick with unshed tears.

"How am I supposed to move on when my daughter won’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be atoning for?"

The youngest brother couldn’t take it anymore.

He stepped around his father, his young face earnest and pleading.

"Sister, please."

"Whatever happened, whatever hurt you, we can help."

"We can make it right."

"Just let us in."

"Let us be your family again."

Shuyin finally looked at him, really looked at him, and for a moment her expression softened fractionally.

He’d been barely more than a child himself when she’d left, young, innocent, uninvolved in whatever court politics might have damaged her.

But then her face hardened again.

"You can’t make it right."

"No one can."

"Why not?"

Another brother spoke up, this one in his apparent thirties, his voice gentle but insistent.

"Why can’t we at least try?"

"Why won’t you give us a chance?"

"Because trying requires trust," Shuyin said, her voice going cold again.

"And I don’t trust any of you."

"Not Father, not the court, not the palace, not any of it."

"But you trust him?"

Long Tian gestured toward Lu Yuze, something almost like jealousy creeping into his hurt.

"This mortal you’ve known for what, days?"

"Weeks?"

"You trust him enough to marry him, to build a life with him, but you won’t trust your own father who raised you for centuries?"

"Yes," Shuyin said simply, and the certainty in her voice was absolute.

"I trust him."

"Why?"

Long Tian asked, and he sounded genuinely bewildered. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"What has he done to earn what I’ve spent a thousand years trying to keep?"

Shuyin was quiet for a long moment, her eyes finding Lu Yuze’s face.

When she finally spoke, her voice was softer but no less certain.

"Because he’s never given me a reason not to trust him."

"Because he accepts my boundaries without demanding explanations."

"Because he doesn’t try to force me to be someone I’m not."

She looked back at her father.

"And because he’s never pretended that love automatically equals trust."

"He understands they’re two separate things that must be earned independently."

The words hit Long Tian like physical blows.

"You think I haven’t earned your trust?"

"After raising you, protecting you, loving you....."

"Loving me doesn’t mean you understand me," Shuyin interrupted.

"And protecting me in the palace doesn’t mean you protected me from everything that mattered."

"What does that mean?"

Long Tian’s voice rose again.

"What didn’t I protect you from?"

"Tell me!"

But Shuyin’s face had gone completely closed off again, shuttered and impenetrable.

"It doesn’t matter anymore."

"It clearly does!"

Long Tian gestured wildly at the frozen room, at the hostility still radiating from his daughter.

"If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be like this!"

"You wouldn’t hate me so completely for something you won’t even name!"

"I don’t hate you," Shuyin said quietly, and somehow that was worse than if she’d screamed it.

"Hate requires caring."

"I just... don’t want you all to disturb my life."

"Any of you."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Long Tian stared at his daughter as if seeing her for the first time, and what he saw broke something fundamental inside him.

This wasn’t anger he could appease or hurt he could heal.

This was a complete, total rejection.

Indifference wrapped in ice.

"I don’t accept that," he finally said, his voice shaking but determined.

"I don’t accept that my daughter is just... gone."

"That the little girl who used to call me the greatest father in all the realms has been replaced by this stranger who won’t even look at me with warmth."

"Then that’s your problem to deal with," Shuyin said flatly.

"Not mine."

She stood up abruptly, pulling her wrist free from Lu Yuze’s grip.

"This conversation is over."

"You’ve seen I’m alive and well."

"You’ve confirmed Mother is recovering."

"Now leave my house before I make you leave."

The threat was clear and unmistakable.

Long Chen stepped between them again, his voice pleading.

"Sister, please...."

"I said leave!"

Shuyin’s voice rose for the first time, power crackling through it, making the windows rattle in their frames.

The temperature dropped even further, frost spreading up the walls in intricate, deadly patterns.

Lu Yuze stood smoothly, his hand coming to rest on Shuyin’s lower back, not restraining, but grounding.

"I think," he said quietly, his voice cutting through the tension with remarkable calm, "everyone needs to take a moment to breathe."

He looked at Long Tian with something approaching sympathy.

"Your Majesty, I understand your pain and confusion."

"But pushing Shuyin right now will only make things worse."

"She’s agreed to help investigate the poisoning."

"For now, perhaps that should be enough."

"It’s not enough!"

Long Tian’s voice broke completely.

"She’s my daughter!"

"And she’s my wife," Lu Yuze said firmly.

"Which means I won’t stand by and watch anyone, even her family, cause her distress in her own home."

"You all need to find a common ground to speak and solve all the misunderstandings.... You all need to calm down...."

The mortal man’s quiet authority in that moment was remarkable.

He stood there, human and powerless compared to the celestial beings surrounding him, yet somehow commanding the situation through sheer force of will and protective devotion.

Long Tian looked at him, then at his daughter, then back again.

And slowly, painfully, he nodded.

"Very well," he said, his voice hollow.

"We’ll leave."

"But Kailani....."

"Shuyin," she corrected coldly.

"Shuyin," he said, and the name clearly tasted wrong in his mouth, "this isn’t over."

"I will find out what happened to you."