From the perspective of Zhuge Su Yeon
The flames of the incense burners flickered discreetly, casting long shadows across the pillars of the ancestral hall. From one of those shadows my grandfather emerged, as if time itself had merely postponed his presence until now.
For a moment, I simply observed him. His body still solid, shoulders straight, muscles carrying the memory of battles that could shatter walls. There was something of a mountain about him—not unmoving, but eternal.
I let out a faint sigh.
— If I had known that being patriarch brought so much work, I would have fled the clan long ago.
The joke slipped from my lips naturally, almost inaudible, as if even I wasn't sure I had spoken it.
The old man raised his eyebrows, then let out a "humph" dripping with irony.
— Work? What work? That little girl Mei Lan solves almost everything.
I paused for a moment. My eyes slid to the empty air ahead, as if contemplating the walls instead of replying.
— That's a fact. — I admitted calmly. — Without Mei Lan, this work would be endless.
The silence stretched on, heavy as stone, until it was broken by my grandfather's loud laughter. A sincere laugh, unpretentious, as if eternity itself did not rest upon his shoulders. For just a moment, I allowed myself a faint smile in response.
— Are you running away from grandmother again? — I asked, voice calm, but with a hidden edge of irony.
— Running? — he lifted his chin with feigned indignation. — How could I run from my own wife? Never. In fact, I come in her name.
— Don't tell me… — I answered, already anticipating the blow.
He didn't give me the luxury of finishing the sentence.
— Exactly. She wants to know when you are going to marry. Now that the Zhuge clan has risen to glory, she is already looking for a wife for you among all her contacts.
I sighed deeply. The cold air entered and left my lungs as if it wanted to carry my patience away with it.
Facing a thousand elders of the Dark Sun Sect would have been simpler. Thousands of lethal formations, bearable. But my grandmother, speaking of marriage… ah, that was a kind of tribulation for which not even the Supreme Jade Body seemed prepared.
My grandfather laughed again at my reaction.
His laughter still echoed among the pillars as my sigh dissolved into the incense smoke. The sound was light, almost youthful for someone who had lived through more battles than entire generations could count. And yet, to me, each of his laughs seemed only the inevitable introduction to the next strike.
And the strike came.
Marriage.
Truth be told, unlike what would be expected from a clan of some tradition, arranged marriages in my generation had been almost completely forgotten. The surprise of Yu Jin's broken engagement had led me, back then, to review all documents related to marital alliances. A tedious but necessary task—after all, if a catastrophe was lurking, I preferred to find it in the papers rather than be ambushed by the "author" in the middle of a ceremony.
And the result was curious.
Beyond my brother's marriage, there was nothing. Neither in my generation nor in the next. The emptiness was almost uncomfortable, but also, paradoxically, a relief.
After all… two protagonists were already enough.
If there had been more arranged unions, more promises made in the name of old alliances, I myself would have considered canceling them. I could already imagine the scene: some immortal stepping out of an ancestral mist to claim the disciple's bride, or a mysterious heiress being torn from our hands beneath a dramatic thunderclap. The kind of spectacle that destroys entire clans just to glorify the protagonist's shine.
And me? I wasn't willing to let the Zhuge clan become the stage for yet another narrative cliché. Not while I still breathed.
But of course, every absence of alliances has its price.
Without betrothals, without sealed commitments, a new tribulation was born within the clan: the impatience of the elders. At every tea, every ceremony, every prolonged silence, expectant eyes fell upon the younger ones. Not with strategy, but with the urgency of bloodline.
Grandchildren.
Great-grandchildren.
Heirs of blood, sooner, faster, more immediate.
And at the head of this cause, like a general who knows no defeat, stood precisely my grandmother.
Unyielding in her opinions, fervent in her devotion to the lineage's future, and, of course, skilled enough to turn any trivial conversation into a subtle ambush whose final objective was always the same: marriage.
And, as patriarch and eldest grandson, I was the perfect target.
The inevitable center of artillery fire.
I sighed again, calmly. The ancestral hall seemed to close in around me, as if even the walls awaited my response.
— Marriage… — I murmured, my tone low, unhurried. — It really isn't simple for me, grandfather.
The words sounded serene, but inside I could only think that I would rather face a thousand elders of the Dark Sun Sect than endure a single afternoon listening to my grandmother lecture about ideal candidates.
The burden of the clan? Bearable.
The weight of patriarchy? Natural.
But the pressure of a matriarch determined to turn me into a groom… ah, that was a battlefield for which no one had ever prepared me.
The old man stroked his short beard, as if searching his memory for a way to ease my answer. His eyes, however, sparkled with that mischievous gleam he rarely hid.
— Why do you say that, little one? — he asked, voice laced with false seriousness. — Even if you didn't inherit your grandfather's fine muscles, like Yu Jin did… you're still not completely worthless.
A tired smile appeared on my lips. Not because I felt diminished—on the contrary. I was content with my physique. Agile, firm, sculpted by cultivation and discipline, without excesses, without adornments. An athletic body was more than enough for someone who preferred to win battles without ever drawing a sword.
That wasn't the problem.
The real knot lay elsewhere.
I was, after all, a former romantic.
If there was one cliché I despised most in the novels of this absurd world, it was that of the protagonist surrounded by fifteen wives—all beautiful, all devoted, all invariably loud. A harem that served only to inflate the egos of lazy authors and ruin the sanity of any cultivator who valued silence.
In that regard, I much preferred the Western romances I had read in my past life. Stories of monogamy, of eternal love, of firm bonds between two souls that needed no audience to exist.
And, of course, that fit better with my own lifestyle.
Silent.
Restrained.
Calm.
Girls, even the coldest ones, were still too noisy to fit into my cultivation of peace.
While some readers might envy the protagonist capable of gathering wives in every realm, I only felt pity. Poor soul, trapped in absolute chaos. That wasn't romance, it was noise. That wasn't family, it was a trench.
I, at most, admitted the idea of having a wife. A single one.
Not out of obligation, not for politics, but because one inconvenient trace still remained within me: romanticism.
And precisely because of that…
I needed to choose well.
For if I allowed myself a single companion, she would have to bear the weight not only of sharing my life, but of inhabiting the same silence I so fiercely defended.
And that… that was not easy.
Simply not easy at all.
— Grandfather… could you convince grandmother to give me some time? — I asked, making one last effort to prevent my schedule from being suddenly filled with arranged meetings, tea after tea, smile after forced smile.
The old man hesitated. He scratched his short beard, averted his eyes, and finally muttered:
— That… you know how your grandmother is…
His expression, for an instant, was almost pathetic. He clearly feared his own wife. A fear which, with all honesty, I shared—at least when the subject was marriage.
I sighed, conceding.
— Very well. — I said calmly. — I will speak to her myself. And… I can also take a look at Lian Yin.
I rose slowly, adjusting the sleeves of my robe.
— Excellent. — my grandfather replied, visibly relieved, like someone who had just escaped a deadly siege. He guided me to the exit with satisfied steps, happy not to be the next target of his wife.
I walked in silence. The torches flickered, casting shadows against the stone walls, but my mind was no longer in the ancestral hall.
Discreetly, I opened the system. The translucent screen appeared before me like a wound in reality—cold, bureaucratic, insolent.
My gaze turned to the name that never left me.
Zhuge Lian Yin
Age: 8 years
Cultivation: None
Spiritual Potential: Cost 100,000 points
Martial Physique: Cost 150,000 points
Martial Soul: None
Mental State: Coma
Spiritual Profession: None
The lines glimmered before my eyes, impersonal, as if reducing my sleeping sister to mere statistics on an accountant's ledger.
A body, a potential, a price.
The truth was that I still had a sister at home.
A sleeping child, but who, unfortunately, seemed to bear the label of a potential protagonist. The system's astronomical prices left no doubt: someone, somewhere, was already writing chapters destined for her.
But for now, she was in a coma.
And a coma, ironically, was one of the safest states in this noisy world.
Even so, I knew. If given the opportunity, if there were the slightest chance, I would awaken her. Not out of cheap heroism, nor out of desire for another narrative spectacle… but because, despite everything, she was still my sister.
Of course, that didn't mean I would let her run loose in the plot.
My plans were already set. She would remain at home, protected, sheltered. The world outside already had more than enough protagonists to feed on.
Yu Jin, with his reckless flame.
Yui Lan, with her depth that time itself did not dare erase.
Two points of chaos were more than enough.
Three would be a foretold tragedy.
Thus, my plans were not only for my safety.
They were for the safety of the world.
Yes, I was clearly a philanthropist.
I smiled faintly.
Few would understand the weight of saving the world by preventing yet another protagonist from being unleashed. But I, cultivator of peace, knew full well: true benevolence sometimes lay in locking the doors before catastrophe walked in.