Lan opened his mouth, trying to argue something.
He wanted to say, 'I wasn't insulting you, I meant it literally.'
'You and Hua are different.'
'In these five thousand years, no one has ever done better than you.'
'Even at the final moment of your life, you made the most rational decision, for both the Xianzhou and for humanity.'
Lan couldn't quite tell what Zero's current mental state was, and considering how that mouth of his could easily twist anyone's train of thought, he decided to remain silent.
Zero had long grown used to Lan's silence. When the man and the god sat together, most of the time, it was Zero who did the talking.
Still, he couldn't help sighing. "Seriously, you could at least say a few more words. Is it really that hard to respond to me?"
Lan hesitated.
'Isn't it possible that maybe the problem is actually you?'
'If anyone else heard you talk about killing a Aeon, they'd probably fall silent too.'
Lan still didn't refute him, because he knew he couldn't win an argument against Zero.
Zero had his own strict, impeccable logic, an almost alien way of thinking that few could follow, much less break free from once drawn in.
While absentmindedly petting the cat, Jade, who was devouring cat food on the stone table, Zero started speculating about how he might get along with Hua.
He had already learned from the shareholders in his company and taken their lessons to heart.
So, Zero wouldn't spoil Hua. He definitely wouldn't hire dozens of bodyguards for her, maybe just ten or so at most.
He knew himself well enough to admit he could never be a qualified parent, nor could he bear the weight of a life.
Zero was fully aware of the ending he had already chosen for himself.
He wouldn't treat Hua as a daughter. Instead, he would keep a measured distance from her and from any new subordinates, neither too close nor too far.
That way, when the time came, they wouldn't mourn him too deeply.
Maybe they'd shed a few tears for him when he passed.
But hundreds of years later, when they looked back, they'd realize the time they spent with him, for long-lived species, wasn't even worth mentioning.
By his calculation, the time he'd spend with Hua and the others would, for a short-lived species, equal maybe five or six years. Thinking that way, he almost felt like a responsible, considerate boss.
Lan silently watched Zero, not knowing what was going through his mind, only feeling that his mood seemed rather good.
Then he heard Zero say with a sigh, "Hua definitely isn't like you, you lump of silence. I must've taught her well."
Hearing that, even someone as quiet as Lan couldn't keep silent any longer.
He tried to correct him, "She's very good, but not just because..."
Zero ignored his words completely. Hua would surely do better than he did, and she wouldn't have to burn herself out working 007-style every day like he once did.
"She must handle government affairs way more easily than I ever did," Zero said sentimentally.
Lan swallowed the rest of his words.
'She's good,' he thought, 'but not just because of you.'
Hua had been raised not only by strategists and Xianzhou generals, but also by Aeons, Lan and Akivili had both spent time with her.
At that time, Zero's mental state was terrible, he was in no condition to mentor an heir, but he had still tried his best to teach Hua.
And judging by the outcome, he'd succeeded.
Although the current Marshal resembled him in some ways, their values were completely different.
Hua had the sound, grounded worldview common to all Xianzhou people.
Lan faced the man lost in his own thoughts and could only stay quiet.
Before long, the cat finished its food, flicked its tail, and suddenly leapt off the stone table with surprising speed, vanishing instantly from sight.
Zero blinked in disbelief, glancing left and right in search of the cat's shadow. He didn't even find a single strand of fur.
He was dumbfounded.
'As expected of a descendant of Chaoyan… even her cats are no joke! Carrying dozens of pounds of fat and still that agile!'
He turned back, gathering the remaining cat food scattered on the table and putting it back into the bowl.
Now that he no longer had his summoned beasts, he couldn't contact Lan anytime he wanted.
For Aeons, decades or even centuries passed in the blink of an eye.
After thinking for a moment, Zero said casually, "Oh right, just giving you a heads-up. If you get the chance, come to Luofu for my wedding banquet."
He figured the next time they met would be decades, maybe centuries later.
By then, his relationship with Jingliu would surely be decided.
He had already made up his mind to respect her wishes, whatever the outcome, he'd accept it calmly.
Lan, "…"
Lan froze for a long moment.
He didn't know whether to be more shocked that Zero was in love, or by the implications behind his words.
When Zero had been Marshal, countless noble ladies had courted him, offering extravagant gifts worth entire fortunes, yet none of them had swayed him in the slightest.
Even Lan, as an Aeon, had heard the rumors from Akivili.
And what those words implied…
Zero said if you get the chance, come to drink at the wedding, meaning even he wasn't sure it would happen.
Lan knew Zero well. As a leader, he would never let others see his true emotions.
A Marshal's single word or expression could affect countless lives, much less a statement of vulnerability like this.
Even in the hardest situations, Zero never gave up, nor would he ever show weakness.
Even walking down a predetermined, mistaken path, he'd still find a way to make that path the right one.
Lan suddenly recalled that overly friendly Aeon, Akivili.
Once, Akivili had casually gossiped about Zero's love life, mentioning all the women who had chased him.
Akivili had muttered, ("All that talk about discipline and no-romance policies… isn't that a little too old-fashioned? My friend acts like some noble young lady locked away in her family's estate…")
Lan had gone speechless.
The phrase "noble young lady" had short-circuited his brain for a good while.
Apparently, Akivili's image of Zero was totally different from everyone else's.
———
[Flashback]
After some mental scrambling, Lan realized Akivili had completely misunderstood Xianzhou idioms, so he explained the real meaning of "deep boudoir" and "noble young lady."
Akivili had awkwardly scratched his head.
"Oh? It's used for women? Uh… then what should I call him?"
Lan, "… A gentleman."
After the correction, Akivili had sighed emotionally.
"Then the woman who wins my friend's heart must be really special!"
———
[Back to Current Time]
And now, Lan found himself agreeing.
'Just what kind of woman could make the former Marshal fall in love?'
Lan couldn't help feeling curious about the woman he'd never met.
Meanwhile, Zero, unaware of his thoughts, remembered something Hua had mentioned earlier, the "Abundance" Emanator, Shuhu.
He naturally thought of using the Emanator as… well, both a tool and a ritual offering to summon Lan.
'Sure, Lan didn't need an offering, but ceremony mattered, right?'
After all, this was an Aeon. One had to show some respect and sense of occasion.
Zero warned him, "By the way, when the time comes, try not to kill the Emanator I finally manage to capture, okay?"
Lan, "..."
Seeing him fall silent again, Zero raised an eyebrow. "What? Is it really that strange that I have someone I like?"
Lan shook his head, then asked, "What kind of person is she?"
Zero thought for a while, carefully choosing his words.
Remembering how he had once rewritten the Xianzhou textbooks and erased the deity "Reignbow Arbiter," he didn't mention her god.
He didn't speak of his lover's beauty, nor her gentleness or patience, nor the tender words she'd once said to him.
Instead, before the god Jingliu worshiped, he answered solemnly, "She's Jingliu. She's the Swordmaster. She's an outstanding Cloud Knight."
His lover didn't need his protection.
So Jingliu would never be "the Marshal's lover", she would only ever be the Swordmaster, only ever herself.
Lan nodded, placing a divine arrow infused with his power on the stone table.
Zero, "…"
The corner of his mouth twitched as he pushed the arrow back.
'Here we go again. Offering arrows the moment something happens?'
In his past life, he had been the Xianzhou Marshal. But now, he had long since said farewell to that past. He was merely a diviner of the Divination Commission.
He had no intention of telling anyone about his past life, nor would he ever accept Lan's arrow to become a Emanator of the Aeon of the Hunt.
Sure, he'd respect his lover's wishes, but that definitely didn't include handing her a divine arrow and turning her into a Emanator.
Lan, seeing this, retracted the arrow and asked, "You don't plan to tell her?"
Zero nodded.
Lan hesitated, his expression showing some unease.
Zero, unbothered, said bluntly, "Why bother? The former Marshal's just a dead man, what's the point of bringing him up again?"
Lan frowned, whether because he couldn't bear to hear that, or because he disagreed with the decision, Zero couldn't tell.
Before Lan could speak, Zero added firmly, "Anyway, she won't ever know."
Lan said nothing more.
Zero almost always made the most rational decision possible for the situation.
Once he decided on something, no one could change his mind.
Even the Xianzhou, into which he had poured five thousand years of effort, he had left it without hesitation when his sanity began to fray.
Lan knew this well, so he stopped trying to persuade him.
Then Zero handed over his jade device, which was displaying a takeout menu.
"I'm too lazy to go out," he said. "You pick what you want to eat."
Lan, "…"
———
[Meanwhile, at the Frontlines of the Luofu Cloud Knights.]
Hua had no idea that her own Aeon was being forced to order takeout.
Sitting at her desk, she reviewed the files Tengxiao had brought.
On the surface, the Luofu General looked calm, but inwardly, he was panicking.
He kept his eyes fixed on the Marshal as she answered a call.
With her usual composure, Hua said into the phone, "You're saying you ran into a Masked Fool? Ignore them. Keep raising the price. No matter the cost, get that item back."
After hanging up, her gaze fell on Jingliu's psychological assessment report. As expected, there were only some minor, harmless issues.
Tengxiao quickly stepped in, worried his subordinate might be judged for such trivialities.
"This won't affect her combat performance…" he said carefully.
'Of course not,' Hua thought.
She knew her mentor well, his personality, his fragile mental state.
If Jingliu were a perfectly normal person… how could she ever keep up with him? How could she ever fall in love with him?
For Cloud Knights, who lived on the battlefield year after year, minor psychological issues were nothing unusual.
What worried her wasn't the war, but the relationship between her mentor and Jingliu.
The war itself was already under her control.
This campaign had several purposes.
First, to eliminate abominations.
Second, to bait the enemy.
She had planned to use her mentor's name as bait to lure out hidden foes, but unfortunately, not a single one had bitten.
After all, besides the Xianzhou people, who else would even remember his name?
Even their enemies were likely long dead, reduced to nothing more than cosmic dust.
Back when her mentor was Marshal, assassins had come one after another, leaving him with wounds, sometimes even torn-open chests.
He never cared. Or rather, he did it on purpose.
He let the malicious ones in, using the opportunity to investigate and wipe out hostile factions.
Hua had once been full of questions, but he'd seen right through her thoughts and smiled as he reassured her, "Scared? Don't worry. Once you sit in my seat, you won't have this problem anymore."
Then, as if that wasn't enough, he'd added, "Of course, when you meet people with ill intent, don't take them too seriously. Take a look at the Xianzhou's map and tax revenues, you'll stop caring about what ants think."
"Their territories and taxes, even if they work for thousands or tens of thousands of years, will never reach the Xianzhou Alliance's knees."
Hua had asked, "And what about you?"
'Would you ever feel any negative emotions from all those assassinations?'
He had paused, then smiled.
"I don't mind. Just imagining them lying awake at night, tossing and turning in fear that I might retaliate, that alone makes it worth it."
The strong never feared the rebellion of ants. They simply brushed them away when they got too close.
Of course, there were always a few that slipped through the cracks, like the "Abundance" Emanator, Shuhu.
Because of Shuhu's particular nature, Hua had personally come to the frontlines.
As Marshal, it wouldn't do to sit safely in the rear while her Cloud Knights fought ahead.
But for some reason, Shuhu was moving incredibly fast, as if running from some terrifying monster.
As Hua pondered that, she flipped to the next page, her expression tightening as she saw a photo of Jingliu as a child.
That man had met the young Jingliu before.
Hua couldn't guess what her mentor was thinking, only that he was crueler to himself than to anyone else.
He never acted human when he should, and only acted human when he shouldn't.
He'd rejected every admirer he ever had, always saying they were too young. So… after recalling his memory of meeting Jingliu as a child, would he suddenly decide to act human and end things with her?
Hua silently read through the rest of the file, then remembered the third reason she'd come to the battlefield, to repair a broken sword.
She wanted to find a skilled craftsman, someone with no ties to the former Marshal, to repair the old relic she'd received from him.
No, not a relic. Since he had reincarnated, it was simply an old belonging.
Hua looked up at Tengxiao. "If I remember right, there's a craftsman in Luofu…"