The office on the 88th floor of the Yue Corporation smelled of antiseptic and expensive jasmine tea. It was a cold, sterile smell—the scent of power without warmth.
Chen Wei sat on a minimalist leather chair that cost more than his entire childhood home. Across the glass desk sat a woman who could freeze magma with a look.
Liu Yue. Thirty-eight years old. She wore an ice-white power suit that looked like armor. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, pulling her features tight. She was beautiful, terrifyingly so, but the softness he remembered from their college days was gone. Buried under ten years of steel.
"Chen Wei," she said. Her tone was flat. Not angry. Just... dead. "You're alive."
Chen Wei shifted in his seat. The edges of his black trench coat seemed to smoke slightly, void particles dancing nervously around his boots. He suppressed the urge to meditate. He had faced Void Dragons that were less intimidating than this woman.
"Yue'er," he started, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. "I mean, CEO Liu. I... I can explain."
"Explain what?" She didn't look up from her tablet. "You left ten years ago. You said you'd be back in a year. No calls. No messages. You vanished."
"It wasn't ten years for me," Chen Wei said, desperation creeping into his tone. "It was... complicated. There was a spatial rift. Time dilation. In the place I went, time flows differently. To me, it felt like centuries, but—"
"I don't care," she cut him off. She finally looked at him. Her eyes were dark, tired, and devoid of the light he used to love. "I don't care about your sci-fi excuses. I don't care where you were."
"Then why did you agree to see me?"
Liu Yue tapped the desk. "Because your children want to meet you."
The world stopped.
The ambient hum of the city, the buzz of the air conditioning, the beat of his own immortal heart—silence.
"My..." Chen Wei blinked. His heterochromatic eyes widened, the purple right eye flaring uncontrollably for a split second. "My what?"
"Children," Liu Yue said. She pressed a button on her desk. "Twins. Nineteen years old."
Nineteen. The math hit him like a galaxy-destroying palm strike. When he left... she must have been pregnant. And he hadn't known.
The office door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
Two figures walked in.
The first was a girl. She was tall, wearing a sharp blazer and jeans. She had Liu Yue's face—the high cheekbones, the fierce eyes—but her expression was even colder. She looked at Chen Wei not with curiosity, but with the clinical detachment of a coroner examining a corpse.
Chen Xiao.
The second was a boy. Broad shoulders, athletic build, moving with the balls-of-feet grace of a fighter. He positioned himself immediately between Chen Wei and the women, his body language screaming 'threat assessment.'
Chen Long.
Chen Wei stood up. His knees felt weak. An Immortal Emperor, master of the Void, trembling because two teenagers walked into a room.
"Xiao. Long," Liu Yue said. "This is him."
Chen Xiao crossed her arms. She tilted her head, analyzing the man in the tattered coat.
"So," she said, her voice ice-sharp. "You're the sperm donor."
Chen Wei winced. "I... I'm your father."
"Biologically, yes," Chen Xiao corrected. "Functionally? You're a ghost." She took a step forward. "Let me ask you something. Where were you for nineteen years?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
"What was so important?" she pressed, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed rage. "Was it a job? Another woman? Prison? What was so important that you couldn't send a single message to Mom? To us?"
Chen Wei opened his mouth.
I was fighting the Heavenly Demon Sect.I was refining the Star-Core Essence to breakthrough.I was trapped in a timeline where seconds lasted eons.
None of it mattered. In the face of her pain, his excuses were ash.
"I..." Chen Wei looked down. His hands, hidden in his pockets, were trembling. Faint purple cracks appeared on his knuckles, leaking void energy. "I have no answer that justifies it."
"Exactly," Chen Xiao said. She turned away.
Chen Long didn't turn away. He stepped closer. He was almost as tall as Chen Wei. He smelled of sweat and aggression.
"Mom said you were strong," Chen Long said quietly. "She said you left to protect us. That sounds like a lie to me."
"It's not a lie," Chen Wei whispered.
"Prove it."
Without warning, Chen Long threw a punch.
It was a good punch. Fast, technical, aimed right at Chen Wei's jaw. A warning shot.
Chen Wei didn't blink. He didn't dodge. He didn't block.
Time seemed to slow. He watched his son's fist approach. He saw the anger in the boy's eyes, the need to hit something that had hurt his family.
Chen Wei simply existed.
WHAM.
Or rather, NO WHAM.
Chen Long's fist stopped abruptly. Dead in the air. One millimeter from Chen Wei's nose.
There was no sound of impact. Just a low thrum of displaced air. An invisible barrier of compressed space—so thin it was microscopic—had caught the blow.
Chen Long's eyes widened. He pulled his hand back, shaking it. It felt like he had punched a mountain.
"What the hell..." the boy muttered, staring at his own hand.
Chen Wei blinked, realizing what he had done. The purple glow in his right eye faded instantly.
"Sorry," he stammered, raising his hands harmlessly. "Reflex. Instinct. I didn't mean to—"
"Enough," Liu Yue's voice cracked through the tension like a whip.
She stood up. The heels of her shoes clicked rhythmically on the marble floor as she walked around the desk.
"Here is the deal," she said, standing between her children and her ex-lover. "You are back. You want to be a father? Fine."
She held up one finger.
"One month. You get a trial period. You stay in Shanghai. You get to know them. If they accept you, we discuss visitation. If they don't..." Her eyes hardened. "You leave. And you never come back."
Chen Wei looked at her. He looked at Chen Xiao, who was refusing to look at him. He looked at Chen Long, who was still rubbing his sore hand.
"I'll do anything," Chen Wei vowed.
"Don't bother," Chen Xiao said to the window. "We don't need you."
Chen Long glared at him. "Let him try, Xiao. I want to see him fail."
Shanghai. Parking Garage. 20 Minutes Later.
Chen Wei sat in the driver's seat of a rented BYD electric sedan. He stared at the dashboard. It was a screen. Everything was a screen now.
"Start," he commanded the car.
Nothing happened.
"Ignite?"
Nothing.
He slumped back against the seat. The smell of ozone in the car was thick, leaking from his pores.
He was the Eternal Void Ancestor. He could tear open the fabric of reality. He could summon meteors. He could meditate for a century without breathing.
But he couldn't start a car. And he couldn't look his daughter in the eye.
"I'm a god," he whispered to the empty garage. He laughed, a dry, rusty sound. "I'm the most powerful being in the multiverse. And my son wants to watch me fail."
He touched his cheek. It was wet.
He looked at his finger. A single, clear tear.
"Nineteen years," he murmured. The guilt was heavier than any gravity cultivation chamber.
BZZZT.
The black rectangle in his pocket vibrated. He fumbled it out. It was the new smartphone he had bought an hour ago. He barely knew how to unlock it.
He swiped the screen (it took three tries). A message notification popped up.
From: Liu Yue"Family dinner. Tomorrow. 7 PM. My house. Don't be late. And don't wear that coat."
Chen Wei stared at the glowing text. His heart hammered against his ribs—a frantic, mortal rhythm.
"Dinner," he squeaked.
He looked at the keypad. His thumbs hovered over the letters.
"How do I reply?!" he panicked, the void energy in the car spiking. "Do I say 'Yes'? Is 'Okay' too casual? Do I send an emoji? What is an emoji?!"