Two days later.
Jiangcheng, Garden Residential Community.
Su Qianxue stood before the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, looking out at the city shrouded in darkness.
The lights of countless homes glowed quietly, no different from any other night, yet she felt a faint unease.
Since that afternoon, her spatial perception had been picking up faint, elusive fluctuations of eerie energy, as though something were quietly growing in the city's corners.
She tried to trace the source of that energy, only to find that it was everywhere, yet nowhere to be found.
Ding-dong!
The sudden doorbell interrupted her thoughts.
Su Qianxue frowned. Only a handful of people knew where she lived, and who would come to see her this late?
She went downstairs and opened the door to find three people outside. At their head was Old Chen, the Su Clan's longtime steward, an old member of her father's branch who had watched her grow up.
Behind him stood two middle-aged men in dark casual clothes. Their faces were somewhat unfamiliar, but their auras were terrifyingly profound.
"Uncle Chen?" Su Qianxue froze for a moment, then saw the helplessness and guilt in Old Chen's eyes and immediately understood something.
What had to come had finally come.
Old Chen sighed and briefly recounted what had happened.
From the late-night deliberations in the clan's Ancestral Hall to the vote at the Family Assembly, from Su Boyong's uncompromising stance to Su Qishan being forced to agree to send people to bring her back.
He spoke very slowly, his voice hoarse. Every few sentences, he had to stop to catch his breath, as though he were using all his strength to suppress his reluctance to put her through this.
"Young miss, your father did everything he could," Old Chen said at last. "He asked