Dan Feng repeated, "I want to drink with you."
Zero froze.
The number of promises he had made could be counted on one hand.
Yet Dan Feng had made such a simple request.
The other four had no idea what was behind it and only felt that Dan Feng's words came out of nowhere.
Baiheng couldn't stand awkward silences.
She shook her ears and immediately turned the topic toward Jing Yuan.
"Jing Yuan, did you hear that? Even Lord High Elder has spoken. Hurry up and graduate, or you'll have to keep drinking floating goat milk."
Jing Yuan looked confused for a moment and lowered his head to take out his jade abacus.
When he looked up again, he raised a trembling finger and pointed at Dan Feng.
"So that's it. I was wondering why ten teachers suddenly added me and said they wanted to tutor me. It was you all along..."
Dan Feng explained his thought process.
Jing Yuan didn't buy it at all.
"What do you mean by challenging yourself to spend only one hundred thousand a day? So you spent it on me? You didn't have to spend that money at all!"
Dan Feng sighed helplessly.
"Study hard and graduate quickly."
Jing Yuan let out a dry laugh. He first looked at Zero, then at Dan Feng.
His expression carried a sense of giving up entirely.
"Graduate? The academy added more classes, and I have to retake history... How am I supposed to graduate?"
Yingxing naturally replied, "If you run into any problems, just ask Zero."
Zero thought to himself that even the original author might not score points solving those questions.
If Jing Yuan asked him, he'd never graduate in this lifetime.
Zero wanted to say something but hesitated. After a moment, he said, "...Jing Yuan, maybe I'll just buy you a few exercise books."
Jing Yuan raised an arm and made a huge X toward Zero.
The next moment, a not-too-heavy force struck the back of his head.
When he turned around, it was his master.
Jingliu withdrew her hand and, without any courtesy, ordered Jing Yuan to go pick up a package at the door for her.
After Jing Yuan left, Jingliu asked in a low voice,
"Does Hua... want Jing Yuan to take over her position?"
The other three were stunned.
Who? What? Jing Yuan taking over as Marshal?
The shocking news left them speechless.
They had watched Jing Yuan grow up.
They had watched the young officer gradually become an outstanding Cloud Knight.
In their memories, Jing Yuan still seemed like that young boy who hadn't yet lost his baby fat.
But that didn't mean they could accept Jing Yuan becoming Marshal.
No matter how smart Jing Yuan was...
At the end of the day, he was still a child under twenty who hadn't even graduated from the academy.
Of everyone present, only Yingxing was close to Jing Yuan in age.
Yingxing's age was still only two digits. Upon hearing this, he immediately felt that the Xianzhou was doomed.
It was as absurd as a student who frequently skipped classes, repeatedly failed exams, and had to repeat grades somehow inheriting a galactic empire in the future.
The kid couldn't even finish his studies properly, and not long ago he was still asking them to help with his homework...
That kid could become Marshal?
No matter how much he thought about it, Yingxing couldn't understand. Like the others, he turned his gaze toward Zero.
Zero replied, "About that... there's no need to worry. When the time comes, Hua will ask Jing Yuan what he wants. She won't go against his wishes."
The others immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
Baiheng scratched her cheek.
"Uh... I really can't picture what Jing Yuan would look like as Marshal..."
Jingliu sighed softly and nodded.
Yingxing looked up at the sky.
"Right now he has us copying homework for him. In the future, is he going to have strategists copy documents for him too?"
Dan Feng couldn't help refuting him.
"He's the Marshal. Why would he need to write documents himself?"
After hearing that, Yingxing found it quite reasonable.
He was just about to say something else when Jing Yuan came walking toward them carrying a cardboard box, so he immediately fell silent.
The smile vanished from Zero's face.
"...What's that?"
Holding back a laugh, Jingliu took the box.
"The books we ordered before."
She tore open the wrapping paper and took one out.
The title was The Uncrowned King and Those Matters with the Aeons.
The author's name was Dionysus.
Jingliu had no memory of this book.
'Could it have been delivered by mistake?'
She rummaged through the box and found a handwritten card from the shop owner.
Jingliu set down the card and smiled.
"The owner included ten new books."
Zero's face darkened as he picked up one of the bonus books.
A promotional slogan was printed on the cover...
Another masterpiece by Teacher "Dionysus."
'Another masterpiece? What? This was the second one?'
'Looks like it wasn't Guanliang. It was Aha.'
After thinking for a moment, Jingliu took out two copies of Walking With You and handed one to Zero.
How could Jing Yuan piecing together his husband's past from records compare to Hua?
Hua had spent nearly ten years with her husband.
The husband in her writing was closer to reality.
Jingliu flipped to the preface. While forcing down the corners of her rising mouth, she read aloud,
"When humanity encounters injustice and finds itself imprisoned..."
Zero, "..."
With a smile, he interrupted her.
"...It's fine if you read it, but can you not read it out loud?"
"At least don't read it out loud in front of me."
Jingliu was afraid she would burst out laughing, so she bit her lower lip and nodded at Zero.
Zero took a deep breath.
He couldn't keep avoiding this.
He had to overcome this problem.
With a serious expression, Zero opened the unofficial history written by Aha.
After one glance, he closed it again.
Zero couldn't help thinking, 'Why keep forcing it?'
As the saying goes, nobody is perfect.
Only by truly accepting one's flaws can a person stay away from negative emotions and break free from endless internal struggles.
What benefit could this unofficial history bring him?
None.
Then why waste time on it?
As for other books and opinions outside...
At worst, he could simply not read them and not listen to them.
Wouldn't that solve everything?
Thinking this, Zero took out his jade abacus, opened his chat with Hua, and sent a photo of the unofficial history in his hand.
[Fuguang: Shared Image]
[Fuguang: Ban]
After getting Jingliu's approval, Yingxing picked up Jing Yuan's Five Thousand Years.
Before the Xianzhou publicly announced the truth, he had been staying in his workshop. By the time he came out, the entire Xianzhou and even the universe had been turned upside down.
He had never read this book before and found it somewhat novel.
Yingxing flipped through it. After seeing the preface, he fell into thought.
Zero didn't want to hear it, but this section was about Jing Yuan, so it should be fine, right?
Yingxing hesitated before slowly reading part of the preface aloud, "General Tengxiao said that when his officer was writing this book for his father, he shed tears on multiple occasions..."
Jing Yuan, "..."
'Wait.'
'When was that line added?'
'I didn't. I wasn't. Stop making things up!'
Dan Feng accepted it quite easily.
This was paving the way for Jing Yuan.
General Tengxiao had a towering physique. Just from his appearance, people might think he was a reckless warrior.
Yet Tengxiao was a Xianzhou General.
He was the successor personally chosen by the previous Luofu General from among hundreds of billions of Xianzhou people.
For Tengxiao to polish things a little and slip in some personal bias in the book was completely normal.
As he was thinking this, Dan Feng noticed from the corner of his eye that Zero's expression was becoming colder and colder. He immediately found an excuse and dragged his three friends away.
After the others left, Zero stepped forward and pulled Jingliu into his arms.
Jingliu naturally sat on his lap.
Zero thought that if she wanted to understand his past... why read books?
"If you have any questions, you can ask me directly."
Jingliu flipped back to the preface.
"Someone likes playing word games. He's not trustworthy at all."
She continued, "This book is very well written. Especially this line..."
Zero quietly listened to her reading without saying anything.
Jingliu couldn't help sighing inwardly.
She wanted Zero to speak his true thoughts.
And what happened?
Whenever she tested his limits, he would only silently give way.
She closed the book and asked, "What? Are you unhappy?"
Zero replied, "I'm not."
Jingliu cupped Zero's face and kissed him.
The kiss ended as soon as it began.
She kissed him several more times and asked again, "What about now? Feeling better?"
Zero sighed.
"I'm not unhappy."
Jingliu leaned in again. The two kissed for a while before Zero finally gave in.
"...Mm, better."
Jingliu pinched his cheek.
"Alright. I'll only read this one."
She paused and said in a tone close to a sigh, "I just think you deserve every bit of praise."
Zero rested his chin on the top of the person in his arms.
"Alright. We'll read it together."
After reading for a while, he realized that Hua's book wasn't written for Xianzhou people.
The Synesthesia Beacon allowed races from different star systems to communicate across language barriers.
But their unique ways of expression couldn't be perfectly conveyed through the Synesthesia Beacon.
In the book, Hua deliberately avoided Xianzhou idioms and historical references, using the simplest and most direct language to write down Xianzhou's history.
Xianzhou readers might secretly complain about Hua's writing.
But in Zero's view, as long as the story was told clearly, it passed.
He continued reading.
How would Hua judge the mistakes he had made?
Zero read from the rebellion to his interactions with the Aeons, then to his time as Marshal leading the Xianzhou in pursuit of the Plagues Author.
Hua summarized it all with a single sentence that had appeared in the preface...
Father would fulfill all of the Xianzhou people's wishes.
Hua revised and polished some parts of the story.
Finally came the news of Zero's death.
Jingliu's fingertips trembled slightly. Zero raised a hand and steadily held the book.
[Coincidentally, my father and I share the same birthday.]
[On my twentieth birthday, I received news of my father's death.]
Hua immediately went to Matthias to verify it.
As the inventor of the jade abacus, he knew that in thousands of years, it had never malfunctioned.
And monitoring the holder's vital signs was one of its most basic and simplest functions.
Matthias still held onto a trace of hope.
'What if?'
'What if there had been an error?'
After discussing it, the two decided to keep the matter secret. Matthias would review the jade abacus data, while Hua would send people to search for traces of her father.
After parting ways, they no longer contacted each other.
At the time, Hua thought Matthias had accepted it.
She thought his silence was an understanding between them.
She thought it was a way of giving each other time to lick their wounds.
The people Hua sent followed the last location shown by the jade abacus.
They arrived in a star system inhabited by mechanical races and found a ship. There were no bloodstains inside, no signs of fighting, and no images related to Father.
Reading this, Zero vaguely realized something. His expression grew increasingly serious.
Matthias had most likely seen the final moment before his death.
Zero sighed inwardly.
He should give Matthias a bit more patrol stipend.
Soon after, the Aeon follower who had traveled with him, the "Cloud-Wandering Arbiter of Fate," fell.
The news left the generals deeply uneasy.
They came to Xuling, hoping to see that person beside Hua, hoping to hear from her the answer they wanted.
[I didn't dare meet their eyes. I sat quietly where I was and cried.]
[What was I supposed to say?]
[That my father... the man who treated all of you like his children, your superior, the god who fulfilled every Xianzhou wish without condition... had already fallen?]
[That on Gratitude Day... on the holiday the Xianzhou established specifically to celebrate his birthday... somewhere we did not know... he had forever left us?]
Jingliu closed her eyes and took a deep breath, unable to continue reading.
With her back facing Zero, she sat on his lap.
Sensing her emotions, Zero rested his chin on her shoulder and commented in an unusually cheerful tone, "Too exaggerated. Hua isn't the crying type. She wouldn't cry in front of others."
He suddenly realized that his method of changing the subject and helping others manage their emotions was far too clumsy.
Zero put the book away and softly coaxed her.
"Alright, alright. We won't read anymore."
Jingliu said nothing.
Even now, he was still taking care of her feelings.
She tried to take the book back, but Zero's kiss landed on the tip of her ear, then her cheek, then her lips.
"Alright, no more reading. Let's go open presents, okay?"
This time, Zero didn't give her room to refuse. He took her down to the basement level.
The place was filled with gift boxes of all sizes, part of the wedding gifts they had received.
Yingxing had given them a pair of simple-colored, delicate bracelets. According to him, the inspiration came from Vidyadhara wrist guards and Xianzhou jade abacuses.
The wearers could sense each other's locations and monitor each other's physical data at all times.
Baiheng had given them an extremely precious dragon-and-phoenix ornament made from a rare material.
How had someone who always spent more than she earned managed to save enough money for it?
Jingliu didn't know.
Then came the lavish gifts from Dan Feng.
After returning to the Luofu, the two had spent half a month opening presents off and on. Even now, they could still find gifts from Dan Feng in the basement.
Jingliu vaguely heard a sound.
Following it, she looked toward a box with holes on all sides.
Could there be a living creature inside?
Jingliu opened the box and instinctively said, "Husband..."
After taking a closer look, she added, "There are twenty hamsters in here."
"Five of them are pregnant."
Zero, "..."
'Hamsters?'
Who would send him hamsters?
The next moment, his jade abacus rang.
[Guanliang: Happy Father's Day.]