"The Ancestor has given undue praise."

Chen Yi seldomly stood up straight with hands clasped, gracefully bowed.

The Ancestor of the Qin Family raised an eyebrow and laughed, "Why, are you being formal with me here?"

"I certainly don’t wish to be formal with the Ancestor. To speak boldly, the Ancestor has a temper that suits me, and I too have a temper that suits the Ancestor, but no matter what, I am still an outsider to the Qin Family, and must be formal."

"Outsider, who sees you as an outsider, who dares to see you as an outsider?"

"Qin Qingluo."

The brief three words left Qin Xuzhi quite astonished.

When Chen Yi previously spoke about being an outsider, it was undoubtedly a tactical retreat to gain favor; how could Qin Xuzhi not know? He went with the flow, lending this junior a hand.

In the exchange, there could be a friendship spanning three hundred years, so that even if circumstances change in the future, there would still be room for negotiation, avoiding a complete fallout.

Truth be told, this situation actually benefitted their Qin Family; he was already at the Fourth Rank at a young age, a rare talent even in tumultuous times full of heroes, Qin Xuzhi greatly appreciated him.

In terms of emotion and reason, he deserved great care, but this response left Qin Xuzhi perplexed,

"You... you must be joking?"

"I must respond to the Ancestor, not joking."

Qin Xuzhi was even more puzzled, throughout history, marriages where the man moves into the woman’s home were often met with criticism, and such live-in sons-in-law are easily looked down upon. Clan genealogies often contain notes such as "a live-in son-in-law is considered a stranger, disrupting the genealogy, and is not recorded." This is a common principle, not surprising.

This junior entering as a live-in son-in-law and being belittled in the Qin Family is not surprising; no matter how capable the son-in-law is, if he can’t support the declining estate or raise the family to great heights, he’s doomed to be despised and ridiculed, especially in a power struggle as bloody and treacherous as the Qin Family’s throughout generations.

A live-in son-in-law who wants to stand tall must often rely on his wife’s ability and the influence of her parents, thus, in front of outsiders, the wife often protects the son-in-law, which also preserves her own face.

Yet, his criticism was aimed not at others, but precisely at Qin Qingluo.

"Elaborate..." Qin Xuzhi slowly said.

"Yesterday’s assassination at the Ancestral Temple, the Ancestor must have seen it, otherwise you wouldn’t have intervened."

Qin Xuzhi nodded slightly; the autumn sacrifice is the grandest ceremony of the year, significant to both descendants and ancestors, not just him, but all the ancestors of the four temples of the Qin Family were on high alert.

"At that time, she attempted to kill me with great force; the Ancestor must have seen it." Chen Yi spoke thus.

Qin Xuzhi furrowed his brow, "I thought... you two were performing a duet, she using you to eliminate the root of trouble..." He stopped and said, "Such tactics of luring the enemy into a trap, even I have seen a few times over the years; otherwise, why cause such a big commotion at the Ancestral Temple?"

Faced with these words, Chen Yi shook his head and said, "Luring the enemy into a trap is true, but she wanted to eliminate not only the trouble but also me."

Qin Xuzhi’s brow grew heavier, tightly focusing on Chen Yi.

"The matter between her and me is long and complex. I’ll be brief. Years ago, she traveled north to the Capital City, saw my exceptional talent, and sought to recruit me. At that time, I was a greenhorn, not knowing the depth of Jianghu, and fell into her trap. Shocked to discover she was a woman, I was nearly silenced."

"Yet amid countless dangers, there lingered a sliver of old affection; she spared my life and openly proposed to marry me as a live-in son-in-law, living under the guise of a Princess. Under constraint, I agreed."

Chen Yi’s face carried a trace of past memories and nostalgia, every word seemed genuine.

Qin Xuzhi was initially puzzled, then discreetly calculated, indeed finding no falsehood, thus finding his words somewhat reasonable.

Qin Qingluo, a woman usurping a noble title, acts not like ordinary men nor ordinary women.

"A gentleman’s word is as unchangeable as a team of four horses. I thereafter accepted the reality, and spent days and nights intimately with her, though not with mutual affection. I believed it to be true love, but I was wrong, never expecting she only wanted to use me to sire an exceptional offspring. As we parted, I realized, tried to pursue, but she shot an arrow to kill; since then, we’ve never met again."

"To the point that the daughter we fathered," Chen Yi said each and every word, neither humble nor overbearing yet nearly through gritted teeth, "In three years, I haven’t even seen once."

His words echoed in the silent ancestral hall, cutting like knives.

Qin Xuzhi’s brows had tightened into a "川" character, the whole being seemed to condense into substance from spirit; this junior suited his temper and was naturally gifted. Entering and investigating the Royal Palace of the Infinite King, returning unscathed, greatly impressed him, yet he never expected such complexity between Chen Yi and Qingluo. The details in Chen Yi’s words, interlocking and self-consistent; more importantly, besides the calculations, he clearly sensed Chen Yi’s suppressed emotions were genuine.

Combined with what was seen at the Ancestral Temple yesterday: The seemingly cooperative yet fierce gunshot from Qin Qingluo, the cunning angle, had he not intervened timely, Chen Yi would have been gravely wounded if not dead. At the time he thought it an act, yet now wonders, what if the intent to kill in that shot was real?

Qin Xuzhi’s expression grew solemn.

To neither be deaf nor dumb to manage a household, domestic affairs are the hardest to judge...

"Although Qingluo is just a woman, I always favored this junior, overlooking her accession to the title, but in this affair, she acted... unfairly." Qin Xuzhi slowly concluded.

"The Ancestor is right; it is far from fair. In fact, it’s more than unfair. Upon learning I ventured deep into the Southern Border, she still wanted to silence me."