Su Luo gazed at him, a faint smile surfacing at the corner of his mouth. “If I must give a reason, then I can only say… I trust my own instincts. Three hundred million — my word is my bond. I hope that in the coming year, Feifei can be safe and sound, and can truly become happy… Consider that a request of mine to you.” His voice paused.

“The first half I can guarantee. As for the second half, her mood isn’t something I can control.” Ye Tianxie gave a slight smile.

“No, you can.” Su Luo shook his head, his complicated gaze fixed on Ye Tianxie’s deep eyes. “Do you really think Feifei insisted on moving in here solely because you have the ability to protect her? The night you saved her, she must have seen what you can do, and so she believes you can shield her, that with you she can truly be at ease… But have you considered — your ability, your looks, and a sudden rescue in a moment of utter despair, what all of that does to a girl… Can you really not imagine it?”

Ye Tianxie: “…”

“That one, I honestly don’t know how to answer, because I’m not a woman.” Ye Tianxie held it in for two seconds before producing a thoroughly punchable reply.

Su Luo nodded and lifted his foot to leave.

“Ah — it seems you already believe me. Still, this concerns your daughter’s safety, and taking my word alone for all of it hardly seems the style of the shrewdest businessman around. So, to repay your trust, and to set your mind at ease… though mostly, of course, for my own sake — there’s something you’d best take a look at.”

Su Luo stopped and turned back, puzzled. Ye Tianxie stepped up before him and slowly drew something from his pocket: an object roughly the size of a palm, perfectly circular, something like a badge.

When he made out the emblem stamped upon it and the few characters beneath, Su Luo’s expression changed abruptly, and he cried out in shock, “The Guardian of Hua—”

“You needn’t say its name aloud. Boss Su really is well-informed — even knowing about a thing like this. And since you know what it is, you should know that what I’ve said contains no falsehood. Now — can you rest easy?” Ye Tianxie cut him off and slipped the badge back into his pocket. “To be honest, when I first received this thing, it never occurred to me there’d come a day I’d have use for it… Heh. Good thing I didn’t throw it away.”

The storm raging in Su Luo’s heart had reached the point of turning heaven and earth over. In the brief span since he had crossed Ye Tianxie’s threshold, the shocks he had suffered nearly exceeded the sum of the first half of his life, and the swings of his mood and his thoughts were beyond anything he had ever known… And hearing Ye Tianxie’s last words, the muscles of his face visibly twitched. That badge — the legendary badge symbolizing the highest honor — had been granted to only three people in the several centuries since the nation of Huaxia was founded. Counting the one he had just seen with his own eyes, four. And this man had actually considered simply throwing it away.

Then what in this world could possibly catch his eye?

“Mm… if you’re at ease about it, Boss Su, then could that first three hundred million reach my hands soon, rather than six months from now? Things really are a bit tight for me at the moment.” Ye Tianxie revealed his true purpose with a perfectly straight face.

“No wonder…” Watching Ye Tianxie with an unsteady, trembling gaze, Su Luo slowly spoke the words.

No wonder even Zuo Zhenhua had so badly wanted him as his guardian — and no wonder he had dared refuse Zuo Zhenhua. Three men had received that badge before him… but not one of them could possibly have been so young. Just what lay hidden behind this man…

As Ye Tianxie had said, the feeling he gave Su Luo made him want to believe him. But wanting to believe was not the same as truly believing. Though he had displayed abilities far beyond Su Luo’s imagining, where his daughter’s safety was concerned he would still have been cautious in the extreme, would have tried every method to investigate everything about him.

But with that badge, none of it was necessary. What’s more, a man who held that badge was someone he could not investigate at all. And by the very existence of that badge, even had he ten thousand misgivings, he could set every one of them down.

So long as Su Feifei was at his side, she would surely be safe, and in no further danger.

Su Feifei had made her choice by following her heart… and Su Luo now truly believed that this choice would prove the most correct of her entire life. Only, not even she could have imagined what kind of man she had chosen.

“Before nine o’clock tomorrow morning, three hundred million Huaxia yuan will be transferred to your account.” Su Luo said, without the slightest reluctance in his voice. Three hundred million a year, to buy his daughter’s absolute safety, to buy absolute peace and ease of mind… and at the same time, to forge an ever-deeper connection with a man like this. The shrewd businessman found it well worth the price — a thousand times over.

“Boss Su really is a decisive man of business.” Ye Tianxie snapped his fingers, stars all but shining in his eyes. Money, it turned out, could come very easily indeed… so long as the other party was the richest man in Asia. Had he been guarding some other family’s daughter, he couldn’t have scraped together three hundred million by the year of the monkey.

Su Luo smiled. “If you’re willing, you may call me Uncle Su.”

“Uncle Su.” Without hesitation or reluctance, Ye Tianxie said it outright, offering the same smile in return.

Su Luo nodded with a smile, tilted his head back slightly, and when he lowered it again, there was something more in the gaze he turned on Ye Tianxie. “To be called uncle by a man like you… heh. I find I actually feel honored. Feifei… she’s my only daughter, and I want her to be happy her whole life. If you were willing to protect her for a lifetime, and she were willing to be protected by you for a lifetime, then I could give you… all of my wealth.”

The meaning behind Su Luo’s words needed no explanation.

Ye Tianxie kept the same expression, his gaze placid, and offered no response at all.

A flicker of disappointment passed through Su Luo’s heart. His daughter’s looks, her figure, and her bearing were second to no girl alive, and her background — her father, himself, was the undisputed richest man in Asia. He had always firmly believed that there were only men unworthy of his daughter, never a man his daughter was unworthy of, and that no man could possibly refuse her… Before Ye Tianxie, that conviction was overturned outright.

For the first time, he felt that his daughter was not worthy of a man. This man was like a favored child of God, possessing everything ordinary people could scarcely imagine. He stood right there beside him, and yet faintly, he seemed to stand upon a height on another plane entirely, looking down from above upon ordinary living things.

Had he not met Ye Tianxie, he could never have imagined such a person existed.

And if Su Feifei could be joined with a man like this, what perfection her life would hold — at the very least, no one could ever harm her again. And he himself could be a thousand, ten thousand times more at ease than he was now.

He turned and walked down the stairs step by step, and a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself, drifted slowly to Ye Tianxie’s ears: “Protect Feifei. But if you do what should not be done against Feifei’s will, then whoever you are, I will… stop at nothing.”

Watching his retreating back, Ye Tianxie smiled. “Good. That is indeed what a father ought to say.”

Father…

At the thought of that nightmarish night, a shadow of gloom veiled his expression — but it dispersed at once. He didn’t go downstairs, but stood on the balcony, silently looking out at all that was so utterly familiar outside, his expression still and unrippled, his gaze calm as dead water, thinking of who knew what, remembering who knew what.

(End of Chapter 77)