"I don't think you have much to worry about Novice Su. If she concealed matters from you, she only concealed enough to love you honestly," Wu Ling said, hoping to soothe the clearly agitated scholar. "Su Yao has a rare gift. It sounds like the gift skips many generations in the Zou family, but the curse that goes with that gift, and misunderstandings about that gift, can lead to a good deal of persecution."
"If your daughter didn't inherit her particular gift," Wu Ling continued. "This might never have come up because it wouldn't have been relevant to anything. The woman you love is the same as she's ever been and your daughter has a brighter future than you could have imagined as long as she can overcome the adversity that comes with it."
"That's a very flowery way of putting things," the older man said, wrinkling his nose at Wu Ling's explanation. "My wife talks the same way, you know, so does my sister Jiyu. Yao'er has started to as well. Do they teach you that at the school you all went to?"
"Conversation is an art, like any other, it can be taught and practiced," Wu Ling acknowledged. The Pure Virtue Musician's Hall trained young women in many things so they could live the life of refined ladies and Artists. It should never be said that they allowed someone to graduate who couldn't handle delicate conversations among important and influential people. "It bothers you, doesn't it? You're like Sister Xiang, you want it straight, simple, as black and white as ink on paper."
"It's one of the few things my brother Jizhe and I agree on," the older man acknowledged. "Say what you will for the violence of the Martial path, it's direct and in that, it's honest."
"Then I'll be honest and direct with you if you'll do the same with me," Wu Ling said bluntly, locking eyes with the older man. "You and Madame Zou have been extraordinary parents. You've provided a life of safety and security to Su Yao that I can only envy. She's a simple and pure young woman who has lived a life where her parents loved her and her greatest ambition was to be loved by a husband the same way you have loved her."
"I thought you were going to be direct and honest," Su Jixin said, swallowing the last of the wine in his cup and pouring another. "You can dispense with the flowery compliments."
"Those weren't compliments," Wu Ling said flatly. "You wanted honesty and I'm giving it to you. I didn't know about her unique talents until I brought her to the sect, but I've always known that your daughter was gifted and that she could go far if she wanted to. You never gave her the motivation to do so."
"She never had to fight for anything," Wu Ling continued, not letting up now that he'd gotten started. "She never had to risk anything and she saw the world as the kind of loving place that you chose to show her. Now that she's awakened, she has to deal with a world that is much colder, crueler, and more complicated than anything she's dealt with before. It's also bigger, wider, and richer than what she would have experienced if she went off to marry someone like Fang Lin."
"You look down on me for keeping my daughter safe? If you were a real man, maybe you'd know something about how important it is to keep the women around you safe from harm with a secure home where they blossom and grow," Su Jixin said with a dark sneer.
CAW!
The temperature in the room surged by several degrees as Hou manifested unbidden on Wu Ling's shoulder. The Golden Crow opened his wings wide and flames danced in his eyes as he visibly manifested the seething emotions burning in Wu Ling's own heart.
"Hou, don't," Wu Ling said gently, reaching up to settle the bird but making no move to send his Guardian Beast back to his inner world. "Novice Su, I will admit to deceiving you when I hid my gender, but have I ever been so disrespectful to you? You ask for honesty and directness and I give it, but if you do not like what you hear, does the fault lie with me?"
"You tell me that it was right for Sujin to hide the secrets of her family from me and expect me to accept that? How can I defend my daughter against a curse that I never knew she could inherit? How can I prepare the way for her if I don't know the dangers she might face? Sixteen years," Su Jixin spat.
"Sixteen years that I could have searched for elixirs or pills to ward off disaster," Su Jixin said, his voice breaking on the word 'disaster.' "Sixteen years that I could have learned about the risks she would face and sought ways to counter them. Sixteen years that I haven't been allowed to be her father! I haven't been allowed to protect her from this because the woman I love LIED TO ME! And you think it's okay?"
The older man's face grew flushed with a combination of strong wine, and hot blood. His hands trembled as he clenched his cup, the surface of the wine shaking almost enough to spill from the cup as Su Jixin tried to regain control of his thundering heart and ragged breath.
"My daughter is running away from home because my wife hid the truth from her and I can't protect her from what's coming. She's running to the first people to offer her safe harbor in the storm and I never had a chance to be her harbor. And you," he said, pointing a slender finger at the young Artist. "You're just taking advantage of this to claim a talent for your sect. Tell me, how rich were your rewards for stealing my daughter away from our home?"
"Ah, now I believe I understand," Wu Ling said, feeling for the first time that he'd seen to the heart of the matter. "That's why you were willing to consider an engagement to Fang Lin. As formation masters and bankers who have mastered the art of protecting valuables, they could keep her safe from anything but themselves."
"When you went to meet them, you went to find out if it was truly safe in the vault for Su Yao or if there was already a lion on the inside ready to devour her. As soon as you found the lion in their vault, they became unworthy suitors," Wu Ling said, speaking aloud to see if the older man would deny his speculation. When he said nothing, Wu Ling continued.
"If she'd come home and said that she wanted to join the sect, you would have sought to examine it the same way you examined the Fang family. You'd want to be assured that they could look out for your daughter as well as you could, if not better. That there weren't lions in the sect who would devour her. Once you knew that, then and only then would you give your blessing. Am I right, Novice Su?" Wu Ling asked.
"Isn't that the last thing I'll ever get to do as her father?" Su Jixin said, his slender fingers clenching tightly enough on his cup of wine for his knuckles to turn white. "Whether it's a husband or a sect, after that, I can only watch as my darling girl fades from my life. If it's the last thing I will do for her, shouldn't I make sure I do it well? And now you've taken that away from me," he spat, glaring once again at Wu Ling.
"I suppose you'll have more flowery words to tell me why I'm wrong about that, just like Suyin always does, don't you?"