They were all proud and unruly young masters; after an experience like that, it was understandable that they were unwilling to speak of it or face it.

’But the child is the one who suffered. Thank goodness Xiang Minghou accepted her without any questions back then. Otherwise, my little disciple would have run away.’

Zhan Yi and his wife were stunned. They were already shocked enough, but they never expected their son had left two others out of the story. They thought back to the time he had returned from Nanyuan years ago.

He would stay cooped up in his room all day, seeing no one. The mere sight of a woman would make him vomit; even when his own mother went to visit, he couldn’t stop himself from retching.

During that time, the Zhan family dismissed many of their maids and had Zhan Chi see numerous famous doctors. It took a good three or four years for him to get better, and even then, he still couldn’t have much contact with women.

The two of them had only one son, and he detested women so much that they thought they would never be able to hold a grandchild in their lifetime.

So when they had suddenly heard a few days ago that they had a granddaughter, how could they not have been thrilled?

Although the circumstances surrounding the child’s conception were a bit...

But she was a child of the Zhan family, after all. They couldn’t let her suffer, no matter what.

Old Master Gu took a long time to react, slowly digesting the news. Gu Shuo had been gloomy for a very long time back then, and he had assumed it was because his grandson had fallen for some family’s young miss.

A case of two people in love who couldn’t be together, resulting in the gloomy frustrations of youth.

He never imagined the truth was so complicated. But hearing his grandson’s attitude toward the "Immortal’s Drunkenness" incident, he shot him several harsh glares. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

’If the little brat had acted like Xiang Minghou back then, wouldn’t I have my great-granddaughter by now?’

Qian Fu sighed. Ye Qian had saved all four of them, and as a father, he was grateful. It must have taken tremendous courage for a woman to do what she did in that situation.

"Speaking of her, that woman is truly admirable," Qian Fu said, his praise for her mixed with deep dissatisfaction for the four young men. "You four only thought of yourselves; not one of you considered it from a woman’s point of view. She acted that way only because she genuinely wanted to save you."

Dean Chen felt the same way. "The truth of what you four experienced still hasn’t been uncovered, let alone what she went through. On top of that, she became pregnant and had to raise the child alone. That truly couldn’t have been easy."

"The Dean is right."

As a woman, Zhan Chi’s mother felt this most keenly. ’She truly is an admirable woman.’

Zhan Yi nodded slightly. Women in Nanyuan held a very low status. For an unwed mother, even if she wasn’t drowned for her transgression, she would have to live under the world’s scornful gaze. To have survived that was truly a testament to her strength.

Xiang Minghou slammed a heavy hand on his chair. He was a martial man who never cared for secular customs. The first thing he did after waking up back then was send people to find her.

He had already made his decision at that time: if he found her, he would marry her and bring her into his family.

Unfortunately, the news that came back was of her death.

Throughout all these years, he had always remembered the debt he owed her for saving his life and had never forgotten it.

Zhan Chi, Gu Shuo, and Qian Fanji kept their eyes downcast and did not speak for a long time. When they had first returned to the Capital City, they had indeed been in denial, not daring to face what had happened. It was only now that they were waking up to the fact that they had been wrong.

’Back then, they had never thought about how Ye Qian had managed to pull through.’

"When Pangtuan showed up, the way you three acted was truly disheartening. The little girl wasn’t wrong—ungrateful people indeed have no right to be her father." Knowing the full story, Dean Chen looked at the three young men before him with extreme displeasure, excluding only Xiang Minghou.

The child is only six years old. It was already incredibly difficult for her to travel from Nanyuan to Beili, yet she was met with disdain at every turn.

"It was all so sudden; we weren’t mentally prepared," Zhan Chi explained. "And besides, secret plots are common in the Capital City. We were afraid someone was using the incident from all those years ago to stir up trouble." Although he was the first to know about the child, his first instinct had been to investigate if someone was pulling the strings from behind the scenes.