On the other end of the line, Jiang Wenshan’s voice paused briefly, clearly not expecting such a reaction from her.
But Jiang Yu suddenly let out a soft laugh—so faint that it carried not a trace of warmth.
“A Luck-Usurping Physique? So this curse-bearer of mine even has such an elegant title.”
With that, she gave him no chance to speak again, and hung up the phone cleanly.
The room fell back into silence, leaving only the ceaseless sound of the tide outside the window.
The next morning, the roar of an engine shattered the usual tranquility of Deer Antler Island.
A sleek white speedboat cut through the waves, docking arrogantly at the crude pier.
A man stepped off the boat, around fifty years old, dressed in a casual suit with custom-made leather shoes. Every step he took seemed to express disdain for the slippery stone slabs of the dock.
He was Jiang Yu’s uncle, one of the current decision-makers of the Jiang family—Jiang Wenshan.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Jiang Wenshan?”
A-Wang held up a paper sign and greeted him enthusiastically.
Jiang Wenshan gave a reserved nod, his gaze quickly sweeping over A-Wang, the scrutinizing look barely concealed.
“Sister Jiang asked me to pick you up. She’s over by the rocks foraging for seafood right now. How about we head home first and rest a bit?”
A-Wang remained oblivious, still smiling with simple honesty.
Following the direction A-Wang pointed, Jiang Wenshan saw a slender figure in the distance, bent over and busy on the rocky shoal.
He felt a vague sense of displeasure. Cast out by the family, exiled to this backwater place—how could she still be living so… peacefully?
Before he had walked far, Jiang Yu, carrying a bucket on her way back, met them head-on at the pier.
Their eyes locked, and the expression on Jiang Wenshan’s face froze for a moment.
The girl before him matched none of the ragged, downtrodden images he had imagined.
She wore a simple T-shirt and shorts, barefoot, her skin bearing the healthy tan of sea winds.
What unsettled him most was her gaze—clear, calm, like the deep sea, bottomless.
That innate air of cool detachment hadn’t been worn down by hardship; instead, it had settled into something even more translucent and refined.
How could this be the curse-bearer the family had abandoned?
“Jiang Yu… you… are you doing alright?”
He spoke, a hint of complexity in his voice.
Jiang Yu’s gaze rested on his face for a single second before calmly looking away, as if he were merely an inconsequential stranger.
“Fine.”
Two bland words, yet they froze the polite smile on Jiang Wenshan’s face.
With that, she walked past him with her bucket, showing no intention of stopping.
Just then, another tall figure followed from behind her.
Cang Ming had just come over from the rocky area. His shoulder-length silver hair was slightly tousled by the sea breeze, a few strands clinging to his face, making his golden eyes all the more striking against the norm.
He simply stood there, and the air around him grew heavy, like the low pressure before a storm.
The moment Jiang Wenshan saw him, his breath caught.
Something was wrong!
As a member of a Metaphysics family, he was highly sensitive to the flow of providential luck.
The aura on the man before him wasn’t just strong—it was vast, unfathomable, completely beyond his comprehension.
Jiang Wenshan instinctively reached for the warm jade talisman at his waist, which was now faintly heating up, as if sounding an alarm.
Cang Ming merely gave him a brief, indifferent glance, then silently reached out and took the heavy plastic bucket from Jiang Yu’s hands.
The simple gesture carried an unspoken possessiveness.
Jiang Wenshan’s heart skipped a beat. When had this girl acquired someone by her side whom even he couldn’t see through?
In the main room of Aunt Lin’s house, the atmosphere was tense.
Aunt Lin poured Jiang Wenshan a cup of tea, then pulled up a small stool and sat beside Jiang Yu, like a hen guarding her chick, watching him warily.
Jiang Wenshan took a sip of tea and decided to get straight to the point: “The family’s Fortune Plate has developed a problem. The feng shui master says it’s caused by a shift in the position of the Luck-Usurping Physique. The family needs you to return for a while, to cooperate with the calculations.”
He deliberately softened his tone, adopting the gentleness of an elder: “Just once. Once it’s done, you can come back anytime.”
Jiang Yu finally looked up, meeting his gaze directly.
“Luck-Usurping Physique,”
she repeated the term, her voice very soft. “Is this something the family has known about all along?”
Jiang Wenshan paused.
She gave him no time to think, pressing on: “Since my constitution is so special, why was I exiled back then, rather than controlled or studied?”
“And if you only need me to cooperate with the calculations, why freeze all my accounts and dump me on this isolated island where even the signal comes and goes?”
Each question struck precisely at Jiang Wenshan’s carefully maintained facade.
Beside her, Aunt Lin clenched her fists in anger. These weren’t family—they were enemies!
Backed into a corner, Jiang Wenshan’s composure began to crack.
He was silent for a long moment, then let out a long sigh, his face shifting into an expression of pained regret.
“…Sigh, do you think I wanted this?”
He looked at Jiang Yu, his gaze complicated. “The decision back then was made by me against all opposition. In the family… there were those who couldn’t tolerate you. I couldn’t protect you, so I had no choice but to use this method—to send you away from that vortex of strife, to let you live.”
The words were delivered with heartfelt sincerity.
Jiang Yu looked at him, and for a moment, she couldn’t tell truth from falsehood.
Just then, Cang Ming, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, suddenly spoke.
“The ‘someone’ you mentioned—who is it?”
Jiang Wenshan met those cold, gleaming golden eyes and felt a chill run down the back of his neck, as if he were being watched by some apex predator. The defenses in his heart crumbled in an instant, and he blurted out the truth without thinking.
“…It was the Second Branch.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he snapped back to his senses, his back already drenched in cold sweat.
What had come over him? How could he have so easily revealed such a thing to an outsider…
Having obtained his answer, Cang Ming lowered his gaze and returned to being that silent, unobtrusive figure in the background.
Jiang Yu glanced at him, understanding dawning in her eyes.
She withdrew her gaze and looked at Jiang Wenshan, who was now somewhat discomposed. Her tone was utterly calm.
“I’m not going back.”
“If you want a reading, have your feng shui master come here. Right here, by the sea.”
Jiang Wenshan hadn’t expected such a blunt refusal. He asked without thinking, “Then… how do you make a living now?”
Jiang Yu said nothing. She simply took out her old phone, opened the livestream backend, and turned the screen toward him.
Followers: 10,003.
In the estimated monthly income column was a five-digit number that made his pupils contract slightly.
He stared at that number, his expression shifting several times before finally settling into an ambiguous sigh.
“…You’ve made more of yourself than I expected.”
As he was leaving, just before boarding the boat at the dock, Jiang Wenshan stepped closer and said in a voice only the two of them could hear.
“Stay away from that man. Also, if the family sends more people, they may not all be as easy to deal with as I am.”
With that, he boarded the speedboat without looking back.
Jiang Yu stood on the dock, watching the white wake stretch across the sea until it disappeared.
Were her uncle’s words a warning—or a threat?
That night, in the stone cottage, the sea breeze blew.
Jiang Yu wrote down three characters—Jiang Wenshan—in her new notebook, and drew a question mark after them.
She sat in silence for a long while, then voluntarily opened the family group chat that had long gone quiet.
The announcement of her removal from the group still hung prominently at the top.
Beneath that announcement, the first person to reply with the words “Serves you right” was someone with the nickname “Second Branch Third Miss · Jiang Yao.”
Her half-sister, from the same father.
Jiang Yu tapped on Jiang Yao’s avatar with a blank expression and entered her Moments.
The latest post was a heavily edited photo.
In it, Jiang Yao wore an extravagant custom gown, standing at the center of the family’s ancestral altar, beaming with a radiant smile.
The caption read: “The family’s annual Fortune Ritual is approaching—looking forward to welcoming good luck with all of you [rose]”
And the spot where she stood…
In the past, had belonged to Jiang Yu.