Chương 337: The Hill by the River

The quiet days back at the sect were much needed but it also gave Li Yu too much time to think. The reunion of Lireal and Zephyr, the raw emotion of a family finding each other after centuries of loss had stirred something deep within him. At first he tried to clear his mind by training but a nagging thought kept lingering in his head. It distracted him and he was simply going through the motions of training without any true gains. Li Yu's head kept returning to thoughts of family.

Eventually those thoughts return to his own family. He thought of his mom and dad that had passed away, swallowed by the beast tide that had been the catalyst for his entire journey away from the village. He had not visited home in a long time. After he had left the village he did not return to Clearwater Village, the small and quiet town next to the Azure Serpent River. He found himself missing the place he had called home for ten years. The reason he had not returned, he knew all too well.

It was too painful, so he kept putting it in the back of head. He didn't want to admit it but over time as he stayed at the sect, Clearwater Village didn't feel like a home to him anymore, not with his mom and dad gone. It was just a place of ghosts and memories to him now. And yet, now there was a feeling that made him want to go back. He felt instinctively that he had to visit the village. It was a deep and quiet pull he could no longer ignore. He found Cyra in her courtyard, where she was meditating.

When he told Cyra where he was going, she looked at him with her perceptive eyes. She sensed the deep well of emotion behind his simple words.

"I will go with you," she said, not as a question but as a simple statement of fact.

"I would like to see your hometown." Li Yu didn't know why but he was relieved that she was coming along. He was grateful for the quiet company. And so, the two of them left the sect without fanfare, flying themselves with their auras hidden towards Clearwater Village. The journey was a mostly silent one. Cyra waited for Li Yu to start any of the conversations, allowing him to think and process his thoughts. She could feel that he had a lot going in his mind and was there solely to support him.

To give him an outlet should he want to talk about anything. When they finally arrived they remained hovering high above the village. While they were there, they were invisible to those below, Cyra illusion arts working to this effect. Li Yu looked down with a strange ache in his chest. The town looked almost identical to what it did in his memories. The same dusty roads, the same humble houses, the same familiar layout. But the people were different.

He scanned the faces of the villagers going about their day but he didn't see any of the ones he was familiar with. They had either moved on or passed away in the intervening years. It was all a distant memory now. He was surprised so much had changed in this village in such a short amount of time. He didn't descend into the village. Instead, he followed the river south from the village for just a little bit. There, nestled against the water was a small grassy hill. That was the place.

The place where, with a heart full of a grief too large for his young body, he had put two simple sticks in the ground for his mom and dad. Their bodies were gone, taken by the beast tide. That had been all he could do for them, the best a poor and powerless boy could offer. As he looked down at the hill while floating high above it, the dam he had built around his heart and mind regarding this place broke. He started to cry. Great, silent tears streamed down his face at first.

Emotions he thought were not there all came rushing back to him now. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. How he missed his parents. How he wished more than anything that they could see him now.

'Look, Mom, Dad,' he thought, his body trembling with silent sobs.

'I'm flying right now. It's something we could only wonder at before. Look at me now.' The more he thought about them now the more tears streamed down his face. His quiet cries slowly became louder and louder. He slowly went from a powerful cultivator to the young boy he was when they first passed away. He was now crying just like that little boy did all those years ago. Cyra watched on, her expression unreadable but she did not disturb him and gave him the time he needed.

Thoughts of her own family appeared in her mind, how she missed them too. Were they still alive or were they like Li Yu's parents? How would she react if she saw them now?

'Cry all you need to Li Yu, it isn't an act of the weak but of the strong.' She thought as she looked on. What Li Yu wasn't aware of was that he had a second, unseen companion. Khaos had also been floating there next to them in his human form for a long time now. He had left the Koi Sanctuary at some point in the journey, undetected and was floating there next to him but in another fold of space, completely undetectable. He had heard Li Yu's plan to visit his parents' grave.

He wasn't sure why he had come out to follow him on this journey and now to watch him. However, something within him, a flicker of something ancient and unfamiliar had told him to and he always followed his own instincts. He watched the boy he had taken under his wing, the boy who had faced down monsters and experts now weeping like a lost child. As he looked on, his expression was also unreadable. His thoughts were his own as he watched. Li Yu then floated down onto the hill.

The sticks were worn away by time; only a tiny rotten piece remained. He fell to his knees in the soft grass, his shoulders shaking as he cried openly, the sounds of his grief swallowed by the gentle murmur of the river. Memories of them flooded back to him. He remembered his father, his hands rough and calloused. He remembered him teaching him how to fish in this very river. The proud and booming laugh he gave when Li Yu had caught his first tiny fish.

He remembered his mother, her smile gentle and her hands always busy, patching his worn clothes by candlelight, telling him stories of ancient heroes to help him sleep. He remembered them sharing a single, precious mooncake during a mid-autumn festival, their small home filled with a happiness that had nothing to do with wealth or power. They didn't have much but they were still happy. He just wanted to see them again, one last time. Memories after memories came flooding back to him.

He just slowly absorbed the memories, sometimes laughing to himself and other times crying yet again. After what seemed like both a long and a short time, he was finally able to compose himself. He wiped his tears. His body and mind felt lighter, as though some great burden had been lifted from him. He took a deep, shuddering breath and started talking to the air, to the empty space where the sticks had once been. He told them about his adventures, the friends he had made like Lin Tao, Brother Kai, and Hu Jian.

He told them about his master at the sect, Elder Ning, who was like a second mother to him. He talked about the people following him now—Jian, Kael, and the others—and he explained that while they had to follow him, he felt that they were his friends as well, each of them a unique person working towards their own goals and dreams. At this, Cyra, still watching from above, found a small genuine smile gracing her lips. He talked about Khaos, his voice filled with an awe and reverence that was completely genuine.

He talked about how amazing he was, how powerful he was and how, despite seeming to not care about anything, Khaos was always there. Protecting him, guiding him forward and giving him the tools he needed to survive and grow stronger. Hidden in his fold of space, Khaos found himself with a small, almost imperceptible smile on his own face. In between his stories, he would start crying again. He just couldn't help himself; a memory would surface, a wave of grief would wash over him and the tears would fall.

But he didn't stop. He continued on, a mix of storytelling and crying whenever he felt the need. A son finally, truly, talking to his parents after years of silence.