Ame walked to him at the extremity of the branch their mansion was located on. She watched him as he gazed at the horizon. Or rather, in a particular direction in the horizon.

She asked him: “Already missing her?”

He frowned. He was not sure. It was difficult to express and even harder to acknowledge his feelings.

She did not pursue that trail and instead stated: “She’s a nice girl”

Jin nodded.

She was. Truly. She was filled with vitality, kindness, hope and many other great traits. She was very different from him.

Ame embraced Jin into a hug. Tears were streaming down his face without him understanding why.

She caressed his hair as she whispered continuously: “It’s fine, it’s fine”

He ended up crying within her arms.

…

Life continued.

No one could stop the passage of time.

Jin returned to focusing on his cultivation. The first few days, Nangua grumbled about having given too much to Ning but it calmed down after some time.

Jin did take out everything with slight value from their warehouses to give it to her.

He was not sure if it was out of some kind of love or out of a way for him to try and expiate for his sins to his family.

Right.

His family.

These few days with Ning made him realize many things. He even questioned his own pursuit of strength, his own “raison d’être”.

However, he knew.

His only way was forward.

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So, he continued to cultivate. To practice. To aim higher.

He might never see Ning. It would probably be for the best for her.

And he likely would never see the two who gave birth to him. They were growing older too but, unlike him, they were not cultivators. They would die from aging soon. Or might die in other ways. It would be soon regardless.

He hoped the letter he wrote would alleviate his sins and provide some relief to them. He certainly wished them to pass on peacefully. It did not matter that he could not quite bring himself to consider them his parents. He still wished them the best.

He exhaled a deep breath as he finished his basics training and turned around.

The orphans were doing great. Some grew faster than others but many were becoming true warriors. They lacked experience for sure but the strength and potential was there. They would have more opportunities in the future. Far more than what life dealt them at the beginning.

Was it a good thing though?

Would this path be the right one to push them onto?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Jin believed in power. He still did.

As such, he believed this would be the best for them. Then again, he forced none to join the practice or even cultivate.

He did not interact with them much to be honest.

He did not want to grow attached to them. It was a cold truth but that was for the best. He believed so.

He looked at the spear in his hand.

Maybe this was the only true truth he should ever hang onto.

A spear has to move forward.

…

And years went by.

And the time came for them to awaken.

At midnight, on a certain date, in a certain room of the mansion, slept a young female kid. She turned eight years old at this moment.

And Jin sat in the room as he observed the body of the girl glow bright green for dozens of minutes.

Then, she opened her eyes.

She sat up and turned her gaze to Jin. She said: “Thank you so much, Jin”

He nodded.

Then, he greeted her: “Welcome back, Sarina”

She grinned.

She got up and walked to the window. She opened it as a gentle breeze blew by. She stated: “I missed this. I missed this simple thing so much…”

She started to cry silently.

Both pain and joy and relief and many more emotions filled her.

She was back.

She was alive.

She was…free.

She turned around and bowed to Jin. She did it sincerely. This unassuming young man that had never been anything more than a pawn for others was the one who gave her this chance. The one who gave her this new opportunity to restart over.

To escape her jail.

He nodded still silent.

From the mess of memories, she got from the little girl she had been up until moments ago, she gleaned a few things.

Everything was still fine for now. They would have to prepare though. Many years went by and it was likely that the outside forces will try to ‘harvest’ soon.

Jin’s time was ticking.

Which meant her own time was as well.

Then again, now that she finally had a body of her own, she could begin cultivating once more.

She told Jin to act as if she was still a random orphan until Cheng awoke as well.

...

It was only a few days later that he did.

Compared to Sarina, he was lot more raucous. He laughed uproariously and screamed insults at the heavens for a long time before he calmed down.

He was grinning so much and happiness radiated from him.

No one could have guessed that such a kid was actually one of the worst human scum to have ever walked around this world.