Chapter 70

Naivety of a Dream

"My clan was attacked," in the midst of preparing dinner, Leo heard his new guest break the silence. Looking to the side, the man was hanging his head low, the flames of the campfire creating strange, eerie shadows on his face. "In the middle of the night. By the time I woke up and went to help, the attackers had breached the main gate and were setting fire to every building. They all wore unrecognizable, silver-fox masks, and used martial arts that I had never seen before. It was as though they could imprison Qi around me, disallowing me to use it. I fought and fought and fought, alighting my Spirit Roots on fire even in a desperate attempt to win. But it was a lost cause--they had several cultivators stronger than me that had not even engaged at that point. I knew what had to be done."

The man looked up, his eyes teary. There was rage and grief in them, like a storm washing over the shore.

"I used my clan's heirloom to send my wife, my kids, and a few others of the clan's children away. Apparently, they were not after my clan, or me, or my wife or even my kids--but after one of the orphaned children that my wife had taken in years ago." Leo frowned silently, sensing a strange feeling of similarity from the story being told. "After they slaughtered the rest of my clan, and when I thought my time had finally arrived... they instead locked me up in a dungeon, and tried to pry the location of where I sent them out of me. Days, weeks, months... I do not really know the exact number of days that I had spent in that dark, damp, and horrid hole. Time ceased to matter, and I only hung on by a thread. I cannot say how I ended up here of all places--perhaps, as you have said, it truly was merely a coincidence. Perhaps it was my clan's heirloom, or its remnant effects, transporting me here when it sensed my fading life force. Whichever it was, I am alive when I was meant to be dead."

Leo stayed silent throughout, occasionally stirring the stew and listening keenly. The story was one of horror, and though Lu Yang told the story as calmly as he could, as though he was retelling something he'd read in a book, Leo could only imagine having had to live through it all. Watching everyone you loved die, and bearing witness to the end of your clan and everything you spent a lifetime creating being turned to ash and dust... it was enough to crack the hardest of diamonds, let alone a creature of flesh and blood.

"I'm sorry," Leo said.

"What for?"

"For the pain," he added. "I understand that the world is rife with struggle. Everyone has their own dreams, their own aspirations, their own desires, and few are bothered by having to stomp over others on the road they are paving. Perhaps it's the naive child in me, or perhaps arrogance I cultivated in the blindness, but I loathe the thought that the world beyond the borders of these trees only knows war, battle, and struggle." Leo opened his heart ever so slightly; he feared having to leave the forest, he realized. As more people streamed in here, sharing the horrors of the world beyond, he feared having to reforge himself and become the exact thing he was now condemning.

"... I never much minded the struggle myself," Lu Yang said, chuckling ever so slightly. "I never could, in fairness. From when I was a wee young boy, my Father disallowed me peace. From dawn until dusk and beyond, I trained, I cultivated, or was taught the world. Long before I knew little else, I was groomed to become a Patriarch. However, overcoming those walls that I thought were impossible--whether it was my brother who was more talented than me, or the disapproval of the family's Elders, or struggling to marry for love and not for a cause... I never loathed it. Even if it was frustrating, and even if it was maddening, overcoming it gave me wings that I otherwise would never have experienced. Even now, while I should be grieving the loss of everything I have ever known, my truest, deepest desire... is one of vengeance. And I loathe it not."

Leo stayed silent for a moment.

It all made sense--too much, in fact. He was likely an anomaly, an isolated case; to the world, what they were undergoing wasn't a hellish struggle so much as it was a trial. On the path of cultivation, on the path of immortality, they were stubbornly aspiring toward defiance. By the very nature of who they were, they had to struggle, they had to fight, whether that was against themselves or the laws in place. Even if he wanted to be absolved from it, he knew that he couldn't hypocritically try and instill his own, almost alien beliefs here.

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The two kids who left, too, would likely find themselves entangled in a struggle. They would fight for the scarce few resources, or for their pride, or perhaps something else entirely--but they would fight. That was what life here was like, and would likely continue being onward and forever.

But that was precisely why he wanted to create a sanctuary for the worn and tired, a tiny little hamlet divorced from the world where the restless could come and close their eyes for a few moments. He would not be the change heralding the world into a new era, but a brief footnote for the travelers yearning a respite.

"Do you judge me?" the man suddenly asked, prompting Leo to finally look at him again and smile.

"Trust me," he replied. "I can seldom judge a soul. Besides, why would I judge you for wanting revenge? Anger born of loss and grief is the kind of fire that even a storm cannot fully dissipate. However, in my life, I have found, that it's often... misdirected."

"... misdirected?" the man mumbled, his eyes furrowing.

"Perhaps not entirely," Leo said. "But your mind might be sheltering you from the worm festered by guilt. Then again, it may just be me, and my own little stunted ways."

"Might be..." Lu Yang fell silent, and Leo didn't press.

He finished the dinner and distributed it, and then ate alongside the symphony of the forest. Most of the animals dispersed shortly thereafter, and Lu Yang excused himself and retreated into the hut. In the end, Leo remained with Gray on his lap, everyone else retreating, too, as the day was coming to a close.

He closely stared at the dancing flames and the crackling embers. Even if he'd envisioned his dreams, he had no means of living them out. In order to offer a place of respite, he had to have the ability to provide safety. But who was he to claim that? A tiny little nobody. The reason why he could offer peace in this place wasn't him--it was the countless myths of the forest, true or false. It seemed that nobody, strong or weak, dared approach this place, and he was thus left alone to his own devices, mulling over the reality of everything.

Past these borders, however, and shorn of the mythological armor, he was a nobody. Weak, insignificant, and irrelevant. Ironically, he understood--at least in part--the sentiment of selfishness. Perhaps most journeys began as so, these desperate wants for strength simply to fix their situation. Perhaps it was a child trying to better the lives of their parents, or their own position, or right the wrongs... If only I had strength!, they'd think, Everything would be possible!

Strength, though, came at a cost--ofttimes the cost of innermost self.

He could coast on the system's laurels by now, having not earned wholly even his current strength. But the system could simply disappear tomorrow, or the day after, or even in ten years' time. At some point, it was entirely likely that he wouldn't have that net behind him, the hands to propel him onward. Would he dare to brave the flames of conflict bereft of those annoyingly sarcastic windows? Or would he forever entomb himself within these trees and pray that the world stayed well away from them?

There was no right answer, not truly. In life, there rarely was one right answer. It was always a litany of choices, each with their own shortcomings. Perfect life was a life unlived, and he may as well not live it if he desired those kinds of days.

Looking up toward the darkened sky and the colorful canvas of illuminating stars, Leo recalled how much he regretted the paths untaken back on Earth. If he could go back, and relive his life from the cradle, he'd have changed a thousand things. No, thousands upon thousands of things. He was given a shelter, a sanctuary in both his lives, where he didn't need to beg on the street for food, or go to war for a cause he didn't even believe in, and die in the sea of faceless brethren just as he was; in both of his lives, he was given the kind of privilege that others could only dream of.

On Earth, he failed--he failed himself, he failed his friends, his family, and most of all, he failed the three people that always believed in him, no matter what. Here, however, he didn't want to fail anyone. That was why he helped whomever he came across--a wounded animal, a scarred flower, a bloodied stranger, he'd take them all in, and give them a chance at new life.

He'd caught himself overthinking again, pulling back from the skies and down to the cuddled-up animal in his lap. Life, shorn of the glimmer and glamour of everyday, was ever a simple thing--all living pursued happiness, content, and joy. Days were like blooming flowers: even if imperfect and incomplete, they were all lovely in their own little ways.