"Nothing too serious, just superficial injuries. It's just that we're still arguing with the other side about liability."
Yet Yu Huai's face was full of worry. He grabbed Rrakavasha's shoulder and spoke rapidly:
"You have a good relationship with Qingyun Academy's jiaoyu. Can you stand as a guarantor and sign for this batch of equipment first?"
Jiaoyu was the term commonly used in Xianzhou academies, basically meaning the school's principal.
"The jiaoyu isn't here?" Rrakavasha asked.
"Delayed starskiff, he won't be back for another half hour."
"Alright. Give me the paperwork."
Yu Huai hurriedly produced the handover documents.
Rrakavasha signed his name and accepted an empty spatial jade from Yu Huai.
"Thank you!" Yu Huai, with his wife and daughter on his mind, rushed straight into the rain without another word.
Strictly speaking, as a teacher, Rrakavasha didn't have the authority to sign for teaching equipment on the jiaoyu's behalf.
But he'd once saved the man's life, so bending the rules for an emergency was something the other wouldn't object to.
More than half an hour later, the jiaoyu finally returned to Qingyun.
When he learned Rrakavasha had signed in his stead, he thanked him profusely instead of raising any concerns.
After handing over the spatial jade, Rrakavasha opened his umbrella and headed into the rain, making his way to the docking grounds. He boarded his private starskiff and went home.
"Vash, you're back."
"Mm. I'll cook," Rrakavasha said as he changed out of his shoes and placed his dripping umbrella onto the entryway rack.
"No need. General Teng Xiao came by earlier and brought some signature dishes from Zhiwei Shengyuan," Rrayan said, waving her hand.
Rrakavasha paused, looking at his mother with a faint, unreadable expression.
"The General didn't say anything," she added, knowing exactly what he was thinking.
"Understood."
At the dinner table, mother and son ate as they always did, not speaking much.
Only...
Just as no mother fails to understand her child, no child fails to understand his mother.
"Mother, if you have something to say, just say it."
Ever since he'd come home, that hesitant look in her eyes hadn't disappeared. And Rrakavasha already had a pretty good idea what she wanted to bring up.
Qiu Zhiyan slowly stopped chewing, set down her bowl and chopsticks, and fell silent.
After a long while, she finally lifted her gaze to meet his.
"...Child, these past years, have you ever blamed your mother?"
The Xianzhou people were long-lived; they didn't age.
Rrakavasha looked at his mother's face, unchanged after centuries, and shook his head without hesitation.
"Never."
"..."
Reading the respect and sincerity in his eyes, Rrayan's heart only grew more heavy, countless words stuck in her throat.
The more sensible her child was, the more she felt she owed him.
"You did it for my sake. I understand that, so please don't overthink it."
"But I clipped your wings. You could have had a far greater-"
"Alright, Mother."
Rrakavasha rose, walked to her side, and gently drew her into his arms.
"It's not like I never had a rebellious phase. If I'd truly insisted back then, I wouldn't have listened to you."
Feeling the warmth of her son's embrace, Rrayan closed her eyes and let out a silent sigh.
"Our family has been like this for generations, yet because of my selfishness, you were pushed onto another road. I've wronged our ancestors."
"You're overthinking again. The meaning of the living and the future should never be defined by the dead."
Rrakavasha held her tighter and said softly,
"Let the past stay in the past. We were never living for past glory. My sister taught me that more than once while she was alive."
"Your sister... she only cared for you," Qiu Zhiyan said, her eyes reddening.
Back then, when Rrakavasha pushed himself to that extent, not only his mother, but even his sister had worried for him.
Lately, Rrayan had been recalling the past more and more.
Those especially vivid memories replayed in her mind like living phantoms.
All of it was real.
The Xianzhou's generational wars against the brutal Denizens of Abundance had never favored their side.
To kill a single Borisin often took two, sometimes three people working together.
Only Cloud Knight vanguards, and especially Sword Champions and Generals, possessed the ability to fight a hundred alone, to be an army themselves.
Yet even then, faced with endless abominations more relentless than the tide, no one could endure forever.
Humans were human because they had limits.
She'd seen comrades slaughtered, not a single one able to return home.
She'd seen lovers and family die in a blood-soaked hell, corpses piling into mountains beneath her feet.
And that day, she'd even seen the future.
That her last child, too, would one day follow the same road and die far from home.
"Vash, do you remember what you grabbed during the Zhuazhou ritual?" she asked.
"...A sword," Rrakavasha said, lips pressed together.
"Yes. Among more than a dozen objects, you grabbed the only sword with absolute precision."
Rrayan's face held a trace of nostalgia.
"Your father was overjoyed. He held a banquet for three days straight."
"In our family, whether son or daughter, we've served in the military for generations. No matter what is chosen in the ritual, the child would still rise to become a Cloud Knight vanguard, never disgracing our forebears."
"But since the founding ancestor of our family line, no one has ever been chosen as a Xianzhou General."
"You showed extraordinary talent in martial training from a young age. Your father, and the me of those days, placed great hopes in you..."
"But the wars of this era are no longer like those of several thousand years ago. The cruelty and devastation are far worse."
"I've already lost-"
"Don't say it, Mother..." Rrakavasha cut her off gently before her voice could break.
"You never clipped my wings. I chose to stay on the ground, that's all."
"If I wanted to fly back, I could at any time, but... Parents shouldn't have to watch their child leave. I understand. I understand everything."
After so many years, Rrayan's eyes finally brimmed again with tears she'd thought long dried.
From childhood to now, her Vash had never angered his parents. He was obedient, sensible, gifted, the very image of a "model child."
Usually, it was children who owed their parents, yet she felt she owed Rrakavasha far too much.
After all, when Rrakavasha had been only around ten years old, holding a wooden sword, he'd defeated dozens of Cangcheng Cloud Knight vanguards under special conditions.
His future had been limitless, a path to greatness laid out before him.
But 451 years ago, the Second War with the Denizens of Abundance...
"Tomorrow is Father's and Sister's death anniversary. I've adjusted tomorrow's lessons. I'll go with you at dawn. Rest early," Rrakavasha said, patting her shoulder.
Rrayan nodded. "Mm. From your tone, you're going out tonight?"
"To see the General."
"...Be careful on the way."
"Of course. Love you, Mother."
"You brat, you're hundreds of years old and still so mushy..."
Despite her words, she smiled faintly, the first genuine smile of the evening.
...