Everyone Has to Go Home

After leaving Herta Space Station, Jingxing spent forty standard hours traveling before he finally set foot in the capital of the Klimt Constitutional Republic.

After everything he had been through, he returned to his hometown to find even the air, free of gunpowder smoke, had grown sweet. But at the thought of the thirty billion Credits he now owed, his mood sank again.

Through the Light-Severing Sea, the center of more than a dozen star systems looked different to him: the warm white of tens of millions of people merged into a gentle haze, while the trams' energy circuits flowed quietly beneath the tracks.

"So even Imaginary Energy gets lazy in a peaceful place?" Jingxing stood at the station exit and took a deep breath.

He didn't go home. Instead, he called a car and headed straight to school to report to his mentor.

Vines covered the old teaching building at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, new leaves sprouting from their stems. Jingxing dragged his luggage across the courtyard. A few junior students recognized him and waved from a distance. He gave them a brief nod, then headed straight up to the third floor of the west building.

The door to his mentor Kamar's studio stood ajar. The scents of turpentine and linseed oil drifted through the gap, familiar and reassuring.

He knocked.

"Come in." Kamar stood with his back to the door, facing a half-finished painting. His graying hair was tied in a short ponytail, and his apron was covered in paint, just as Jingxing remembered.

Hearing footsteps, he glanced back. He froze for a moment, then slowly lowered his brush.

"You're back."

"I'm back, Professor."

Kamar looked him up and down. Finally, he clicked his tongue.

"You've lost weight." He pointed to the old sofa by the window. "Sit. Tell me where your trip for inspiration took you this time. My friend in the Vilona System, who was supposed to meet you, never managed to find you."

"Sorry, there were some unexpected complications." Jingxing sat down and spent the next ten minutes or so recounting what he had experienced over the past month and more: being inexplicably thrown into a war zone, meeting Robin, escaping the refugee camp, the performance in Rovini, that gunshot, and his own entry onto a Path.

Kamar listened without interrupting, tapping his fingertips against the armrest. After Jingxing finished, he remained silent for a long time.

"So you're a Pathstrider of Beauty now," he said. "How wonderful. I never thought I'd get to teach a Pathstrider. Maybe someday you'll even have a chance to deal with the followers of the Aeon of Trailblaze. How wonderful..."

"The Astral Express..." As a nation guided by the Aeon of Trailblaze, the Klimt Constitutional Republic knew the stories of the Astral Express in practically every household. As a child, Jingxing had also dreamed of boarding the train and traveling the sea of stars. "Maybe I'll get the chance to meet them someday. If I do, I'll take a photo with them and give it to you."

"You saw that girl get hurt and stepped onto the Path in your anger." Kamar slowly turned around and changed the subject. "So you were the one the Aeon of Beauty gazed upon on Vesna IV, weren't you?"

Jingxing nodded. He had no need to hide anything from his own teacher.

"I'm not a Pathstrider, so I don't have much to teach you about that. But the Pathstriders I know of all stepped onto their Paths while doing what they had dedicated themselves to over many years. So I think, if you want to go further down this road, you shouldn't give up painting."

"Mm, I think so too. Lately, I've tried using my new power in my daily practice, and it really does feel different from before."

"What's wrong with your eyes?" Kamar lifted his chin. "You've rubbed them several times since you came in."

"I suppose good and bad fortune go hand in hand." Jingxing blinked behind his lenses. "My eyes are too sensitive to Path energy. Thankfully, Ms. Herta of the Genius Society made me a pair of contact lenses. I've only been wearing them for a few days, so I'm still not used to having something in my eyes."

"A curio made by a genius herself." Kamar huffed. "Even the national museum doesn't have anything that good."

Not wanting to listen to his favorite student boast any longer, he changed the subject. "So, do you have any ideas for your graduation project? Don't tell me you've been through all that and still haven't had time to think about it."

"No, I already have a concrete idea." Jingxing sat up straight and laid out the concept he had been thinking over for a long time: Rovini's Central Square, a sea of people, a gun barrel and flowers, and the figure singing her heart out at the front of the crowd.

"I'll use Robin as my model and paint her singing of peace," Jingxing explained. "I want the focus to be on her, but without neglecting the feelings of the crowd in the background, resonating with hers."

Kamar was silent for a few seconds. "How will you compose it?"

"She'll be in front, with the crowd behind her. She'll be in the upper half of the painting, with light shining from behind her. The audience will be in the background, looking up."

"If the light comes from behind her, won't she just be a silhouette?" Kamar shook his head.

Jingxing was taken aback.

"Lower the light," Kamar said. "Let it fall on the faces in the crowd first, then spread to her. The person looking at the painting will follow the crowd's gaze and only see her at the end. At that moment, draw the viewer's attention to her as well."

Jingxing turned those words over in his head twice, and suddenly felt a flash of inspiration. He stood and bowed deeply to Kamar. "Thank you for your guidance, Professor."

"What are you thanking me for? I'm not finished yet." Kamar picked up his brush again. "There's something else I wanted to ask. Do you plan to stay on at the school after graduation? I still have some say when it comes to lecturer positions at the academy."

Jingxing was taken aback. Staying on to teach would be stable and respectable, and he wouldn't have to leave the city. Before he had set out, he would surely have given it serious consideration.

But now, he could only shake his head. "Professor, I still have a debt to pay."

"A debt?"

"I owe it to Ms. Herta." Jingxing briefly told him about what had happened on Herta Space Station: the curios, the contract, and Ruan Mei, who had wanted to slice him up.

When Kamar finished listening, his expression turned complicated. "Thirty billion..."

He repeated it, as if making sure he hadn't misheard. "Thirty billion... That's enough to buy our whole school."

"Fortunately, Ms. Herta is beautiful and kind, and she's willing to let me work off the debt. But that also means I can't accept your offer, Professor. I'm really sorry."

Kamar said nothing more. He turned around and waved a hand. "Go on home. Finish your graduation painting first. We'll talk about the rest after you're done."

After leaving the school, Jingxing went home.

His old apartment in the west of the city had been unoccupied for over a month, and a dusty smell greeted him when he opened the door. He set down his luggage and pushed the windows open one by one, letting the evening breeze sweep in and stir the frame of the photo on the entryway cabinet.

The photo showed a young couple holding a three- or four-year-old boy. Jingxing picked up the frame and wiped the glass with his sleeve.

Ever since the Antimatter Legion had passed through this place, that photo had been his only memento of his family in this world.

"I'm home," he said to the photo.