Zhuo Qianren stared at him. "Now, tell this old man. Back then, when you insisted on leaving Chang'an, leaving my tutelage... what was the real reason?"
Xiao Qing lowered his head, his lips moving soundlessly, his throat bobbing. For a long while, he said nothing.
"Speak!"
Zhuo Qianren's low shout was like a thunderclap, jolting Xiao Qing into lifting his head. Meeting Zhuo Qianren's ice-cold gaze, he finally spoke with difficulty.
"Master!"
"Your kindness to me was as heavy as a mountain. You nurtured me with care and placed great hopes in me... I knew you wanted me to inherit your mantle, to one day... to one day hold up a piece of the sky for Chang'an Academy."
He paused, seeming to exhaust all his strength before he continued, "But... but I was born a lone wolf! I wasn't used to it... and I couldn't shoulder that heavy 'responsibility' and those 'expectations.'"
"What I wanted... was a wilder path, freer and less bound by restraints, a path where I constantly broke through my limits in battle, not... not to become some 'future leader' planned out in advance!"
He panted rapidly, as if saying these words had drained all his heart and strength. "Back then, I knew those thoughts were selfish, that I had failed all your painstaking effort... but the path in my heart had already... deviated from the path you had paved for me."
Zhuo Qianren stared fixedly at him. Deep within those weathered eyes, an indescribable emotion flickered past—anger at his failure to live up to expectations, and also a trace of... realization?
He fell silent. Inside the private box, only Xiao Qing's suppressed breathing remained.
"And now?"
Xiao Qing lowered his head. "I don't know..."
A long time passed.
The storage soul ring on Zhuo Qianren's fingertip