Chapter 258

"Sister, Xiaoguang, you're finally back!"

"What did you gain this time?"

"Mom is still the same as always, and I've been trying to keep her company and chat with her."

"Sis, I want to eat pan-fried steak. Can you make some for me in a bit...? Dad, Daddy?!"

Mu En is the least able to hide her thoughts and emotions; she has always been like this since she was a child.

The moment she saw Leon, she didn't suppress her emotions like her younger sister, Hikari, but calmly proved her identity.

Unlike her older sister, she didn't rush up and punch her father directly.

Her way of expressing her feelings is always simple and sincere.

Mu En threw herself into the man's arms with almost all her might, her tears flowing like a burst dam.

The contagion of emotions is like a bomb, and Mu En is the fuse that detonates it.

Watching the father and daughter embrace and weep after twenty years, Aurorla her head, took off her glasses, and silently wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.

Noa put her hands in her shirt pockets, bit her lip, her pupils flickered, and finally turned her head away.

Leon gently stroked Mu En's hair, just like when they were children.

Her ahoge (cowlick) was still there, and her features were just as delicate as Noa's now. However, although the two sisters had the same face, Noa looked like a beautiful and cool mature woman, while Mu En was more like a girl next door.

Unlike Noa, Mu En did not cut her hair short.

She had long hair, just like Losweiser's shimmering, silvery hair.

After crying in her father's arms for a while, Mu En retreated, sobbing, the tuft of hair on her head swaying with the rhythm of her sniffling.

Leon smiled and patted Mu En on the shoulder. "You've become more beautiful, Mu En."

"Daddy, you haven't changed much, you're still the same as you were twenty years ago."

The pink-haired girl next to him composed herself, put on her glasses, and interjected, "Dad, why do you only praise Second Sister for becoming prettier? Don't Big Sister and I get any praise?"

"Oh, this..." Leon realized that she was stirring things up.

"Mu En and I are twins, praising her is the same as praising me." Noa leaned against the stone wall, seriously playing the cool girl. "So he has no one to praise except you, Xiao Guang."

The scientist was taken aback; the older sister's words made sense.

So, the person who had been stirring up trouble became the first to turn red, saying, "Well, you old bastard! It seems that a single uppercut isn't enough to awaken your love for my little daughter, is it?"

Leon scratched his head, smiled, and had to patch up his previous words, "You're both so beautiful. I almost fainted when I first saw you two, so I didn't have a chance to compliment you."

Mu En blinked her beautiful big eyes and looked at Leon, "Daddy, why did you faint?"

"..."

Honey, you still love asking all sorts of questions, just like you used to.

"It's nothing, I just fainted because I was a little tired."

Leon made up a lie.

It's best not to spread stories about being knocked unconscious by his two daughters.

However, Leon was still relieved that Mu En hadn't punched Leon right away like her older and younger sisters had.

See that? This is a true little padded jacket.

Those two pure thorny armor pieces.

"Alright, Dad, now it's time to see her."

Leon's smile faded, and he became serious.

He knew who Aurorla was referring to.

Leon nodded. "Okay."

"Mom is in the innermost room, let's go."

The three sisters led the way, with Leon following behind them.

The distance from the entrance to the innermost room is not far, since it is just an underground space and not very large, just enough for one or two people to live in.

But with each step he took, Leon's mood grew heavier.

Even though he was already so close to Losweiser, his unease grew stronger and stronger.

Suddenly, he recalled a sentence Mu En had said through the door when he and the two sisters entered the underground space:

"Mom is still the same as always, and I keep chatting with her."

What does "the usual way" mean?

Why use such a strange phrase as "chatting with her"?

What happened to that foolish dragon?

He had too many questions in his mind, like a mountain that was about to crush him.

Leon tried his best to regulate his breathing and relax.

"Arrive."

The three sisters stopped in front of a stone gate.

This time, the stone door wasn't Illusion magic. Aurorla her hand and activated a hidden mechanism on the wall, and the stone door slowly opened to both sides.

Behind the door was a small room, with torches lit on the walls on both sides.

In the very center of the room, there was a chair.

Directly in front of the chair, there was a piece of crystal about two meters long...?

The light at the entrance was dim, Leon couldn't see any more specific details.

However, when his daughters led him into the room and he saw the crystal clearly, he was stunned, as if struck by lightning.

Inside the crystal, a silver-haired beauty had her eyes slightly closed, her hands clasped together on her abdomen, with a photograph pressed beneath her palms.

She was very quiet, as quiet as if she were asleep.

But who would sleep in this strange crystal for no reason?!

The unease in his heart finally exploded, instantly engulfing Leon's entire body.

Leon felt a chill run through his body, and his spine felt like it was about to collapse at any moment, unable to support his weight.

He stared wide-eyed at his wife in the crystal, opened his mouth, but countless words stuck in his throat like stones.

I can't swallow it, I can't say it.

He was nearly suffocating.

Leon reached out his hand, his palm trembling uncontrollably.

He used all his strength just to place his palm on the crystal.

The crystal was cold, just like his heart, which was gradually growing cold.

"Losweiser... Losweiser..."

His voice was trembling.

Noa stepped forward, looked at her 'sleeping' mother, and slowly said...

"To stop that disaster, you went into the spatial rift alone and disappeared without a trace. No one knows if you are still alive."

"After that, my Mom became listless and depressed, and relied on alcohol to numb herself every day."

"Seeing my Mom like that reminds me of when Mom first gave birth to me and Mu En. She was also so distraught and often stared blankly at you while you were unconscious."

"But this time, it's different."

"She has no one left to stare at in a daze, and she doesn't know if this long wait will ever end."

"No one can understand the sadness and grief of losing Mom, Anna said. Without you, she became the loneliest king on the throne."

Noa calmly recounted the whole truth, having silently practiced these words in her heart every single day for the past twenty years in preparation for this moment.

She was waiting for Leon to appear so she could tell him everything, word for word.

"Later, my Mom stopped drinking and went back to work."

"We thought she had moved on from her grief, but that's not the case."

"She worked like crazy, sleeping less than six hours a week, not wearing makeup, not engaging in diplomacy, not talking to her Aunt Ischa, and rejecting all external influences on her."

"At that time, we realized that instead of adjusting herself, she was getting deeper and deeper into trouble. Alcohol was no longer working for her, and she could only distract herself by working frantically."

Noa paused at this point, then turned to look at Leon.

The man's face was already filled with regret and self-blame.

He was on the verge of breaking down, so Noa quickly slowed down her narration and brought up another matter.

"Do you know why I worked so hard to become stronger when I was little?"

Leon looked at her and shook his head.

"For you."

Noa said, "I thought that only by becoming stronger could I prevent you from leaving us and stop Mom from having that sad look on her face. But in the end, I didn't achieve either of those wishes."

"You disappeared into the spatial rift; and Mom has been crying all day long."

"From childhood to adulthood, what I feared most was the disintegration of this family, even if it was once a fake one."

"But as you said, the appearance of home may be a lie, but the love between family members is absolutely real."

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled, as if adjusting her emotions.

"Six months after your disappearance, the Silver Dragon Clan was attacked again."

"Two dragon kings, plus a human named Nacho Salaman, are attacking us day and night."

"Aunt Ischa is also under siege and unable to provide support."

"In the end, my Mom killed one of the dragon kings, but by then she was too weak to be a match for the other dragon king."

"But miraculously, she unleashed an astonishing amount of power at the last moment, annihilating the careless Dragon King in one fell swoop."

"However, that move was not the self-destruction of the energy of the Heart-protecting Dragon Scale. My Mom did not die, but she was too weak to get out of bed."

"She realized that this was not the last time the Empire and the Dragon Race would join forces to exterminate the Silver Dragons, but as the Dragon Queen, she was no longer able to fight, and there was no one in her clan who could inherit the throne."

"So, Mom dismissed the tribe and sent its people to flee for their lives. Only in this way could most people be guaranteed to survive. But Anna and Sister Shirley did not leave. They said they would stay with Mom until the very end."

"During the time when Mom was bedridden, she told us sisters the story between you and her, including how you met, got to know each other, and eventually... fell in love."

"Mom said she doesn't really understand what love between men and women is, but she feels that she must love you."

"She said she would wait for you until you came back to this house, until you told her in person that you love her."

"She wants to hear your confession, a face-to-face confession, not some kind of emotional outpouring during a life-or-death situation."

But...

Noa reached out and gently stroked the crystal.

"She didn't wait. The sun and moon took turns shining through her window, but you, whom she longed for, never returned. The power to kill the enemy didn't come from the Heart-protecting Dragon Scale; it was a miracle created by a mother on her deathbed."

"And the price of a miracle is falling into a deep sleep."

"Our Mom's last words to us were that we must live on no matter what, until our father returns."

"Because she believes that as long as you are there, everything will change."

"Later, my great-grandmother came back and created this crystal for my Mom. The crystal can protect my Mom's bodily functions. As long as my Mom wakes up and uses a little bit of power, the crystal can be broken from the inside."

"Of course, it is also possible to use specific magical commands externally."

"My great-grandmother said that although my Mom was in a deep sleep, she should still be able to hear our voices."

"So Mu En kept talking to her Mom, because she didn't want her Mom to be alone and trapped in the dream of missing you."

"For the past twenty years, my great-grandmother and Aunt Ischa have been searching for ways to help my Mom recover; while we have been waiting for you, trying to change things in another way."

Mu En moved the Only One chair in the room behind Leon, then tugged at his sleeve, gesturing for him to sit down.