Lin Tianxiao's Past

The tea on the stone table had long since gone cold. The light of the sky and the shadows of clouds were reflected in the cups, along with the surging emotions of the three people—different from one another, yet equally impossible to still. That long-delayed "Dad, Mom," spoken after decades, seemed to carry a strange magic, quietly melting the thickest layer of ice between them. The chasm of years and the suffering each had endured could not be bridged in an instant, but at least the loose ends had been picked up again by trembling fingers, as they tried clumsily yet tenderly to tie them together.

Lin Hao lowered his eyes slightly, his gaze falling on his parents' hands, clasped tightly together and resting over his wrist. They were hands that had endured countless brushes with death, been stained with the blood of the Devil Race and their own people, yet had never let go of each other.

His father's hands were broad, with thick knuckles, covered in calluses and tiny scars. His mother's were much more slender, with shapely fingers, though her palms, too, bore the thin calluses left by years of hard work. Those hands had once rocked his cradle and wiped away his tears. They had also gripped cold weapons and wielded holy light to save lives.

The beginning of their "sacrifice"—the moment that had hurled him out of a whole, reasonably warm family and into a cold reality—remained like an old photograph buried under thick dust, blurry and painful to look at. He knew it must have been a choice even crueler than the years they later spent in hiding, a moment that had torn the identities of "father" and "mother" apart. He needed to know everything, not just to fill the gaps in his memories,