Smack!
The crisp slap left both mother and son stunned.
Consort Mi was a woman of the inner household, pampered and well cared for over the years, with servants and maids tending to her every need. How much strength could she possibly have? Even in her emotional turmoil, the slap wasn't heavy enough to hurt an ordinary person, let alone her son, who had diligently cultivated inner breath and martial energy. His face didn't hurt, but his heart did. He stared at her in disbelief. "You hit me? Just because I want to fight for it, you'd disregard the bond between mother and son and hit me?"
Consort Mi came to her senses and stared blankly at her reddened palm.
Facing her son's accusation, she swallowed her heartache and shed the gentle, compliant manner she'd always shown him. "I hit you not because you want to compete with someone, but because you treat your own life as worthless! Did I carry you for ten months and give birth to you just so you could fight for the chance to die in a 'collapse'?"
By the end, she was sobbing too hard to speak.
Tears streamed down her face, smearing her delicate makeup.
It was the first time in his memory that he'd seen Consort Mi cry in front of him. His first instinct was to feel for her, to say something soothing and apologize. Those thoughts lasted only an instant. He ruthlessly swallowed the words that had risen to his throat and said, thoroughly irritated, "Mother, you're just a sheltered woman of the inner household. You don't understand anything... People don't all die the same way. Better to die in a blaze of glory than live in cowardly humiliation. What's one life worth?"
Everything her son said paled beside the