Xiao Se's claim that he liked hearing their stories was not merely a false comfort. He truly did enjoy these stories and experiences he had never known himself.
Stories were other people's lives, records that did not belong to him. Yet precisely because of that, they were worth recording.
Whether they were the legends his sister told or the tales of his father's youth, they were all stories worth remembering to Xiao Se—accounts he would never experience himself, yet could still come to know.
The pride born of his father's extraordinary talent in his youth, the indifference born of his nature, even the distance he kept from his own father—it was all vastly different from how he behaved now.
"So, in that sense, your Ancestral Master did help temper my personality anew. Otherwise, who knows what I might have become in the future."
The proudest feats of his youth, his most shameful actions, his most arrogant thoughts, and his most painful experiences had all, by now, become distant memories in Xiao Yan's gently smiling narration.
"What would Father have become if he had never experienced the setbacks brought by Ancestral Master?"
Xiao Se nodded, unable to help asking curiously.
"...I don't know. Perhaps I would have simply settled in some corner of the Dou Qi Continent?"
Xiao Yan shook his head. He rarely thought about such hypothetical futures. After all, he cherished the present, and sincerely believed that although this road had been fraught with countless hardships, he had also gained things far more important.
His dark crimson eyes looked softly at the boy beside him.
Naturally, that included...
"So personalities can change too?"
Xiao Se did not notice Xiao Yan's gaze and merely continued asking thoughtfully.
"Yes, they can."
"Then I will also work hard to live up to