Parents

Looking at the words "Lin Family Medical Hall" on the signboard, Lin Yun sighed inwardly and stepped inside.

Inside the medical hall, a physician who appeared to be in his forties was taking a patient's pulse. He glanced at Lin Yun, then gestured for him to wait a moment.

Lin Yun smiled at the physician, whose sword-like brows, star-bright eyes, and features bore some resemblance to his own, then sat down to wait.

After writing the patient a prescription, the physician rose to gather the herbs. He glanced again at the handsome young man seated nearby in a moon-white scholar's robe. The more he looked, the more familiar the young man seemed. His steps faltered, and he blurted out, "You... you're..."

Lin Yun smiled. "Please attend to your patient first, Doctor."

"Oh... yes, yes... so alike. But he wasn't..." Confusion flickered in the physician's eyes as he muttered to himself.

After gathering the patient's herbs, the physician practically jogged over to Lin Yun. His eyes roamed up and down Lin Yun's figure, and his lips trembled as he said, "You... you're Lin Yun?! You're Lin Yun, aren't you!"

Looking at the excited physician before him, Lin Yun smiled and nodded. "It's me, Father."

The physician was none other than Lin Yun's father. Without a spiritual root, he could not cultivate, so Lin Yun's grandfather had settled him here in Jade Mountain City. Over the years, drawing on what he had absorbed during his time in the Lin Family's Herb Garden, he had become a renowned physician in the city.

Hearing Lin Yun's answer, Father Lin seized him by the shoulders. His eyes reddened as he exclaimed, "Good, good, good! Come, come, come! Let's go see your mother!"

"Wife! Wife! Look who's back!" Father Lin shouted excitedly, pulling Lin Yun through several courtyard gateways into a small courtyard.

The Lin Family Medical Hall had its shop in front and living quarters behind. The courtyard behind the medical hall was where the family lived.

In the rear courtyard, a middle-aged woman in a plain dress, her hair secured with a simple twig hairpin, was drying medicinal herbs. She heard Father Lin calling from far away but thought little of it, assuming their youngest daughter had come home to visit.

She knew her husband's temperament well. Apart from their eldest son, who had been taken back to the ancestral home to inherit the family estate, he doted most on their youngest daughter. Every time she came home, he made just such a racket.

Thinking of her eldest son filled Mother Lin with bitter resentment toward Father Lin. Why had her perfectly healthy son been taken back to the ancestral home by a father-in-law she had met only once?

Mother and son had been separated for nearly thirty years. Whenever Mother Lin suggested visiting her son at the Lin Family's ancestral home, Father Lin always fobbed her off, as though some earth-shattering secret lay hidden there.

Because of this, Mother Lin had harbored deep resentment toward Father Lin all these years.

As her husband's calls drew nearer, Mother Lin deftly spread the herbs across a drying tray and answered irritably, "I heard you! So she's back. Every time she comes home, you stir up wind and rain like this. Anyone who didn't know better would think we had some grand estate!"

"Wife, look who this is!" Father Lin said, his voice trembling with excitement as he brought Lin Yun up behind her.

Mother Lin instinctively turned. At the sight of the young man Father Lin held so tightly, her heart quivered. Seeing the resemblance between his face and Father Lin's, her eyes instantly reddened. "Yun'er! My Yun'er! I... I... I'm not dreaming, am I?" she asked shakily.

Lin Yun smiled and nodded. "It's me, Mother."

Hearing his confirmation, Mother Lin threw her arms around him and sobbed so hard she could barely speak. "My poor child! I thought I would never see you again in this life! Your father, that heartless old bastard! And your grandfather, that old wretch... how could they bear to keep mother and son apart for nearly thirty years?!"

Lin Yun gently patted his sobbing mother in his arms, but offered no words of comfort.

Such was the divide between immortals and mortals.

Lin Yun and Father Lin brought Mother Lin, whose emotions had now settled, into the courtyard and sat down.

Only then did Mother Lin begin to study Lin Yun closely, as though she meant to make up in a single glance for more than twenty years without seeing his face.

None of the three spoke. Only Father Lin looked at Lin Yun as though he wanted to say something but held back. He knew that Lin Yun had gone with his grandfather to cultivate all those years ago.

He had grown up beside Lin Yun's grandfather and witnessed all manner of wondrous spells. He, too, had longed to cultivate, but he had no spiritual root. He still remembered the disappointment on his father's face when the test found no spiritual root in him, as well as his own unease when he was brought into this mortal world.

Thus, Father Lin's feelings toward Lin Yun, who could cultivate, were deeply complicated. He wanted to ask what cultivation was like. Just how different was it? Was longevity really so wonderful?

Once he calmed down, he also desperately wanted to know how his own father was doing-the old man who had left him in this mortal world and then taken Lin Yun away.

"Yun'er, you... you... why are you still so young?" As countless thoughts swirled through Father Lin's mind, Mother Lin suddenly asked, as though she had only just realized something.

Lin Yun was now thirty-three years old, already considered middle-aged in the mortal world. Had his life been a hard one, he should have begun to show signs of age. Yet he looked like a youth of eighteen or nineteen.

Overwhelmed by emotion earlier, Mother Lin had noticed nothing amiss. Only after studying him closely did she suddenly realize there was something unusual about her son.

"Mother, I'm a cultivator," Lin Yun said with a smile.

As he spoke, Lin Yun brushed a hand over the Storage Bag at his waist under Mother Lin's astonished gaze. He took out a tea set and placed it on the table, opened the teapot, and added a pinch of Spirit Tea he had obtained from Xin Ruoyin. With a point of his finger, spring water instantly gathered inside, filling the pot to just the right level. He then passed his hand over it, and the water immediately boiled, releasing a refreshing fragrance that soothed the heart and spirit.

Putting the lid on the teapot, Lin Yun poured each of his parents a cup. "Try this Spirit Tea. Drinking it can prolong your life and keep all illnesses at bay."

Mother Lin accepted the cup and asked in a trembling voice, "Yun'er, you... you're an immortal?! You've been cultivating all these years?"

Lin Yun nodded. "I wouldn't call myself an immortal. I'm merely a seeker of the Dao who has set foot on the immortal path. Grandfather took me back to cultivate all those years ago."

Father Lin glanced at Lin Yun. After a moment's thought, he turned to his wife beside him and began explaining his origins. From time to time, Lin Yun added a few details about the cultivation world that even Father Lin did not know, along with some of his own experiences.

Father Lin had met and married Mother Lin in the mortal world. Over the years, he had never told her about his origins, so she knew nothing of the Lin Family's circumstances. Only now did she learn that the Lin Family was actually a cultivation clan.

After explaining his origins to Mother Lin, Father Lin seemed to remember something suddenly and hurried to rise. "Right, right! I'll have someone call your younger brother and sister home. Our family is finally reunited!"

Lin Yun raised a hand to stop Father Lin. "I won't see Lin Feng and

Lin Yu. I came to see you and explain a few things. After that, I must leave."