The final stop.
Yin Long started to walk away, he was satisfied with what he had seen so it was time for him to finish what he had come for. But Xiao Yin Yu didn't follow him straight away, her gaze moving between his back and the string of executions taking place not far from them. Yin Long had shown exceptional familiarity as he acted, and when she kept his earlier words in mind then it was easy for her to imagine that he had done this plenty of times in the past when he was still working as the clan's dark blade.
It was definitely something that you could describe as honourable, he fought an unseen battle to stabilize the position of his family. Almost no one got to see it, but he bled and fought so that they could live with greater ease, dug out the roots of traitors and placed their heads on a silver platter. Heart-warming and honourable, a great duty, but Yin Yu could only reach a single conclusion when she thought about it.
"Sad, how exceptionally sad... Yin Long, I am glad that your shackles have been cut."
Her voice was so low that only she could hear it, and she had purposefully made it so because what she was saying could be considered extremely rude. But they were her honest thoughts. Yin Long fought and fought, presenting the heads of traitors and the like on a silver platter. He pushed all the fame and glory onto his sisters, he raised them higher and higher so that no one would think about touching them.
His sister became the great matriarch, and now her wife became a decisive and quick-witted ruler. But what about him, what did people know him as? His name was removed from the clan, and when he was still part of the clan he was known as the lazy young master without talent, only able to swing his sword with some skill. He had pushed his family into the light, but he had pushed himself down into the darkness, snuffed out his own glow in favour of his family's. And that, that was something Yin Yu could only think of as too sad to bear.
But now he was free, the shackles that tied him to the clan had been cut in such a manner that he had no choice but to leave. And the moment he gained his freedom, the brilliant light he had tried to hide had no choice but to come out. He had yet to turn 21, but the nearly one year he had spent away from the clan pushed him further forward than the 20 years he spent in the clan. All he needed was to be freed, to be allowed to let his light and talent flourish and shine. And now, now Yin Yu felt convinced that it was already too late to snuff out that glow again, just the fact that he had drawn both her and Fang Yau's attention was proof enough of that.
A small smile spread on her face as she thought of this, her feet starting to move as she followed after Yin Long. She had gotten a glimpse at his past and who he used to be, all that remained now was to look at his future and what he would become, what sort of end they would arrive at.
Yin Long wasn't privy to Yin Yu's thoughts, his attention was already focused on the final area he would visit. The Lang clan estate, the place where he had been born and raised, the place where he and his family had played around more than anywhere else. And, it was also the place where his most painful memory was created.
The walls around the estate were unable to stop the group as they followed the path Yin Long had used in the past, arriving just behind the small forest where Bai Xiang and his wife had lived. The mist that shrouded it had already vanished with Bai Xiang, now it was no more than a simple and empty forest.
"My first teacher lived in that forest, he and his wife stayed here for a while and he started training me the moment I learned how to walk. He really didn't know how to show mercy, smashing me down the moment my concentration lapsed or I failed to block or dodge. I had just barely learned how to walk but he was already hitting me with wooden or metal sticks, I even broke down crying several times during the first week, each hit just turned me into a blubbering mess. But it was fun, I could feel myself getting better bit by bit, every day I would be able to last half a second longer than previously. sometimes I even managed to parry the attacks, but he was definitely just going easy on me in his own way. I haven't seen him in many years now, I hope he's still doing well."
Yin Long started to speak softly again as they moved past the forest. The training was exceptionally painful, to the young him it was the definition of hell. But even so, he looked back on those days fondly. The scent of the humid forest, the sound of the attacks cutting through the air, the rumbling sound that reverberated through his skull whenever he failed to block or dodge, all of it was as clear as day to him.
His was an expression of warm nostalgia, but Yin Yu looked at him a bit more incredulously. His training had started the moment he learned how to walk? And they had even started straight away with that violent training he had put her and Fang Yau through? And he...said that it was fun?
Yin Long was too immersed in his memories to pay attention to Yin Yu's dumbfounded expression, his feet unconsciously kicking away his shoes so that he could once again walk barefoot on this familiar ground. He didn't plan out any path and simply walked wherever his memories carried him, ending up in front of a bent and gnarly tree that stretched almost 100 metres into the sky. The crown of the tree was filled with leaves, but the pears that had previously grown there were nowhere to be seen, their time to grow had yet to come.
"I was just three years old when Tang Fen was first brought here, her father was a friend of our father and they had decided on a marriage contract in their youth. I don't know if love at first sight or the like exists, but I know that I felt something special when I saw her for the first time, a little prodding at my heart. But you know, we were just children, barely old enough to even understand the concept of love. Thanks to this, it was easy to squash those little emotions when I saw that my poor little sister had fallen under the same spell. Sounds funny doesn't it, twins that could barely even be called kids feeling the proddings of love towards the same girl."
Everything was so vivid that Yin Long could see it play out in front of him. The playful curses of Tang Heng, the little girl flashing them a shy smile while she hid behind her mother's legs. That had been when the emotions of love first awakened in him, and later it would be under this very tree that he entrusted his sister's happiness to Tang Fen.
"This tree, it's the biggest one in this entire orchard. The pears it bears are both the tastiest and the juiciest, I've already lost count of how many times we'd just lounge around while nibbling on one. This was also one of the first places we brought Tang Fen when she was brought to our family to live with us. The fruits it bore are the best so how could we not share them with our new family member?"
Sweet and soft, with only a soft undertone of bitterness that served to enhance the taste of the fruit. Yin Long could even feel the fruit juice run down his throat as he thought about it now, the cool breeze that blessed them as the setting sun dyed the sky a brilliant orange. How simple things had been back then, how peaceful and pleasant.
"You should have seen my sister's face when she bragged about the pears that grew here, as if she was trying to tell Tang Fen that she had been solely responsible for this great treasure. Well, I was also doing my fair share of bragging so I was probably just as incorrigible as her. I was the one who climbed the tree and plucked the pears, Lang Huo pleaded me with the most adorable puppy eyes she could muster. She smiled so brilliantly when I brought down the fruits, so dazzlingly when she saw how happy Tang Fen was."
That day held another meaning for Yin Long, it was the first time he got in proper contact with the law of space. It had only lasted for a short instant, but he had properly understood that the sword he created out of nothing hadn't been made out of the wind but something else.
"I think I realized it back then, somewhere in the back of my mind, that my sister may have suffered the same fate as me when it came to love. But I wouldn't squash those budding emotions for another four years, only when Lang Huo was declared to be the next clan leader did I completely bury and abandon those emotions. I don't regret it, I never will, I am happier than ever with Lan Yun by my side. I just...I think I just wanted to voice it out, to have someone else hear it so that it doesn't become something buried and forgotten in dust, because it too was once part of me."
He could feel all of his memories as he spoke, and when it came to the emotions he felt when he abandoned his budding and childlike love for Tang Fen, the only emotion associated with it was something lukewarm. There was no great reaction of regret, no thoughts of what-ifs, it was just something lukewarm that flowed past him without even tugging on his clothes, it affected him less than he had ever thought it would. The happy smile that his sister wore when she bit into the pear back then carried more warmth and weight than the act of abandoning the emotions, and that was perhaps one of the reasons he had been able to abandon them so easily.
"This isn't it either... I guess I really don't have a choice. Woehowl...I shouldn't be surprised that it craves the most burning woes."
Yin Long shook his head softly as he removed his palm from the tree, a few small touches of bark and moss sticking to his palm. His gaze was directed to the side, towards the mansion that stood tall a few kilometres away. In the end, it seemed like he had no choice but to dig back into those memories to search for the clarity he wanted.