The words hung heavy in the air, the weight of them pressing down on both Kai and the boy. Lu Bu’s eyes welled with tears, but he blinked them back, his jaw tightening as if determined not to cry. Kai’s heart ached for him. He had suspected something terrible had happened, but hearing it confirmed was still a blow. A child so young, forced to endure such loss and hardship—it was unimaginable.
Kai reached out, placing a gentle hand on Lu Bu’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, his voice filled with genuine sympathy. “That must have been very hard for you.” The weight of Lu Bu’s sorrow seemed to hang in the air, and Kai could feel the tension in the boy’s frame, as though he carried the burden of his entire family’s fate on his shoulders.
Lu Bu took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes distant as if reliving the memories. Then, he began to tell his story.
Lu Bu and his family were humble vegetable farmers from Hashifurano, a small, secluded village somewhere outside the Liuhe region. The village was so remote that it might as well have been a world away. Life had been simple but hard, and they had always lived off the land they worked, their days filled with backbreaking labor under the sun.
One day, word reached Hashifurano of a nearby village being razed by demonic cultivators. The news spread like wildfire, carried by terrified refugees who spoke of entire families slaughtered, homes burned to the ground, and crops left to rot in the fields. The fear grew, and the villagers of Hashifurano knew it was only a matter of time before the demonic cultivators turned their attention to them.
Lu Bu’s father, a pragmatic man with a weathered face and calloused hands, made the decision to leave. He packed everything they could carry into a rickety wooden cart—meager supplies, a few tools, and whatever food they could spare—and set out under the cover of night. Their destination was Zan, a place whispered as a land untouched by cultivators, demonic or otherwise. It was said to be a sanctuary, a place where mortals could live free from the terror of those who wielded spiritual power.
The journey was grueling. Lu Bu spoke of the endless days on the road, the biting cold of the northern winds, and the gnawing hunger that never seemed to leave them. They were poor, and their supplies dwindled quickly. Each day was a battle against exhaustion and despair. Lu Bu’s voice trembled as he recounted how his sister had fallen ill, her feverish cries haunting him even now. They had no medicine, no way to ease her suffering. She died quietly one night, her life slipping as she took her last breath.
Kai listened in silence, his heart heavy. Based on Lu Bu’s description, Hashifurano couldn’t have been too far from the Liuhe region, at least in the grand scheme of the cultivation world. But for mortals, the distance was probably insurmountable. The trip from Kai’s former sect took him eight months—moving with the speed and endurance of a cultivator—and would have taken a mortal family years, if not a decade, with the added burden of a cart and avoiding the wilds. The scale of the world he lived in was much larger than that of the world of his dreams.
As Lu Bu spoke, Kai’s mind raced. If Hashifurano was as close to the Liuhe region as it seemed, then the demonic cultivators were pushing farther north than he had anticipated. The thought sent a chill down his spine. The Liuhe region should have been a safe area. If demonic cultivators were encroaching on its borders, it could mean a larger, more coordinated threat was brewing.
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But Kai also considered another possibility: bandits and raiders. In times of chaos, opportunistic criminals often took advantage of the fear and confusion, preying on the weak and vulnerable. It was entirely possible that the attack on the nearby village had been the work of such men, using the reputation of demonic cultivators to sow terror and mask their own crimes.
Lu Bu’s voice cracked, brittle and raw, pulling Kai from his thoughts. “We thought Zan would be safe,” the boy whispered, his words trembling like leaves in a storm. His small hands clenched into fists, knuckles white, as his eyes glistened with unshed tears. “But when we finally reached the border… we were attacked by bandits.” His voice faltered, and he swallowed hard, as if the words themselves were shards of glass. “We tried to run… but we couldn’t get away. And then…” His breath hitched, and the tears he had been holding back spilled over, carving silent trails down his dirt-streaked cheeks. “They cut down Papa and Mama.”
Kai’s chest tightened, a heavy ache settling deep within him. He could see the pain etched into every line of Lu Bu’s face—the hollowed cheeks, the shadowed eyes, the way his small frame seemed to crumple under the weight of his grief. It was the look of someone who had seen too much, too soon. Kai reached out, his hand hovering for a moment before resting gently on the boy’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly, his voice steady but laced with compassion. “It’s going to be okay.”
Lu Bu shook his head violently, his tears now flowing freely. “No, it’s not going to be okay!” he cried, his voice breaking under the weight of his guilt. “Mama and Papa are gone because I was a coward. They told me to run, but I should have stayed. I should have fought. I should have done something! But, I left them to die!” His small body shuddered with sobs, each one wrenched from deep within him, as if his very soul were tearing apart.
Kai’s heart ached for the boy. He knelt down, bringing himself to Lu Bu’s eye level, and spoke with a firm but gentle tone. “Listen to me, Lu Bu. It’s not your fault. You’re just a child. You weren’t supposed to fight. You couldn’t have done anything to stop what happened.”
But Lu Bu didn’t respond. His cries grew louder, more desperate, a raw outpouring of grief and guilt that had been bottled up for too long. Kai could see it now—the boy hadn’t just lost his parents; he had been carrying the weight of their deaths, the shame of his survival, and the terror of the wilds all on his own. The tears were more than sorrow; they were a floodgate finally breaking, releasing everything he had been forced to bury since fleeing into the unforgiving expanse of the Black Veiled Mountains.
Seeing that words were no longer enough, Kai moved quietly. He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a worn but sturdy blanket, its fabric soft from years of use. Gently, he wrapped it around Lu Bu’s trembling shoulders, pulling the boy into a loose embrace. “Let it out,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’ve been strong for too long. It’s okay to grieve.”
Lu Bu’s cries echoed in the stillness of the night, a haunting melody of loss and pain. Kai held him, offering what little comfort he could, as the boy’s tears soaked into the fabric of the blanket. The stars above seemed to dim, as if even the heavens were mourning with him. And for the first time since the tragedy, Lu Bu allowed himself to truly feel the weight of his sorrow, to mourn the parents he had lost and the childhood that had been stolen from him.
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