SK Chapter 68

Only after Qi Changying finished speaking did Anayi finally seem to awaken from an extraordinarily long, endless dream.

She blinked very lightly, and her pair of bluish-gray eyes slowly became clear and focused.

She seemed to have no idea where she was or what she was doing. She simply sat there, staring at the people and things around her. After a while, her long forgotten memories slowly began to awaken.

She looked at Qi Changying, then at the others. Probably because she genuinely did not know what to say, she quietly said, “…Sorry.”

“Where is this…? Where is Fu Sang?”

Chen Wuyue walked over carrying the cage.

She was not a nether path spirit master and could not see ghosts. She only knew that something seemed to have happened on this side. In any case, his condition had suddenly worsened, and the gu demon Ah Lang, who had originally been under his control, had taken the opportunity to escape and entered the inner world.

Chen Wuyue had been chasing this demon for several months. Now that she had finally caught him, she naturally could not let him slip away right before her eyes again, so she immediately followed him.

Fortunately, the gu demon had been badly injured by Fu Sang earlier. Even though he possessed all sorts of abilities for escaping and counter-tracking, he was too weak to use them at this moment. Chen Wuyue successfully captured him and brought him back, only to discover upon returning that Fu Sang was gone, while Zhuge Buhuo and Huo Wei were both standing beside this rock, not knowing what they were looking at.

“Oh, Fu Sang fainted, so we put him into the car. The situation is, uh…”

For a moment, Huo Wei did not know how to explain it to Chen Wuyue:

“The gu demon’s ghost mother is here. The ghost from Fu Sang’s family told us that she still has something she wants to say to Ah Lang. Ah Lang is the gu demon you’re holding. Of course we know that this demon and ghost will ultimately have to be handed over to the Spirit Supervision Bureau for handling. We just wanted to ask, would it be convenient for you to let the mother and son talk before that?”

“No problem.”

Chen Wuyue agreed very readily.

After all, while she upheld justice and followed the rules, she was also very particular about human feelings and moral principles.

She snapped her fingers, and the cage in her hand gradually shrank, transforming into soft vines.

Freed from the restraint of the small cage, Ah Lang also changed from an insect into human form.

He showed no intention of escaping at all. He simply allowed the cage to turn into vines and tightly wrap around both his wrists. He did not even make any movement to struggle or resist. From beginning to end, all he did was crawl forward on his knees for a short distance to get closer to Anayi.

“Ah Lang.” When she saw Ah Lang, Anayi’s gaze became gentle.

She raised her hand and pressed her palm against Ah Lang’s cheek.

Whether it was Huo Wei’s illusion or not, she suddenly noticed that Anayi’s figure seemed to have become a little more transparent than before.

“Mama!” Tears flowed from both pairs of Ah Lang’s large and small eyes. His voice trembled, as though he did not know what to say, so he could only repeatedly call Anayi “Mama.”

“Our Ah Lang has grown this big. And you’re quite handsome now that you’ve taken human form.”

Anayi’s expression was somewhat helpless. She touched Ah Lang’s face, as though sighing at her naughty child:

“…But you did many things that were wrong. Do you know that?”

“I wasn’t wrong! Mama, don’t blame me. I wasn’t wrong!”

Ah Lang shook his head vigorously:

“…The people who hurt Mama were all bad people. They all deserved to die. I didn’t do anything wrong! They killed Mama, so I had to make them pay the price. As long as I kept killing them and giving their resentment to Mama, Mama could become stronger. Once Mama became strong, Mama could come back.”

Listening to his childish words, Anayi calmly corrected him:

“They already died once for what happened in the past. They paid the price for what they did long ago.”

“…It wasn’t enough! Dying once wasn’t enough. How could that possibly be enough?!”

Ah Lang cried so hard that he could barely breathe:

“They have to die tens of thousands of times. I have to kill them tens of thousands of times before I can give Mama an explanation!”

“But I don’t want to watch them die tens of thousands of times.”

Anayi frowned slightly, her expression filled with helplessness and heartache.

After a pause, she said:

“…I only want to see you live well.”

Ah Lang froze. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to say anything.

Anayi looked at him and suddenly seemed to remember something, so she asked:

“What year is it now?”

Demons did not care about years. Huo Wei looked at the people beside her and felt that this question was directed at them, so she answered proactively:

“2026.”

Anayi frowned slightly. “2026…?”

“Yes.”

Anayi gently sighed again.

“You’ve lived alone in this world for so many years. It must have been lonely, Ah Lang?”

“…It wasn’t lonely!” Ah Lang shook his head. “I always had Mana with me. I wasn’t lonely!”

“Thank you for carrying me with you all this time. Being together with you made me very happy too.”

This time, Huo Wei could confirm that it was not her illusion. Anayi’s figure had indeed become more transparent.

Underworld spirits remain in this world through resentment and negative emotions. If the emotions fades and the resentment disperses, then naturally the underworld spirit would no longer have a reason to remain.

In other words, they had finally obtained liberation, letting go of everything in this life, returning to the path of reincarnation, and going to welcome a new beginning.

This was a good thing.

It was just that most underworld spirits can not accomplish this. They were born from resentment in the first place, so how could they easily let go?

Thus, nether path spirit masters came into being, responsible for ending their suffering and guiding them toward a new life.

“…But Ah Lang, spending eighty years facing hatred was truly not worth it. We could have used all that time to do something more meaningful, couldn’t we? A new life built upon innocent lives is not what I want, and it isn’t what you want either. Don’t let hatred trap you. Mom never taught you this.”

Probably knowing that she did not have much time left, Anayi spoke a little faster.

After thinking for a moment, she asked Chen Wuyue:

“May I ask what kind of price Ah Lang will have to pay for what he did?”

Chen Wuyue could not hear this, so Huo Wei could only relay her words.

Although Chen Wuyue was not responsible for sentencing, after encountering this sort of thing so many times, she more or less knew something about it:

“Two lives were lost. He would have to serve two hundred years. If there were circumstances that led to it, his sentence could be reduced at discretion. However, judging from the current situation, he had already chased and killed for several lifetimes before these two lives. If this part can be proven, then the nature of the matter is extremely, extremely serious… He will most likely die. Even if he’s lucky enough to keep his life, he probably won’t have freedom again before he dies of natural causes.”

After hearing this, Anayi showed no particular reaction. She only nodded, as if saying to Ah Lang:

-If you did it, then you have to bear the consequences.

As she spoke, she looked at Ah Lang again, “Don’t feel unconvinced, and don’t argue back. I hope that from now on, you can properly reflect on your mistakes. If you have a chance to correct them in the future, you must never make one mistake after another. Mom taught you this, didn’t she? Whether you’re being human or being a demon, you must be clean, open and upright.”

“I understand, Mama…”

Ah Lang probably vaguely sensed something as well. He cried so hard that he could hardly catch his breath, desperately trying to crawl into Anayi’s arms:

“I know I was wrong. I’ll change. No matter what the price is, I won’t feel unconvinced. Mama, Ama, don’t go. Please, Mama, stay with me, all right…?”

But when he reached out to touch Anayi again, he could not touch the soft fabric of his mother’s clothes or her warm body temperature from his memories. He only touched a patch of air that he could not grasp.

“You’ve already grown up. You’re much more capable than Mom, and you should also learn to live alone and face everything alone. Death isn’t something very frightening. Child, we all have to learn to accept it. You shouldn’t spend your entire life revolving around me. This world is vast and beautiful. If you still have the chance to see it…”

Anayi’s face gradually faded into the night. Apart from specks of starlight, she left behind only one final, faint sentence:

“…Don’t do anything foolish again.”

“Mama!!!”

Ah Lang lunged toward her, only to crash hard onto the solid gravel.

His hands were bound, so he could not exert any strength. He could only writhe and rub himself through the gravel and accumulated snow like an insect.

Chen Wuyue could not bear to watch anymore. She bent down, hooked her arms beneath his arms, and helped him up, but he struggled violently in response:

“…Let go! Let go!! You bad people, where did you take my mother? Give my mother back! Give my mother back to me!!”

In between Ah Lang’s tantrum were also a few sentences in Miao language. Judging from his tone and the context, it was obvious that they were definitely not words that would make anyone feel comfortable or pleased.

He had just said that he knew he was wrong and would not feel unconvinced, but the moment she left, he started arguing again. Seeing this bear-child behavior, Huo Wei’s anger instantly shot up with a “shua.”

She went straight over and slapped Ah Lang hard on the head:

“Your mother just told you so much, and you didn’t listen to a single word, did you?! She feels sorry for you and can’t bring herself to speak harshly to you, so let me properly teach you a lesson! You little brat, do you know how badly you’ve harmed your mother over these hundred years?!”

Hearing this, Ah Lang quieted down, and a huge snot bubble appeared beneath his nose.

“You’re talking nonsense! How could I have harmed my mother?!”

“I’m talking nonsense? Then do you know that she should have gone into reincarnation eighty years ago?! You forcibly kept her by your side, making her bear so many sins caused because of you, making her wander around in the human world for all these extra years without being able to obtain liberation! And because she became entangled in karma again after death, even if she obtains a new life, there is a possibility that her fate will be unfavorable… Do you even know what you’ve been doing?!”

“…”

This time, Ah Lang was completely stunned by Huo Wei’s words.

He looked somewhat dazed:

“What does that mean…?”

Huo Wei viciously poked Ah Lang’s head with her long fingernail:

“What I mean is, because of all the bad things you’ve done, even if she becomes human again, she might have an unfavorable fate, poor health, or even die young!”

“…Is there a way to save her?!”

Ah Lang laboriously crawled over to Huo Wei on his knees and grabbed the hem of her woolen coat with both hands:

“Save her, Sister, please save her! I was wrong, I’m really wrong. I can pay any price. Even if you want me to die, I’ll accept it. But my mother is innocent… She’s a very good person. When she was alive, she helped so many people. She was the best doctor in that mountain. There was a war going on outside at the time, and so many people died or fled. Only Mama insisted on saving the wounded and rescuing the dying. Everyone said she was a fairy, a living Bodhisattva…”

Anayi was not only a very good doctor, but also an excellent gu master. Ah Lang was originally her natal gu.

A gu master could only have one natal gu in their entire life, and Ah Lang was very happy that he was the one who had obtained this identity.

Miao gu arts were always portrayed as extremely evil by outsiders. Those who did not understand them always associated them with unorthodox and evil practices, depicting gu masters as evil demons who ate people without even spitting out their bones.

Of course, the world was huge, and it could not be ruled out that some people used gu to do bad things. But at least Anayi was a very, very good person. She was proficient in gu arts, yet she never used gu to make money by harming people’s lives.

On the contrary, she treated illnesses and saved people, doing countless good deeds and benefiting many, many people.

They originally lived in a village in the deep mountains. There were green mountains and clear waters, thin mist, and drifting drizzle there. It was peaceful and beautiful.

But later, the peace of the mountains and forests was broken. Countless steel birds flew across the sky with rumbling noise. People said that there was a war outside, and they did not know when it would reach their area, so they urged Anayi to leave quickly.

But Anayi said that she had been born in the mountains, and she would also die in these mountains. She was a daughter of the mountains and could not betray her homeland.

Then, sure enough, the war drew closer.

Anayi answered the call and joined the ranks of volunteers. She put on a white armband, turned her own house into a small ward, organized the people in the village to take in homeless refugees and wounded soldiers, and did what she could for her country.

That small village hidden in the mountains became a rare safe zone and refuge during the war.

“My mother used gu to practice medicine and save people. She saved many soldiers and helped so many children. She was a hero! She wasn’t a bad person!”

Ah Lang wiped his tears:

“If it hadn’t been for those three people, my mother could have lived well! She could have saved even more people! …At the time, they, they said they had come as refugees and stayed in the village. Mama gave them a place to stay and cooked for them every day. But they didn’t do any work. When they had nothing to do, they wandered around the village all day…

“Mama was feeding me once when they happened to see it, and then they said Mama was a gu witch. They also sneaked around the village searching through things, even entering Mama’s house without her permission.”

“Later, Mama caught them once. She spoke to them nicely, but they wouldn’t listen. They had an argument with Mama and left on their own.”

“After that… after that, the bad people came…”

“The bad people carried black rods that could spray fire. They killed many people and slaughtered the entire village. Those three people stood together with the bad people, and together they demanded that Mama hand me over…”

At that time, Ah Lang was still a tiny gu insect, only half the size of Anayi’s palm.

He actually did not know what was happening outside, but as Anayi’s natal gu, he could sense Anayi’s emotions.

Actually, he did not even need to deliberately sense them.

Anayi’s village had been massacred, the work of her heart had been destroyed, and her kindness had been betrayed. She was sad, heartbroken, and furious. All of that was only natural.

That was the first time Ah Lang had ever seen Anayi become angry.

It was also the first time he had seen her use gu arts to kill people.

Anayi swallowed her natal gu, which was Ah Lang, into her stomach.

Later, all the gu insects in the house swarmo out of their nests. The first batch was trampled to death, and the next batch climbed up over the corpses of their companions.

They crawled in through the bad people’s ears and came out through their mouths, gnawing at their flesh and leaving poison inside their bodies, making them go mad and crazed, killing each other.

Blood filled Anayi’s village. Of the three people who were the main culprits, one was strangled by the leader of the bad people until his eyes bulged out and he passed out; another was bitten by a poisonous gu insect and collapsed onto the ground foaming at the mouth; the last had his eyes bitten out and, screaming, ran out of the village and jumped off a cliff.

The village was baptized in blood. After a symphony of screams and cries, it finally returned to silence.

Anayi also collapsed in a pool of blood.

A stray bullet had struck her abdomen.

She had never intended to live either.

And afterward, Ah Lang crawled out from the wound in Anayi’s abdomen.

At first, it was Anayi’s flesh and blood that gave Ah Lang a bond and intelligence. Now, she once again used her flesh and blood to give Ah Lang a new life.

Ah Lang had witnessed so much life and death and had eaten Anayi’s flesh and blood. Amid anger and resentment, he transformed into a spirit and was born as a demon.

“…How could dying once be enough? Everything was because of them. They came to the village at the beginning to deceive Mama. They had come to scout the way for the enemy, which was why they led the enemy here!”

“They killed so many people. They betrayed their homeland. They defected to the enemy. They hurt Mama. How could letting them die only once be enough? I wanted to make them die miserably in that same way, generation after generation. I wanted to keep carrying Mama with me and let her see all of this, let her be proud of me, let her know that I had avenged her…not just once. I made sure they could never die a good death for generations and generations!”

Ah Lang gritted his teeth, every word carrying the hatred that had never faded over all these years, but had instead grown increasingly intense.

Back then, he not only ate Anayi’s corpse, but also the flesh and blood of those other three people.

From then on, no matter how many times these people died and came back to life, as long as they were still themselves, they would carry Ah Lang’s mark.

No matter where they were born or what kind of people they became, Ah Lang could find them. Then he would quietly hide beside them, waiting for a suitable opportunity to bestow death upon them in exactly the same way as that year, making their suffering become nourishment for his mother.

Making them use lifetime after lifetime to atone for the sins of that year.

“…But all of this was my own doing. Mama did nothing wrong. I alone did it, so I alone should bear the consequences. If I did something wrong, then kill me. Please, don’t let Mama suffer because of me. Please!”

As he spoke, Ah Lang simply began banging his head against the ground with loud “bang bang” sounds.

Huo Wei quickly helped him up:

“Hey, don’t do that… All right, all right! Actually, I deliberately made it sound very serious just now to scare you. In any case, as long as you recognize your mistake, pay the price for it, and properly bear this karma, your mother won’t be implicated by you. Although she did consume the resentment of those people, which will affect her to some extent, if she really was the great benefactor you said she was, someone who saved many people, then these things won’t affect her that much.”

“…Really?”

Only after hearing this did Ah Lang finally calm down a little.

Huo Wei nodded.

The bear child was annoying, but as long as he knew his mistake and was willing to change, that was good enough. In the end, she could not bear to continue using his mother to frighten him.

“Ah Lang.”

When Ah Lang raised his hand to wipe away his tears, Qi Changying called his name from the side.

Ah Lang knelt on the ground and looked up at him.

Qi Changying then knelt on one knee in front of him and raised his hand to wipe the tear marks from his face:

“Do you know why your mother was willing to remain in the human world? Actually, she did not have to become a ghost.”

“Why…?”

“Because she wanted to stay with you.”

When he took the power back from the out-of-control and crazed Anayi, many memories that did not belong to Qi Changying entered his mind along with it.

He knew everything Ah Lang had just described in a disjointed manner, and having experienced it from Anayi’s first-person perspective, the story was all the more painful and real.

Precisely because of this, he understood the things Anayi wanted to say but could not.

“To her, you were like her child. She was very happy that after her death, you had a new opportunity and could exist and experience this world in a better way. So, after you found that doll, her soul was drawn to it by your wish. She could have refused and continued waiting for reincarnation, but she still chose, for your sake, to become the lowest-rank underworld spirit and live inside the doll to accompany you.”

“She knew that you were lonely and afraid, so she came back.

“She was originally very relieved that you had a new life. But later, that relief slowly changed. Because she discovered that you had always been living in hatred. For her sake, you gave up searching for the meaning of your own life. You gave up your own life. You kept revolving around her. You took revenge for her, killed people for her, and did many bad things for her.”

“Only then did she realize that her staying might not be a good thing for you, but it was already too late. She could no longer leave.”

“She actually knew everything, but her rank was too low. She could not speak to you, nor tell you what she was thinking. She could only watch you sink deeper and deeper, until today.”

Qi Changying lightly sighed:

“She loved you very much, Ah Lang.”

“At the same time, she was also deeply heartbroken. She could only watch you take the wrong path and sink deeper and deeper from then on.”

“Then…” Ah Lang seemed to have truly understood Qi Changying’s words.

He lowered his head and sniffed:

“…Would she blame me? Would she regret it? She could have started a new life long ago, but instead she wasted so many years because of me…”

“She doesn’t blame you. I told you, Ah Lang, she loves you very much. Even though you did something wrong, she still loves you.”

“She only hopes that you can become independent, mature, and bravely admit your mistakes and bear the price of what you did. Don’t live in resentment anymore.”

Qi Changying rubbed the top of his head:

“As for whether she would regret it… I don’t know. But if it were me, I wouldn’t regret it.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No.”

Qi Changying’s gaze as he looked at him was earnest, enough to make him feel that the ghost before him was not lying:

“If it were for someone important, I would do it willingly. Not to mention a hundred years…even a thousand years would be nothing.”

“Then why not ten thousand years?” Ah Lang’s train of thought was a little strange.

This successfully made Qi Changying laugh.

His eyes curved slightly.

“Because I only lived for a thousand years.”

After talking with Qi Changying, Ah Lang became completely quiet. He no longer struggled or shouted, nor did he keep pestering them.

He only still did not quite understand one thing:

“You all said I did something wrong, but those people did something like that. Did they really not deserve to die at all?”

He was a demon born from hatred and anger, so his way of thinking was ultimately different from humans’.

He did not understand those great principles of karma, life, and death. He only knew that whoever hurt him, he would hurt them in return. One lifetime was not enough, so he would entangle with them for lifetime after lifetime.

He could afford to wait.

“Whether they deserved to die or not… Heaven has its own judgment. Their life and death should not be something we judge and decide.”

At this point, there was little else Chen Wuyue could say. After all, there was inherently no absolute right or wrong in life. She had no qualifications to judge. All she could do was try her best to follow the rules.

“But after they die, they can still live again, and everything starts over. Then all the wrongs from their previous lives are gone. How does Heaven decide?” Ah Lang could not accept this explanation.

“It can.” Huo Wei picked up the conversation:

“Death isn’t the way to clear one’s sins. Life is. The first lesson we nether path spirit masters take when we enter the profession is called karma. The teacher especially emphasized at the time that if a person commits too many evil deeds in one lifetime, the evil consequences they have accumulated cannot be repaid or atoned for. Although they won’t necessarily carry the retribution into their next life, it will still severely affect the fate of their next life.”

“We even discussed a case in that class. In one lifetime, there was someone that was a great treacherous official who had killed many, many people and simply didn’t do human things. The sins on him were too numerous to count. Later, he not only died miserably in that lifetime, but for the next nine lifetimes, he had the destiny of a lone star of disaster. His parents both died, he was poor, his wife left him and his children left him, and he suffered miserably. Only in the tenth lifetime did his situation improve slightly.”

“That is why we say Heaven has its own predetermined order, and we shouldn’t rashly interfere with other people’s karma. One lifetime’s debts are cleared in one lifetime. Once they reincarnate, they are new people. Everything from their previous lives has already been predetermined in the fate of their later lives, so they should not have to bear additional consequences.”

“Although you’re a demon and have no next life, so you don’t need to consider these things, you originally had a very long life that you could have used to experience heaven, earth, and the human world. But now you’ve wasted it on these matters. Isn’t that a very unworthy thing?”

Ah Lang lowered his head and thought for a moment.

Huo Wei originally thought he was considering whether it had been “worth it” for himself. But when he raised his eyes again, what he asked was:

“My mother was a very good person, so her next life will be very happy, right?”

“…”

Huo Wei truly did not know what to say.

She could only nod:

“Yes, that’s right. She will be happy.”

“…I understand now.”

Ah Lang lowered his eyes and said once again:

“I will bear my own mistakes. Whether it’s death or losing my freedom forever, I’ll accept it.”

This time, it was not to comfort Anayi, nor to beg other people. Ah Lang said these words for himself.

He really understood now.

He looked again at the place where Anayi had disappeared.

The gu masters of Anayi’s branch needed to use their own blood to nourish their natal gu, so at the beginning of his life, Ah Lang woke up in Anayi’s warm blood.

At that time, Anayi was still a bright young girl. She took Ah Lang with her as she traveled through the mountains and forests, played the flute and sang songs, free and carefree.

Anayi said that when she grew a little older, she would leave these high mountains and go have a look.

She wanted to take Ah Lang to see more places and more beautiful scenery.

But the Great Mountain Mother had no need to worry. After going out to have a look, she would come back, because she was a daughter of the mountains, and this was her only home.

But later, Anayi grew up, and the war came too.

The invaders’ artillery fire destroyed the mountains and forests and took away countless lives.

Anayi was afraid of those deafening sounds and flames, afraid of those things that could take a life so lightly.

But she did not run away. She chose to stay, to be brave, and to use her kindness to help more people.

People outside always said that gu arts were evil things that harmed people’s lives, yet Anayi used the gu arts that were deeply prejudiced against to save many people.

The people she helped said that Anayi was a fairy, a living Bodhisattva who had descended to the mortal world to save all living beings.

But Anayi said that she was only an ordinary person.

On the occasional rare peaceful nights, when there was no one around, Anayi would take Ah Lang to sit on the mountain and look at the village, telling him that as a person, one had to be open and upright, frank and broad-minded, with a clear conscience.

She would also say, “Look how beautiful these mountains are. If I ran away from such a beautiful hometown, I would never have a good life for the rest of my life.”

As a child of these great mountains, she had to be a child who made the Great Mountain Mother proud. The soldiers were fighting and killing outside, and she had no reason to retreat. She also had to contribute her strength and do everything within her ability to help her fellow countrymen and protect her homeland.

Anayi also said that one day, the invaders would be driven away, everything would get better, and when that time came, she would take Ah Lang out to have a look.

They would go to the big cities together, to Tianjin, to Beiping, and to Shanghai.

But Anayi did not live to see that day.

By now, just as she had said, the soldiers had protected their homeland, the country had flourished and prospered, and in just a few decades, the world had already developed into something Ah Lang could not have imagined.

Everything had gotten better.

They no longer had to worry about not having enough food to eat, about their homeland being occupied, or about being bullied by people from outside. Everyone had enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, and dressed themselves beautifully.

But he was unable to take Anayi to see it.

Clearly, he had always kept Anayi by his side, carrying her on his back. They could have gone to see so many distant and beautiful mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas together, just as Anayi had wished, to Tianjin, Beiping, and Shanghai.

But most of the time, they hid in caves deep in the mountains of the inner world, or curled up in the damp and narrow pipes of cities in the outer world, controlled by hatred as they waited for an opportunity to act and avoided the pursuit of humans.

Anayi was the mountains’ proudest daughter, but Ah Lang was not a child Anayi could be proud of.

He was unable to take Anayi to see the dazzling lights, and bustling traffic of the big cities.

And so Ah Lang shed tears again.

This time, it was not because of anger, nor because he was unwilling to part.

It was because he suddenly remembered that when he was still a little insect, Anayi often sang him a Miao folk song, telling him that she would always protect him and would not let anyone or any little insect bully him.

Whenever he needed her, she would be there.

But now, she was gone.

That folk song seemed to have crossed many, many years and floated back to Ah Lang’s ears, replacing his mother and staying by his side as he faced everything that would come next.

‘Ama, I won’t be foolish again.’

Ah Lang lowered his head and quietly wiped away his tears, without anyone noticing.

‘I really understand now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘If it’s not too late yet…’

‘Be happy.’

‘Ama.’