Chapter Ninety-Four: The Mystery of His Origins

A wave of shock crashed through Liu Shaoyu’s heart so violently that it was as though a hundred thousand galloping horses were thundering past.

Like him? Truly like him? He had heard those words before, more than once. And whenever they were spoken, he knew what they meant.

“Who are you? Have you met my father? Or my mother?” This time, Liu Shaoyu had learned to be clever.

He answered with a question of his own. Otherwise, as before, he would gain nothing at all.

The middle-aged man was about to speak, but then closed his mouth again, a look of amused contemplation appearing on his face.

“Clever boy. You nearly had me fooled,” Long Bingchu thought.

Long Bingchu was, in truth, the real name of Long Ruyuan’s father. This formidable man, who had once shaken the world, had nearly stumbled today at the hands of a young man.

It was not because Liu Shaoyu was especially shrewd, but because of something simple: even the coldest of men will tremble, however slightly, before the bonds of kinship.

“I have met both of them,” Long Bingchu said slowly.

He had never intended to hide that much.

This answer went far beyond Liu Shaoyu’s expectations. It was also the first time in all these years that he had received a precise answer concerning his parents and his own origins. It seemed that, this time, the secret buried for so many years was finally about to surface.

“You really met my parents?” Liu Shaoyu’s composure was already beginning to crumble.

“Met them? That is putting it mildly,” Long Bingchu replied.

“Can you tell me about them?” Liu Shaoyu truly wanted to blurt out the questions in his heart, but at times like this, hesitation was inevitable. The closer one came to the truth, the more one instinctively faltered. That hesitation came from the deepest place within, a form of protection.

“Ah… so many years have passed. I never imagined my little sister’s son had already grown into a man,” Long Bingchu murmured, as though speaking to himself, and yet also as if he meant for Liu Shaoyu to hear.

Liu Shaoyu was stunned. “What? Little sister? What does that mean?”

Perhaps because the suddenness of it all had left him a little dazed, Liu Shaoyu found himself full of questions about Long Bingchu’s words. Yet despite the turmoil in his mind, his expression remained calm.

That calm surprised Long Bingchu as well. Faced with something like this, and still able to keep his face steady—good boy.

By now, this uncle found himself liking his nephew more and more.

And yes, uncle he was: Liu Shaoyu’s mother’s biological elder brother.

“This is your mother, and my own younger sister, Long Yashao.”

As Long Bingchu spoke, a full-body holographic image appeared before Liu Shaoyu.

“Mother? This is… my… mom.”

Liu Shaoyu stared at the woman before him. The two figures slowly overlapped, merging with the image he had once glimpsed in dreams, becoming one with the clear, living likeness now before him.

His eyes grew wet.

After so many years—so many years—he had finally learned the truth of his birth. An orphan. Like a leaf without roots, drifting alone through a chaotic world.

For so many years, while the friends around him could return to warm homes, he could only sit alone before an empty room and stare into space.

At last…

“So I’m no longer an orphan, right? I have a mother too. I have a mom. I have… a home.”

The tide in Liu Shaoyu’s heart surged and roared, wave after wave of feeling pounding against the shores of his soul.

This young man had held himself strong for so many years. To cry? How long had that emotion been absent from him? And yet now, at this moment, his eyes had become faintly moist.

Tears fell, and Liu Shaoyu simply stared. He did not wipe them away, allowing this long-delayed feeling to pour forth without restraint.

Long Bingchu and Long Ruyuan stood quietly to one side, neither of them speaking. No one broke the stillness.

Compared with Liu Shaoyu, Long Bingchu felt something different. Seeing his younger sister’s image again, that hard middle-aged man also felt tenderness rise anew in his heart.

Before him stood his sister’s son. Grown now. Even outstanding. More outstanding, perhaps, than his own son.

Long Ruyuan, standing nearby, felt a sudden chill run through him. At the same time, his heart was pounding with excitement and astonishment.

He had never imagined that this brother of his truly was his brother.

Fate—sometimes it was so delicate, so mysterious. Everything, all things, had long since been fixed in the unseen.

“Child, you’ve suffered outside all these years,” Long Bingchu said first.

Compared with Liu Shaoyu, he knew more. So the shock within him was smaller, and besides, the work he had done had long since taught him to remain unmoved. Few things could still stir the waters of his heart.

But Liu Shaoyu’s thoughts were in turmoil, because none of this was ordinary. In truth, he had already calmed somewhat after the initial shock of learning his origins, and in this brief span he had thought of much more.

Why now? Why the Long family? Why only after the test? Why had Master Wang refused to speak of it before? There were too many questions, too many suspicious points. And what of his father? He knew his mother now, but his father?

“My father?” Liu Shaoyu asked.

Long Bingchu had long anticipated that Liu Shaoyu would ask this. But when the question truly came, he realized he still was not prepared to tell this long-buried story.

He cursed inwardly. Why had he been the one chosen to explain all this? Because of this matter, his father, who had not spoken to him in more than twenty years, had actually reached out to him again.

Hmph. Family interests? Nonsense.

No one knew what Long Bingchu was thinking at that moment, but Liu Shaoyu, skilled at reading expression and nuance, sensed something in the brief silence.

As expected, this would not be simple.

Of course it would not. If it were simple, there would not be no record of it at all on the Glory of the Republic.

Who was trying to conceal something? And who possessed such power to erase every trace of the files?

Liu Shaoyu felt that all these signs pointed to one thing: he might be stepping into a vast and dangerous whirlpool.

At last, after a long silence, Long Bingchu spoke slowly.

“Your father… was named Liu Guangxi.”

This was the first time Liu Shaoyu had ever learned his father’s name: Liu Guangxi. He repeated it over and over in his heart, determined to carve it into memory.

“The first time I met your father, he was probably about your age. That year, I was also in my early twenties,” Long Bingchu said, his voice unhurried, his gaze drifting as if into the distance.

It seemed that the memory was a very beautiful one for him.

“You know how it is when one is in one’s twenties—young, brash, full of fire. Back then, Earth was nowhere near as peaceful as it is now. In the galaxy and beyond it, wars were raging everywhere. People fought over the smallest scraps of resources. Your father and your mother met in those days. And by the way—just like you, your father also served in the Seventh Army.”

Long Bingchu did not forget to remind Liu Shaoyu of that point, and Liu Shaoyu seemed already to have followed his words back into that distant age.