I'll be at LitRPG Con next weekend. Anyone on here going to be there? Chapter 133
Parents
Tobias sat in his private garden beside Hun Jia while his mother squirmed on the other side of the table. Achieving enlightenment for the dao of hidden beauty had mortified her. She'd thought her fertility tea had gone unnoticed because Hun Jia was mortal. She had hidden their chats behind her aura, so no one noticed her actions, only to discover that her son's mistress was a core realm cultivator the entire time. She'd been avoiding them for weeks. At first, Tobias found it funny, but as time dragged on, he saw it as a problem.
He'd had to invite his mother to tea three times just to get her back into the same room as them.
Tobias placed down his teacup, tapping it against the table to break the awkward silence. No nascent soul realm cultivator could make such a mistake accidentally, so the meaning behind his action was clear. "If this is how you intend to behave for the rest of our lives, our immortality is going to be awkward."
Tobias's mother pressed her lips together and bowed. "I have disgraced myself before your cultivation partner."
Hun Jia smiled, displaying her hidden heart, showing his mother that she harboured no animosity. "Your son regaled me with tales of how much you have been waiting for him to give you grandchildren. I found it most amusing that he wasn't exaggerating your enthusiasm. And I have honestly enjoyed the time I've spent with you and the tea you've prepared. You never once made me feel inferior, and there are not many cultivators as powerful as you who would go out of their way to do that for one they thought was merely their son's mortal concubine."
Tobias's mother smiled back, caught by the dao of beauty for a moment, and then her expression turned sad, almost tragic. She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, and Tobias sensed the shift within her.
This was not why she had been avoiding them.
His mother looked Hun Jia in the eye, not glaring, but not friendly either. "My kindness and hospitality are because our clan comes from the humblest origins. This realm is not where we belong, and we never allow ourselves to forget that. My son dragged us with him as he rose to prominence."
Hun Jia gave an awkward nod.
"For the longest time, I did not understand why Tobias would go to such lengths for us. He was not like us. His dreams were not limited, and his thoughts were always of what was possible rather than what was so. It took me centuries to see the truth."
Tobias's mother's hand shook as she sipped her tea, stealing a moment before she continued. To Tobias, it looked more like she had been putting off this meeting because she had something she did not want to say but knew she had to. Tobias's invitation had forced the matter. Tobias suddenly regretted his invitation.
"It was not filial duty which made my son bring us with him, but reciprocation of the love we showed him in his youth and an understanding of how precious and rare that love is for cultivators on the road to immortality."
Tobias watched his mother replace her fears with the dao of beauty. Her hands stilled. Her face calmed. His regret mounted.
"When Tobias was just a child, there was a great famine. One so bad we were forced to eat our dead. When his younger cousins were approaching their end, losing strength by the day, Tobias's grandmother took her life to feed her grandchildren. That day, I watched our clan's children sit together and eat their fill without questioning where we had got the meat. I held back tears for the kind mother-in-law I had lost, not wishing to sully her sacrifice. And then I saw my boy take his bowl of watery stew, sit with his cousins, and pray over his meal. He had never prayed over his meal before. In that moment, I knew he understood where the meat had come from. And I knew he was thanking his grandmother for the meal she had given him that would allow him to survive a little longer. It was that memory that made me understand why Tobias has devoted so much effort to us. For the next three days, he watched his uncles, aunts, older cousins, parents, and grandpa starve themselves when there was food that could stave off their starvation only an arm's length away. He saw we were not willing to sully the sacrifice of his grandmother. I did not realise it at the time, but that was when we set the standard of love for him. That was when we showed him the lengths that we would go to hold to that standard."
Tobias reached out and took his mother's hand. "I didn't know that you knew I knew."
His mother looked back and gave him a beautifully sad smile. "I didn't know what to say back then. I didn't know how to justify our actions. And you were always so much wiser than your age. You comforted your grandfather while he grieved. You got through to him when no one else could. You made him see the good in his wife's actions. And you never let on that you knew what you were eating."
Tobias squeezed his mother's hand. "I was eating a woman's love for her family. I was eating her hopes for them to succeed. I was eating her commitment to seeing that come to pass. And I was eating my grandmother, a woman who had shown me more love and kindness than I expected to find in such a harsh place."
Tobias's mother let go of his hand and turned to Hun Jia. "You must be wondering why I am sharing such an unsavoury story with you. It's because I can see what is hidden in your heart. I can see the fear you hide from the man you love. You believe that your courtesan past only makes you worthy of walking beside my son as his concubine. That your past will drag down his future."
Hun Jia swallowed. "How did you?"
She couldn't finish her question, because his mother spoke over her.
"Servant Ho introduced you as my son's concubine, instead of his mistress. Servant Ho is never that rude. He would only use such a lowly word if your dao and the dao of hidden beauty felt that word was more appropriate and forced him to."
Tobias reached out and took Hun Jia's hand, hating himself for not seeing her insecurities and fears. Hating himself for not realising there were more reasons she would not marry him. Hun Jia didn't pull away. She held his hand tight as her fears and insecurities were laid bare.
Tobias's mother gave Hun Jia a firm look, not giving her a chance to recover. "I want you to know that if you dare let your fears over my son's reputation stand in the way of his happiness, I will share that story of him eating his grandmother with every corner of the world. Our family has never put our reputation above our love for one another, and we will not start now."
Hun Jia dipped her head, caught by the firmness of his mother's tone. It was the same tone she used when chastising her daughters and daughters-in-law. It left no room for argument. "Yes, ma'am."
Tobias's mother was the matriarch of their family branch. She held the honour of their women in her hand. When she saw a problem, she dealt with it.
Tobias's mother rose to her feet, seeming ten feet tall as she loomed over the woman he loved. "And stop joking about him taking Xu Ling as another wife, where others can hear you, unless you truly mean it. You are a core realm cultivator, and jokes like that reflect poorly on our clan."
Hun Jia quickly dipped her head again. "Yes, ma'am."
His mother sat back down and, almost as an afterthought, added. "You have my blessing if you decide to marry my son."
Hun Jia lifted her gaze. "You're leaving the choice up to me?"
"I've waited centuries for my son to bring home a wife. I can wait a few more. But don't forget, you are not his only option."
Hun Jia's eyes drifted to where Xu Ling was in seclusion.
"She also has my blessing."
Hun Jia swallowed.
Tobias's mother reached for the teapot and refilled their cups. "Now that I have said my peace, we can have a pleasant conversation."
Hun Jia glanced at Tobias.
Tobias gave her a reassuring smile. His mother was blunt and direct when she needed to be, but she did not hold a grudge or unnecessarily extend others' suffering. It was one of the reasons that, despite her keeping the women in her family branch in line, she was well loved.
***
Majordomo Wo took a year and a half to gain enlightenment. This was the longest any of Tobias's advisors had taken, but they were all in the nascent soul realm. None of them had any objections about the lessons the Blossoms wished to teach, and after reading some of Hun Jia's translated manuals, none of them could say that the reward was something they could allow their clan to walk away from. Their new depth understanding allowed them to explore the cultivation world in an entirely new way. Tobias's grandfather had already surpassed Tobias's skill with tea ceremonies. He was in the process of creating a method similar to how the Blossoms taught to share the dao of tea and tea ceremonies with others.
However, despite the opportunity Tobias had brought to their door, none of his advisors felt that it was a good enough reason to pull their clan from seclusion. With such a large clan, people were constantly coming out of or going into seclusion, so the Blossoms began teaching everyone as they naturally left seclusion. With a limited number of teachers, it was the easiest way for everyone to progress.
There were a few exceptions to this.
The biggest one being Tobias's father.
Tobias's mother was adamant that he needed to go through their training. She had seen into his hidden heart and found nothing but love for her, and she wanted him to see the same. They had overcome many challenges together, but until she gained enlightenment, she had never realised how much her husband loved her.
He had always had a weakness for beautiful women but had never made it clear to anyone, not even his wife, that this weakness included inner beauty. And that he found his wife's inner strength more beautiful than her appearance, even after her transformation into a divine beauty.
Tobias was happy to have his mother wake his father from seclusion, but he began to regret his decision shortly after his father gained enlightenment. Unlike everyone else who had achieved enlightenment, his father was very interested in learning the skills Tobias had developed to entertain his suitors. And he wasn't willing to learn from the other male Blossoms, arguing that it would be too outrageous for anyone else to know what he was learning.
The thought of teaching his father how to woo his mother did not amuse or appeal to Tobias in any way. But his father's constant badgering slowly wore him down. By the second year of repeated requests, he began teaching him.
His father was not an able student and was prone to derailing his lessons. So, Tobias was annoyed but not surprised when he derailed yet another one.
"What if I give my fan a flick like this at the end?" his father asked, giving his folding fan an unnecessary flourish.
Tobias suppressed a groan as he snapped his fan closed, breaking his connection to dao of beauty. "Once again, these lessons are supposed to be silent."
He gave a dismissing wave of his hand. "I know, but that flick is very eye-catching."
"Perhaps to a mortal, but you wish to gather the attention of someone in the nascent soul realm. This requires significantly more skill."
His father sighed, closed his fan, and took a seat on the dojo floor. "This isn't working, is it?"
Tobias sat down opposite, surprised by the change in direction. "No. It's working perfectly."
His father tossed his folding hand on the ground beside him. "Then why haven't I mastered this already?"
Tobias slid his folding fan into his robe. "Because for the first time in centuries, you are trying to learn something in your realm, rather than something below it. Your natural talents are coming into play again."
"And I don't have a natural talent for the folding fan or holding myself the way you do."
"No. However, I'm no more talented in this regard than you are. The only difference between us is that I've spent more than a century refining these skills."
His father sighed again. "I don't have your patience."
"Then these are not skills you can master."
His father raised an eyebrow. "You're much blunter than you used to be."
"Does that bother you?"
His father shook his head. "You've always walked too timidly. You never flaunted your position or power. It's something I've respected about you, since you first came home as a magistrate. However, you always chose the safe path when you could. The one which would not cause trouble. You never showed the world the real you. You would not call a fool a fool unless you had to. Everyone saw you were holding back. Most thought you were not sharing the full extent of what you knew, but it turns out you were just offering them face. And that never came naturally to you, did it?"
Tobias shook his head, not surprised by his father's insights. He was much smarter and wiser than the man who had raised him, but many of his old traits remained, like the need to speak plainly.
Tobias decided to answer just as plainly. "I've always felt like an outsider. Offering face has always been difficult for me."
His nodded. "Has that changed?"
Tobias shook his head. "I still feel like an outsider. I'm just no longer trying to pretend I'm not."
His father smiled. "I like the new you, and so does your mother and not just because you brought home a potential wife.
Tobias smiled, happy for his father's approval. "Thank you. That means a lot."
His father leaned back, relaxed, resting against his aura as if it were a lounging chair. "Now that you are no longer my teacher, it is no longer inappropriate for me to ask you to confirm a few rumours I heard."
"What rumours? And who did you hear these rumours from?"
His father smirked. "That's not important. Is it true that one of the suitors you took as a lover was the elderly widow of what had once been the wealthiest merchant in Ming City?"
His father had begun laughing halfway through his question, so Tobias knew exactly where he had heard these rumours from.
Tobias gave his father an unamused look. "Have you been trading embarrassing stories about me with my cultivation partner?"
His father grinned. "It's more accurate to say that she has been trading me embarrassing stories about your travels in return for embarrassing stories about your youth.
"How is that any different?"
"She approached me. I'm free from blame"
Tobias glared.
His father snickered. "She also only approached me after your mother ran out to tales to tell."