Chapter 169: Hometown (2)
"Brother..." Borg stared at Lynn, his voice trembling. He gripped Lynn's hands, refusing to let go, terrified that the man before him would vanish if he looked away for even a second.
"It's me. All right, stop crying. You're an adult now, why are you still acting like a kid? Where are Mom and Dad?" Lynn smiled, patting the top of Borg's head.
The little boy who used to trail behind him everywhere was an adult now. Who could have imagined that the same kid would grow up into a balding, full-grown man?
"Mom... Mom passed away..." Borg's voice shook.
The smile on Lynn's face instantly froze.
A bitter wind howled. Pedestrians on the street hurried their steps, and the wind suddenly felt terribly cold.
"Mom passed away last year. Dad has come down with a severe illness now, too," Borg said.
"I remember they were perfectly healthy when I left," Lynn murmured.
"A plague spread from the north the year before last. A lot of people were infected," Borg said.
"Even though we were all so careful, Mom still caught it. She took so much medicine, but three months later, she was gone. Dad's health got worse and worse after that. Now, he can't even get out of bed."
Borg glanced at Lynn. "Sometimes at night, he talks in his sleep. I've heard him calling your name."
Lynn closed his eyes.
"He'll get better."
Lynn muttered to himself.
"Let's go home first."
"Actually, a lot of neighbors in the area caught the disease back then. Dad suggested we move, but Mom was afraid you wouldn't be able to find us when you came back, so she wouldn't let us leave," Borg said softly.
Hearing this, Lynn felt a sudden, suffocating tightness in his chest.
"Didn't you try to talk her out of it?" Lynn asked.
"We all tried, but Mom's temper got stranger and stranger after you left. She wouldn't listen to anything we said."
Hearing Borg repeatedly say "after you left," Lynn gritted his teeth.
Even though the current Lynn could slaughter an entire town without blinking an eye, he could only endure these words from his family in silence.
It was only a distance of two streets, but today, Lynn felt the walk was exceptionally long.
Lynn suddenly lost the desire to walk. He grabbed Borg's arm, and the two of them flew directly into the air!
It took only seconds for them to land right at their front door.
"Brother..." Borg, having just dropped from the sky, stood dazed. He looked at Lynn, his expression turning incredibly complicated. In his understanding, anyone who could fly was unimaginably powerful.
"Congratulations, Brother. You must have found what you were looking for," Borg said, his tone complicated.
Lynn walked into the house without a word.
A little boy was sitting in the living room. Seeing Lynn walk in, he asked in confusion, "Who are you? Why are you in my house?"
Lynn's footsteps paused, but he went straight up to the second floor. Borg, walking in behind him, picked the little boy up. "That's your uncle."
"The uncle who knows magic, like you said, Dad! I told my classmates my uncle knows magic, and they all said I was lying." The little boy's eyes lit up.
He had grown up listening to his father tell stories about this uncle. In the stories, his uncle was an incredibly powerful man who knew magic. His uncle was also the person his father admired most, so under his father's subtle influence, the boy had always felt his uncle was a mysterious and amazing figure.
"Yes... your magic-wielding uncle is back," Borg said quietly.
"But why couldn't he have come back a year earlier?" Borg's eyes reddened.
With your abilities, you definitely could have cured Mom.
Reaching the second floor, Lynn looked at the charcoal portrait of a woman hanging on the wall. His eyes abruptly reddened. He took a deep breath and clamped his jaw shut.
He turned to look at the door. It was just a thin wooden door, yet it felt as heavy as a mountain, as insurmountable as a deity's Wall of Sighs.
Creak—
Lynn pushed the door open, and the thick stench of herbal medicine rushed against his face.
The setting sun outside the window filtered through the curtains, illuminating the bed.
An emaciated old man, nothing but skin and bones, had his head tilted, watching the sunset. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
"You finally came back," Hamilton said slowly.
Silence echoed in the room.
"Borg and Eva wouldn't linger outside the door for this long," Hamilton mumbled to himself.
"Of course, the main thing is that neither of them would stop in the hallway by the door for so long... because that's where your mother's portrait hangs."
A tremor he hadn't even noticed crept into Lynn's voice. "Dad, I'm back."
"It's good that you're back. It's just a shame your mother couldn't wait long enough for you. If only she could have held on a little longer," Hamilton said, closing his eyes.
Lynn walked to the side of the bed, sat down, and took the old man's hand.
The hand was large, just as broad and reassuring as when it used to hold Lynn's hand during his childhood.
The hand was also icy cold, feeling as if Lynn were gripping bare bone.
Lynn could sense that Hamilton's body was in terrible condition. His vitality was already incredibly weak.
Furthermore, his internal organs had deteriorated to a critical state.
But it didn't matter. He was a wizard; none of this was a problem.
Lynn pulled a vial of potion from his spatial ring.
He moved to hand it to Hamilton, bringing it up to his lips.
A large hand suddenly caught Lynn's wrist.
Hamilton, whose eyes had been shut, suddenly turned his head to look at Lynn, slowly but firmly shaking his head.
"I am satisfied just being able to see you. Even if I go to Hell, I'll be able to tell Anika that I waited long enough to see Lynn," Hamilton said.
"I can let you live for a long time—two hundred years, three hundred years, maybe even forever," Lynn said.
"Why would I want to live that long?" Hamilton asked.
He suddenly offered a bitter smile.
"Living this long is enough for me," the old man said.
"I..." Lynn didn't know what to say.
"Everyone dies. There isn't much left in this world for me to care about anymore. Even if I keep living, it wouldn't necessarily be a happy thing for me."
Lynn said, "Don't you want to see your grandson grow up? Don't you want to spend more time with Borg and Eva? Mom is gone. If you leave too, they will be devastated."
"Would you be devastated?" the old man asked suddenly.
Lynn's lips quivered slightly. "...Yes."
"Then give it to me." A smile appeared on the old man's face.
"Before Anika passed away, she told me that if I ever got to see you in her place, I shouldn't be too hard on you. She knew you were an obedient child who had your own ideals ever since you were young. She said that since you were willing to chase your dreams, we should let you go, and that we shouldn't become your burden. Just like the day you left. It's just a pity that the carriage we rented that day got its wheel stuck in a ditch, which delayed us. We were still a step too late... What a shame," Hamilton said.
Lynn closed his eyes.
The emotions that had been brewing in his eyes for a long time finally spilled slowly from the corners as tears.
Creak—
The wooden door was pushed open.
"Brother, have some soup." Borg pushed open the door, having brought a bowl of soup up from downstairs.
It was a bowl of hot and sour fish soup with a milky-white broth.
"Mom said this fennel fish stew was your favorite. She said you like it spicy, so I needed to add a bit of diced red pepper," Borg said.
"..." Lynn silently took the bowl.
"Actually, before Mom passed away, the person she couldn't bear to let go of most was you. She said a lot to us," Borg said in a muffled voice. "To be honest, Brother, I'm even a little jealous of you. My sister and I stayed by Mom's side the whole time, but the person she worried about most in her final moments was still you."
Lynn offered a self-deprecating smile. He immediately lifted the bowl, the wide rim covering his face as his throat bobbed, gulping the soup down.
Lynn set the bowl down. "It still has that familiar taste."
"Of course. Mom taught me the recipe herself," Borg said.