Oh. My. Fate?! (BL, Volume 12, Part 1)

170 An Overly Obedient Child

Qiu Ling's expression fell. In comparison, that episode had probably been less dangerous compared to the previous ones but it reminded him of the time he had taken Jing He out of the city once. They had sat atop the cliff and looked out at the landscape and Jing He had seemed ... a little afraid. That alone proved how deep an impact those issues from his childhood had left.

He lowered his gaze, thinking to himself that it really wasn't a wonder. Even though there might have been half a year between one issue Bai Fen had told him about and the next, if this had kept up for two thousand years, how could Jing He not be affected? Not just that but ... because of Jing He's usual behavior, he sometimes forgot how awfully young he actually was and how that meant that all of this wasn't all that far in the past.

The gods only came of age when they reached two millennia. Jing He had once mentioned in passing that his coming-of-age ceremony had been arranged for the precise day of his reaching adulthood. Back then, Qiu Ling hadn't known why but after being told about the curse, it was obvious: They had wanted to end it and this ceremony was what allowed them to do so. Afterward, Jing He would stop being in danger and could live a normal life.

Thinking about it carefully, it seemed that when they met at the Heavenly Emperor's birthday banquet, Jing He had only come of age seven years prior. Adding to that the ten years of wooing him, and then the roughly three years spent on his trial ... it seemed that he was barely an adult. The time that he wasn't suffering from the curse hardly made up one percent of the time he had been battling against it. And it also included the three years of the trial which were mostly filled with suffering as well.

Qiu Ling stared blankly ahead, trying to come to terms with the fact that his beloved had only had seventeen years of peace. This kind of life ... did it feel worth living?

He remembered well how badly he had dealt with everything that had gone wrong in the early years of his life and how it had taken millennia for him to finally come to terms with his parentage and start being open about it. There had been many days when he had contemplated whether going on made any sense.

Now, thinking about it carefully, what he had experienced couldn't compare to Jing He's life experience at all. Yes, his childhood had been unhappy for many years, and the death of his parents and the revelation about his demonic blood had completely overthrown the last good feelings he held, but ... that was only one big event. And even though he was on the run afterward, he had done that to himself. Even if that hadn't been the case, he had been safe for most of the time. He had only suffered from loneliness.

Jing He though ... he had never been safe. Every day, he needed to worry whether he would be injured, get sick, or maybe even die. He also likely didn't dare to get too close to others for fear of pulling them into that. In fact ...

Qiu Ling's brows furrowed further and he couldn't help but look from Bai Fen to Qiang Yan and back again. "What about the people around him? There ... was something as well, wasn't there?"

Bai Fen nodded but didn't explain herself. Instead, she turned to Qiang Yan, expecting him to take over.

The God of War who had mostly kept quiet throughout the conversation sighed deeply. "There was, although that was a few years later. By then, he had gone through quite a lot and you could see that his behavior had changed a lot because of it.

"Jing He was ... not a willful child by any means, not even when he was very small. But the further he grew, the more well-behaved he became. No matter what you told him, he would follow suit. I suppose it was his way of trying to keep himself safe because he knew that the arrangements we made were to guard against accidents."

Qiu Ling nodded, having expected as much. Jing He was almost blindly obedient to his father. That had to come from somewhere. This ... explained it very well. He had learned early that his life was constantly in danger and the only thing standing between him and certain death were the people who tried the most fiercely to protect him: his parents and his uncle. As a result of this, he had likely started to listen to every word without bothering to even think twice.

Originally, this kind of obedience was a good thing. It could indeed keep him safe. But at the same time, this created a dangerous precedent for Jing He never questioning their words. What was only about his physical safety at the beginning slowly morphed into something else and, finally, Jing He didn't dare to disobey anything.

That was why it hurt him so much when his parents disagreed because he didn't know who to listen to and felt guilty either way. Of course, it was even worse when his own feelings ran contrary to his father's instructions. If it was a disagreement between his parents, he could just wait for them to sort it out and would at least follow the arrangements of one of them. With his own feelings though, he simply felt that he was ignoring his father's instructions, being willful, and causing trouble for no reason. He had to hate that feeling.

A good parent like Bai Fen could see this and would back off a little, not giving him advice unless he asked for it. But his father was different. He abused the fact that his son had become so obedient to save his life. He expected Jing He to never talk back or have his own thoughts and simply trust that he knew best. In the end, he only hurt him with that behavior though.