Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation(Vol 5)

Vol 5/ Chapter 73: Knot in Heart Unraveled

You can guess that bumping into parents in a place like this means catching them coming home at night.

Father walked fast in front, while Mother lagged behind. They didn't talk at all, like they just had a fight or something.

Lucky for us, nothing weird happened as we followed them. We quickly reached the familiar building where I used to live. Adrian was about to follow them upstairs, but I grabbed him and flew us to the window outside my old room.

It was pretty late already, so hiding on the building's wall in the dark wasn't too risky. Still, two people squeezing on a window ledge felt a bit like we were up to no good.

Soon we heard people entering the room. Father's angry voice came first:

"It's all your fault! Flynn's been dead for ages, but you had to go make a big fuss at the hospital demanding compensation. Now look what happened! Everyone's laughing at us!"

He was scolding Mother, of course. Sounds like they just got back from the hospital. But Mother fought back fiercely:

"What do you want me to do? Aurora Entertainment's totally finished. Boss dead, company bankrupt. We only got a tiny bit of the compensation. Flynn died in the hospital, along with loads of other patients. They couldn't even handle gas poisoning properly. Of course I can suspect they were lazy. What's wrong with that?"

"The official story says it was gas poisoning, but there's a lot that doesn't add up..." Father seemed lost for words, but still tried to reason with her. "But I think the hospital really did their best. You're just being unreasonable!"

"I don't care! We raised a whole person and then poof, he's gone. All those years of hard work raising a kid, wasted. If we don't try to get some money back, aren't we losing big time?"

Mother wouldn't listen at all. She got more worked up and started cursing at Father: "It's all your fault! I didn't even want this kid in the first place. We could've gotten rid of it, but you insisted on having the baby! Saying stuff like 'life's not complete without kids', 'kids are cute and fun', 'the family will look down on us if we don't have kids', 'kids will take care of us when we're old'. It all sounded good, but it was just a waste of effort all these years. We even had to pay for Flynn's schooling. We lost everything!"

"How is it my fault? You're talking nonsense! Flynn's death was an accident. And I couldn't have decided to have a kid all on my own, right? Plus, didn't you agree later that kids could take care of us when we're old?" Father wasn't having it. He got angry and brought up old stuff too: "Don't forget, you're the one who went crazy later and wanted another kid. If I hadn't stopped you, we'd be too poor to eat by now!"

"What's wrong with having two kids? If we had two, we wouldn't be in this mess now! We finally got Flynn through uni, but he never found a job that made money! Now he's gone completely, and we lost everything. I don't know why I was stupid enough to believe you back then!"

Mother wasn't backing down either. She fired right back, listing all his faults: "If I knew raising a kid would end up like this, it would've been better not to have any! At least we wouldn't have wasted all that money and effort for nothing!"

She was so mad she turned and left, slamming the door shut to sulk alone.

"How can they be like this? They never think about their kid's feelings? No wonder they acted that way when I saw them in the spirit world!" Adrian was so angry he almost burst into the room. But he calmed down quickly and even wondered if we'd fallen into some crazy trap.

"Not all parents love their kids..." I was kind of prepared for this, since I'd been through it for so many years. But hearing some of those words still made me a bit sad.

Thinking back, I guess my birth was just an accident to my parents at first. After living together for so many years, they probably cared a bit. But sadly, they seemed to care more about their own interests.

"But as parents, this is really..." Adrian still couldn't accept it. After struggling for a few seconds, he asked me helplessly, "Since it's like this, do you still want to meet them?"

"Of course not!" I shook my head quickly. I only followed them because I couldn't help wanting to see them. But that's all in the past now. I've let it go. However, Adrian's sudden question made me notice something in his words...

"You clearly know about my gender in this world. Don't you care at all?"

The so-called secret of me being a boy before was pretty obvious by now. I decided not to wait anymore and just ask him directly.

"It's just like Reed told me. You've been worrying about this the whole time!" His answer surprised me a bit. "She was afraid you'd worry too much about it, so she came to tell me not to mention it. I didn't expect you to bring it up yourself..."

So that's how it was. Reed that "spy" had already spilled the beans, and I was the only one still in the dark! Then Adrian grabbed my hand and answered very seriously:

"Why should I care? That was all in your past life. Does your gender back then really matter? If we're going to dig into the past, what about your gender when you were a water angel? And according to what Galadra said before, the Cycle of Rebirth doesn't care about gender. For all we know, I might've been a woman in my past life! By your logic, shouldn't I be looking for a man to marry then?"

"Uh..." These words were more like advice than a statement. After Adrian's "lecture", I didn't know how to respond.

At least what he said was right. Since everything about Flynn is in the past, why should I keep worrying? Even if I kept the memories, just like Reed said, souls don't have gender. If I'd realized that earlier, I wouldn't have had so much trouble!

The knot in my heart finally untangled completely. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Just as I was about to say more, I heard Mother's voice from inside:

"Who's out there? Thieves!"

Turns out we didn't keep our voices down, and they heard us.

"Oh no..." Adrian looked worried. It would be bad if they thought we were thieves. I was about to take him and leave quickly, when suddenly I felt something wasn't right.

I vaguely sensed some weird dark elements rushing towards us. Before I could react, Adrian jumped up, hugged me, and fell straight down from the high building.

Right after came a huge "BOOM!"

The outer wall where we were standing was hit by a black shadow! A big chunk of the wall collapsed instantly. Several floors above and below turned into open-plan layouts, with a huge hole.

"A monster?" Landing softly on the ground with my wings flapping, I was totally confused. Clearly something had attacked us. Judging by the dark element energy it carried, it should be a monster!

But the weak dark elements showed the enemy was at most a low-level monster. It didn't make sense that such a weak thing almost sneak-attacked us successfully! And it made such a big mess too, which made me feel uneasy again.

"Strange! Why do I feel like its attack just now had some Battle Qi in it? It seems more like a Battle Qi awakener than a monster," Adrian said, shaking his head as he stood up and dusted himself off. Jumping straight down from high up didn't hurt him at all, but his gaze at the enemy became more serious.

"Battle Qi? Are you joking? How does that thing look human at all?" I pointed up in disbelief. Throughout history, only humans could awaken Battle Qi!

The culprit was still on the broken wall up high. In the light from nearby, we could easily see its two big demon wings and super long tail - this was clearly a succubus!

"Feliciana? It's you! I can't believe we meet again in a place like this!"

Even more surprising, the succubus looked down at me and Adrian and started talking. She seemed to know me and introduced herself right away!