Chapter 154: Lei

  The vision painted itself across the minds of Yukari and Zhu as Harrison’s raspy voice spun the tale, the magic of his memory pulling them decades into the past.

  It was mid-afternoon. The sun hung high and blistering in the azure sky, casting brilliant, golden rays over the bustling, multi-tiered metropolis of Jinlun. This was the beating heart of the Ruhong region, the absolute pinnacle of continental trade.

  The architecture was a breathtaking cascade of wealth and culture. Massive, ornate structures with sweeping, emerald-green tiled roofs clung to the steep, rocky cliffsides, connected by a complex network of stone bridges and sturdy wooden boardwalks. Deep crimson pillars supported intricate pavilions, and colossal, colorful silk ribbons were draped elegantly from the highest watchtowers all the way down to the lower merchant squares. In the center of a wide harbor deck, a giant, gilded lotus platform shone like a second sun.

  The streets were an absolute sea of humanity. Merchants, mercenaries, and travelers from every single corner of Calvenoor crammed the thoroughfares, their overlapping voices creating a deafening, vibrant cacophony of haggling, shouting, and laughter. The scent of roasted meats, exotic spices, and salty sea air hung thick in the sweltering afternoon heat.

  And right in the middle of this overwhelming, chaotic main street, completely oblivious to the grand majesty of the city, was a boy.

  He was around eighteen years old, with short, messy blonde hair that looked like it had been cut with a dull knife. He was thin. Painfully thin. His arms were scrawny, his clothes hung loosely off his narrow shoulders, and he looked entirely like a dry twig that would instantly snap if a passing merchant so much as bumped into him.

  He was holding a crumpled, heavily worn city map, his brow furrowed in absolute frustration. He rotated the parchment ninety degrees, then flipped it completely upside down, squinting at the ink. He turned it over to check the blank back, as if hoping a secret legend would magically appear.

  "Where in the blazes is the library?" the young boy muttered in the memory, his voice carrying a thick, unmistakable Western drawl. "This map don't tell me anythang at all."

  "That boy... was me," Harrison's voice echoed in the present, a touch of fond amusement in his tone.

  SKREEEEETCH.

  The phantom sound of a needle violently scratching across a vinyl record echoed loudly inside Yukari's head.

  The memory paused.

  Yukari blinked. She blinked again. She aggressively rubbed her silver eyes, absolutely refusing to believe the visual being projected into her mind.

  She pointed a trembling finger at the image of the scrawny, confused teenager holding the map upside down. "Wait... that is you?!"

  She tried to reconcile this image with her own memories. The Harrison Aster she knew, the 'Prime' Harrison during his adventuring peak, was a mountain of a man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and built like the absolute peak of human physical perfection. He possessed a rugged, undeniable charisma that filled any room he walked into.

  This boy in the vision looked like he would lose an arm-wrestling match to a gentle breeze.

  "Oh, you better believe it, Lin," Zhu Lihua chimed in from her spot on the grass, a smirk playing on her lips. "This guy... he was so pathetic back then. When Lei and I first saw him, we genuinely thought that any stray wind sweeping off the harbor would pick him up and blow him out to sea."

  Zhu crossed her arms, shaking her head. "To think that this string-bean of a boy would eventually become the world-renowned, legendary adventurer Harrison Aster... it is a miracle in and of itself."

  "Hey, hey!" Harrison protested from his wheelchair, though he was smiling widely. "Don't act like you were some grand, dignified warrior back then either, Zhu! You were completely different, too!"

  With a shift in Harrison's narration, the vibrant memory of Jinlun changed perspective.

  The view panned up from the crowded, noisy streets, moving past the hanging silk ribbons and the red wooden eaves, until it reached the shaded rooftop of a nearby dumpling house.

  Sitting right on the edge of the emerald-green roof tiles, her legs dangling casually over the bustling crowd below, was a small, incredibly boyish-looking kid. She couldn't have been older than twelve. She had short, choppy red hair, a smudge of dirt across her cheek, and was wearing ragged, oversized clothes that had clearly been stolen or scavenged.

  She was glaring down at the street with intense, distrustful eyes, furiously munching on a piece of dried, salted fish as if she were angry at it.

  "That is Zhu," Harrison narrated, a chuckle escaping his lips. "Well, before she was even called Zhu Lihua. Back then, she was just a nameless, homeless demi-god."

  Yukari's jaw literally dropped. She stared at the projection of the scruffy, fish-munching kid, completely unable to process it. "That...? That is Mother?!"

  This was the stoic, terrifying Blaze Lord? The refined military commander of Jinlun who commanded armies with a single glare?

  "That's me," Zhu admitted, completely unbothered, though a faint blush touched her cheeks. "Using my kid form to fly under the radar. I was just observing the flow of the city in Jinlun... until I got violently dragged along by some brash kid with a serious attitude problem."

  "And that kid is...?" Yukari asked, her heart suddenly beating a little faster. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear them say it. She wanted to see her.

  Harrison and Zhu looked at each other under the shade of the Baobab tree, sharing a profound, decades-old smile. They turned back to Yukari and answered in perfect unison.

  "Lei."

  The scene shifted back to the bustling main street.

  Young Harrison was still flipping his useless map, completely lost in his own little world, when a sudden, chaotic commotion erupted from further up the thoroughfare.

  "Move! Move out of the way!" An incredibly energetic, bright young girl's voice shouted over the din of the marketplace.

  The command was immediately followed by a chorus of startled screams from the nearby merchants. Carts of fruit were violently toppled, apples and oranges spilling across the cobblestones. Silk stalls were shoved aside.

  "Princess! Please, don't run!" several deep, panicked male voices roared in pursuit.

  "What in the world is that commotion?" young Harrison thought aloud, his volnearean accent thick. He slowly lowered his map and turned around to look up the street.

  The crowd violently parted like the Red Sea. And barreling straight down the center of the avenue, leaving a sloppy, wet trail of brown sludge in its wake, was... a person? A creature?

  It was completely and utterly caked in thick, dark, foul-smelling swamp mud from head to toe. Not an inch of skin or fabric was visible beneath the dripping, chaotic mess. And it was sprinting at a terrifying, reckless speed directly toward him.

  "Wha—" young Harrison gasped, his eyes widening in pure shock.

  "MOVE!" the mud monster screamed, waving a pair of dripping, sludge-covered arms frantically.

  But Harrison, being the scrawny, inexperienced twig that he was, was entirely too paralyzed by shock to command his legs to dodge. And the mud monster had built up far too much momentum to even attempt hitting the brakes.

  SMACK.

  They collided perfectly.

  It was like being hit by a small, incredibly enthusiastic avalanche of swamp water.

  "OUH!"

  They both screamed simultaneously as the violent impact knocked the wind out of them.

  "Ow, ow, ow..." Harrison cried out. He was sent flying backward, his bony frame hitting the hard stone pavement with a pathetic thud. He instinctively grabbed his forehead, rubbing the rapidly forming bump.

  But worse than the pain was the realization that his hands were empty. The sudden collision had knocked the precious city map right out of his grip. He watched in helpless horror as a strong gust of sea breeze caught the parchment, lifting it high into the air and carrying it over the emerald-green rooftops, lost to the bustling city forever.

  "My map!" Harrison cried out miserably, reaching a muddy hand toward the sky.

  "Ow!" the mud monster groaned, scrambling quickly back up to its feet. The creature shook itself like a wet dog, splattering Harrison with even more foul-smelling sludge.

  "Sorry! But I really gotta go!" the energetic voice squeaked from beneath the mud.

  The creature then did something entirely unexpected. It quickly pressed its muddy hands together and executed a flawless, incredibly formal bow toward the groaning boy on the floor. Then, without missing another beat, the mud monster bolted, darting effortlessly into a narrow, crowded alleyway.

  A second later, the pursuers arrived.

  A squad of heavily panting men wearing pristine, ornate crimson-and-gold armor charged past. They gripped long, polished spears, their heavy iron boots kicking up a massive cloud of dust directly into Harrison's face.

  "Princess, wait!" they all shouted collectively, their voices bordering on sheer panic as they sprinted past the fallen teenager and dove into the alleyway after the sludge creature.

  Young Harrison lay there on the cold stone, covered in swamp mud, his map gone, coughing on the dust left by the armored guards. He slowly blinked his eyes open, staring up at the bright Jinlun sky.

  "What... was that?" Harrison thought, completely utterly bewildered.

  The vision faded, the bright skies of Jinlun dissolving back into the dappled shade of the Baobab tree on the outskirts of Kah-Kamun.

  Yukari sat frozen in the grass, her silver eyes wide as she tried to process the sheer absurdity of the memory. She slowly raised a hand, pointing a trembling finger at the space where the vision had just been.

  "Let me guess," Yukari said, her voice completely deadpan. "That was Mother. Mama Lei."

  "Yep," Harrison and Zhu nodded in perfect, unapologetic unison.

  "I was taken aback in many, many ways that day," Harrison chuckled, leaning back in his wooden wheelchair. "But essentially, that was our very first meeting. Though, we obviously didn't formally know each other's names yet."

  "And I was just watching all this unfold from the nearby rooftop," Zhu added, crossing her arms and leaning her head back against the thick tree trunk. "Watching foolish mortal hijinks play out in the mud."

  "You were very detached back then," Harrison reminisced, shooting the Blaze Lord a knowing look. "You barely interacted with anyone."

  "I was," Zhu agreed, her sharp eyes staring up at the leaves. "But that's just how it was. I was too much of Silas's pawn back then. I had no true will of my own. If the machine's programming told me to observe, I observed. Plain and simple. I didn't care if a boy got trampled by a muddy runaway."

  "Okay... hold on. Let me get this straight," Yukari interrupted, holding up both hands to physically halt the conversation.

  She looked between the two adults. "So, now I know you three came into close proximity to each other that day. You were a literal twig," she pointed accusingly at Harrison. "You were just creepily watching from a roof," she pointed at Zhu. "And somehow... Mama was the one covered head-to-toe in swamp mud?!"

  The words tasted completely foreign on her tongue. It felt like she was describing a fictional character.

  The Lei she remembered—the mother she had mourned—was the absolute, dictionary definition of a regal lady. Yukari’s memories were filled with visions of Lei wearing immaculate, sweeping silk dresses. Not a single strand of her midnight-blue hair was ever out of place. She possessed an indescribable, pristine beauty, carrying the heavy, dignified poise of a Sacred from the ancient Azure Dragon lineage. An absolute, untouchable noble.

  To hear that her mother was once a chaotic, mud-covered gremlin sprinting away from the Royal Guard in the middle of a crowded street? It simply did not add up.

  But this was coming directly from her father’s mouth, corroborated by her adoptive mother. She had to forcefully suspend her own disbelief.

  "Okay... fine," Yukari sighed, aggressively massaging her temples. "What happened next?"

  "Well... not much immediately after that," Harrison said, his brown eyes looking out over the scarred landscape as he dug back into his memories. "After that rather messy meeting, my life was…. quiet. Never met her until a few months later. I had just moved all the way from Volnear with my family—your grandpa and grandma."

  Harrison gestured vaguely to the west. "I had no friends. The culture in Ruhong was entirely different from the industrialized Volnear. The food was spicier, the customs were stricter... so imagine the culture shock to a scrawny kid like me. But, I was getting enrolled in the prestigious Jinlun University. Back then, I thought that was going to be the grand starting point of my scholarly journey."

  "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Pause."

  Yukari shot up onto her knees, her hands flying out in a 'time-out' gesture.

  "You came from Volnear?!" Yukari practically shouted, her silver eyes blowing wide open. "So I'm not only half-Sacred... but also half-Volnearean?! I have living grandparents from your side?! You were enrolled in Jinlun University?! And you wanted to be a scholar?!"

  She lunged forward, grabbing the thin lapels of Harrison's linen shirt.

  "PAPA!" she yelled, gently but firmly shaking the man in the wheelchair. "There is way too much disconnect in your story and how I view both of you and Mama! What is going on?!"

  "Wha—hey!" Harrison yelped, his frail body rattling back and forth under his daughter's sudden assault. He rubbed the back of his head, looking genuinely, innocently confused. "Did... did I not tell you any of this before I left?"

  "No!" Zhu answered for him, letting out a long, long sigh.

  Zhu looked at Yukari with a mix of pity and exasperation. "I really can't blame you for being confused, Lin. Back when you were born... your father was riding the absolute high of his adventuring addiction. He was a legend. He would leave the house every single day, chasing rumors and ancient ruins, leaving a very, very angry Lei to care for you alone."

  Zhu crossed her arms. "That's probably exactly why you never learned any of his family history. He was never home long enough to tell you, and Lei was too annoyed to bring it up."

  Yukari froze, the reality of Zhu's words stinging a little. She slowly let go of Harrison's shirt, sitting back on her heels.

  "Okay..." Yukari took a deep breath to compose herself. "Then what happened to my grandparents? Why did you even come to Ruhong? If you wanted to go to a university for scholarly pursuits, wouldn't staying in Volnear or going to Zarateph be far better? Jinlun University is world-famous for martial arts, military strategy, and business relations! I need to know what happened!"

  She reached out and gave Harrison one more exasperated shake for good measure. "Tell me!"

  "Okay, okay! I understand, I will tell you, Linlin!" Harrison laughed defensively, holding his hands up in surrender.

  Yukari finally let her grip go, crossing her arms with a pout.

  Harrison let out a dry cough, clearing his throat and settling back into the cushions of his wheelchair. The warm breeze rustled the leaves of the Baobab tree above them as he organized his thoughts.

  "Okay, where was I? Right. Volnear," Harrison began, his tone shifting into a smooth, narrative rhythm. "I was the only child to both my parents. The Aster family... we had been a proud family of naval navigators for generations. We charted the treacherous western seas, navigated by the stars, and helped massive merchant fleets with their oceanic transport. It was a good, highly respected living."

  He looked down at his calloused hands. "But during my time, the era was shifting. Volnear had just started to move heavily into railroad machines, utilizing the very first sets of heavy battery technologies that Dr. Wilburt had just created."

  Harrison smiled wryly. "With the new railroads being a significantly faster, safer, and far more efficient form of transport across the land, the demand for oceanic merchant fleets plummeted. And thus, our navigation clients obviously dwindled."

  "So, sensing the impending death of our family trade... my father, Blake Aster, decided it was time to move," Harrison explained. "Ruhong is geographically close to Volnear, across the western border. But more importantly, they hadn't adopted the new railroads yet. They still relied heavily on traditional caravans and ships. And with Jinlun being the absolute hub of continental transactions, my father hoped he could resume and adapt our navigation business there."

  "So you just followed them," Yukari nodded, the pieces slowly starting to click into place.

  "Exactly. Me enrolling in Jinlun University was honestly just a pure coincidence of geography," Harrison said, a wistful laugh escaping him. "Me, personally? I always, desperately wanted to stay in Volnear. I wanted to enroll in the capital's Cindralis University. I dreamt of studying under Dr. Wilburt himself, messing around with gears and lightning Cores... you know, making a mechanical contraption or two."

  Yukari stared at him. She stared at the man who had supposedly conquered the freezing peaks of the north, mapped the deadliest dungeons, and fought legendary beasts with nothing but his wits, a grappling hook, and a pair of crossbows.

  "I understand having to follow your family when you're young," Yukari said, her voice dropping into a deadpan register once more. "But... adventuring?"

  She leaned forward, her silver eyes narrowing accusingly.

  "There is absolutely zero connection, Papa! You wanted to become Dr. Wilburt's nerdy disciple! You wanted to work in a safe, sterile laboratory making batteries! But you ended up traversing scorching deserts, freezing ice caps, and deadly ruins for ancient relics!"

  She reached out and violently shook his shoulders one more time, the sheer whiplash of his character arc driving her crazy. "None of this has any connection to the man you became! How do you go from a scrawny nerd to the world's greatest adventurer?!"

  "Because Lei happened," Harrison smiled. It was a warm, hopelessly nostalgic smile that softened the harsh lines of his gaunt face. "She was the one who influenced me."

  "Me too," Zhu added quietly from the grass, her tone reflecting a rare, unguarded affection.

  "There is just... something about her that violently attracts people like us toward her," Harrison said, looking out toward the horizon as if seeing a ghost dancing in the sunbeams. "A gravity that forces you to step out of your comfort zone, to prove something to her. To prove you can keep up."

  Stolen story; please report.

  Harrison reached out with his trembling hand and gently took Yukari's.

  "So just listen," Harrison said, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "Listen to how I formally met her again."

  Yukari finally let out a long breath, actively calming her fraying nerves. She sat down cross-legged on the grass, leaning forward intently to listen to her father's story.

  "It was the dawn of the new semester," Harrison began, his voice painting the picture once more. "My father thought I went to the university to study Business Relations. You know, because all they wanted from me was to smoothly inherit the family's navigation business, so networking would absolutely help in that case."

  Harrison paused, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. "I lied to them."

  Yukari blinked. "You lied?"

  "I did," Harrison admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I technically did go to Jinlun University... but I completely hid my actual major from my parents. I took..."

  Before Harrison could even finish the sentence, Zhu burst into loud, unapologetic laughter.

  "BWAHAHAHA!" The sound was so startlingly uncharacteristic of the stoic Blaze Lord that a flock of birds roosting in the Baobab tree scattered in a panic. Zhu clutched her stomach, leaning forward into the grass.

  "I took... Martial Arts," Harrison admitted, his cheeks flushing a faint shade of pink despite his age and condition.

  "Bahahahah!" Zhu continued to wheeze, wiping a tear of pure mirth from her eye.

  "You? Martial Arts?!" Yukari was dumbfounded. She looked at her father's scrawny frame in the mental image. "But there are so many other studies you could have taken! You just said you wanted to be a scholar! Why on Calvenoor would you choose Martial Arts as a major?"

  Harrison placed a serious, solemn hand on his daughter's shoulder.

  "Lin... there is something fundamental about the universe that you should know," Harrison said, his tone gravely serious.

  Yukari gulped, leaning in closer, expecting a grand philosophical truth or a revelation about the Void.

  "Your father... is a guy."

  "..........????"

  Yukari stared at him, her brain completely short-circuiting.

  "So, when an incredibly confident upperclassman slapped my back on orientation day and explicitly told me that I would look so cool in front of all the pretty girls if I took Martial Arts..." Harrison shrugged, offering a thoroughly pathetic, boyish grin. "I simply couldn't say no."

  Instantly, the silver light of curiosity in Yukari's eyes died, replaced by an absolutely profound, unfiltered look of utter disgust.

  "Hoo......" Yukari exhaled a long, chilling breath, her face scrunching up as if she had just bitten into a raw lemon.

  Her mind immediately raced to her own husband. If Raito ever did something so incredibly, monumentally stupid just to impress other girls... I would freeze him whole and drop him into the deepest ocean trench, she thought, her frost aura unconsciously flaring for a microsecond.

  At that exact moment, miles away inside the opulent, sunlit dining hall of the Kah-Kamun palace, Raito violently shivered, nearly dropping a massive piece of roasted mutton from his fork. He looked around nervously, rubbing his arms, suddenly feeling a chilling premonition of death crawling up his spine.

  "But hey, that incredibly stupid decision actually worked out for him in the end," Zhu commented, finally catching her breath from her laughing fit. "He ended up getting the absolute most beautiful woman in that entire class."

  "Who?" Yukari asked, still slightly nauseated by her father's teenage logic.

  "Your mother, of course," Zhu said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Once again, the whiplash hit Yukari squarely in the jaw. "Mama was in a Martial Arts class?!"

  "Not just in the class," Harrison corrected, a proud smile breaking through. "She was the teacher's assistant."

  Harrison leaned back, closing his eyes. "Back then, I was honestly only in that class to flirt and look cool. But looking back... the brutal, agonizing endurance training from that class was the only reason I survived my early adventuring days."

  "Anyways..." Harrison continued, painting the scene once more. "That day was my very first class ever. And I absolutely got beaten to a pulp by every single person there."

  The mental image shifted to the grand, wooden-floored class of Jinlun University. Young Harrison was currently face-down on the mat, groaning in agony. He was bruised, drenched in sweat, and covered in chalk dust. He had zero muscle mass, zero stamina, and absolutely zero combat experience. He was an absolute joke. Even the overly confident upperclassman who had invited him to the study was bowing and apologizing profusely to Harrison's bruised, twitching form on the floor.

  "It wasn't until the very end of the class that she approached me," Harrison recounted, his voice softening with pure nostalgia.

  "Lei."

  The vision showed a young woman walking across the mats. She was wearing a crisp, immaculately tailored martial arts uniform. Her midnight-blue hair was tied back in a sleek, high ponytail. She was the picture of lethal grace and pristine nobility. The teacher had formally introduced her earlier as the assistant instructor.

  But obviously, Harrison hadn't connected the dots. He didn't know she was the mud monster from the street. He only knew her by reputation: the school diva. The untouchable noble daughter of the Azure Dragon lineage that literally every single guy in the university desperately wanted to date. An untouchable beauty.

  "So imagine my absolute shock when she walked right past the upperclassmen and approached me after class," Harrison said. "The stare I got from her that day... I still remember it to this very second."

  In the memory, Lei stopped right in front of the bruised, exhausted Harrison. She smelled faintly of expensive jasmine and fresh ink, not a trace of swamp water to be found.

  She looked down at him, a mischievous, sparkling glint in her striking eyes.

  "Ah... I was right. You were the boy from back then, I knew you looked familiar" Lei said, a soft, musical giggle escaping her lips.

  Young Harrison, nursing a black eye, looked up at the stunning upperclassman in complete bewilderment. "Huh? And... you are?" he asked, his voice cracking.

  Lei placed a hand on her hip, her pristine uniform rustling. "Oh, right. You would probably not remember it with me looking perfectly clean like this."

  She leaned down slightly, her voice dropping into a teasing whisper. "Muddy. Drippy. Do those words bring back any painful memories?"

  "Muddy? Drippy?" Harrison thought aloud, his exhausted brain lagging behind. Then, the gears violently clicked into place. The smell of swamp. The ruined map. The collision.

  "AAAAA!" Young Harrison screamed loudly in the quiet class, pointing a shaking, bruised finger at the pristine noblewoman. "You were the mud monster who knocked my map out of my hand!"

  Lei immediately lunged forward, slapping her soft, manicured hand directly over Harrison's mouth to muffle his shout.

  "Shhhhh!" Lei hissed, her eyes darting around the dojo to see if anyone had heard. "That is NOT supposed to be public knowledge! If people find out, my family will get incredibly angry at me!"

  Harrison grunted, aggressively prying Lei's hand away from his face.

  "Who are you, and what do you want from me?!" Harrison asked, highly offended and entirely immune to her charms in that moment of righteous indignation. "And for the record, you bumped into me first!"

  "This is really not the time, and besides, you could've easily dodged!" Lei argued back, her regal composure cracking to reveal a fierce, stubborn temper.

  "How?!" Harrison fired back, standing up despite his aching muscles. "When you suddenly appear out of nowhere in your giant muddy mess and knock me out cold, couldn't you... you know, brake?! Or change direction?!"

  They stood in the middle of the class, completely ignoring the stunned silence of the rest of the class, arguing back and forth in the public eye like an old married couple.

  "I might have gotten a terrible reputation immediately after that day," Harrison laughed softly in the present. "As the scrawny, foreign outsider who actually dared to shout and challenge the untouchable noble diva of the academy... absolutely nobody would approach me after that."

  Harrison smiled, squeezing Yukari's hand gently.

  "Nobody... except the culprit herself. Lei."

  "The very next day," Harrison continued, his thumb gently brushing over Yukari's knuckles, "the social fallout was immediate. Walking through the grand, sunlit courtyards of the university, I was treated like a walking plague. Students parted around me like I was carrying a highly contagious disease. There were harsh glares, aggressive whispers behind hands... the works."

  "I was just about to accept my fate as the resident outcast, when suddenly, a hand reached out from behind a stone pillar, grabbed me by the collar of my uniform, and violently yanked me out of sight."

  The vision shifted. Young Harrison was unceremoniously dragged into a narrow, shaded alleyway tucked directly behind the grand, imposing structure of the university library. The air here was refreshingly cool, completely isolated from the chaotic midday crowds. It smelled of damp moss creeping up the ancient brick walls, old parchment from the nearby archives, and that same faint, intoxicating scent of jasmine.

  He stumbled, his back hitting the rough stone wall. He threw his hands up, fully expecting to be jumped by a gang of angry upperclassmen defending their school diva's honor.

  Instead, standing there with her arms crossed, looking slightly flustered and genuinely guilty, was Lei. She wasn't wearing her crisp martial arts uniform today; she was dressed in a stylish, flowing academy gown that highlighted her regal lineage, yet she looked completely out of place hiding in a dusty alley.

  "She actually came to apologize to me," Harrison said, a tender warmth flooding his voice.

  "Listen," Lei said in the vision, her untouchable, noble aura completely dropped. She awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck, avoiding his gaze for a second. "I am... sorry. About yesterday. And about back then. And maybe today."

  "About what?" young Harrison asked, carefully lowering his guard and adjusting his rumpled collar.

  "About how everyone out there is treating you," she sighed, leaning back against the opposite brick wall. "They're all just mindless sycophants. Because you dared to argue with the 'untouchable noble lady,' they think they need to defend my honor by treating you like garbage. It's incredibly stupid, and it's my fault for making a scene in the class with you."

  "Oh, that," Harrison chuckled, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He waved a hand dismissively. "Honestly, it's fine. It's nothing at all. I was planning on being a quiet scholar anyway. Less distractions this way."

  Lei looked at him, her striking eyes studying his scrawny frame and easygoing smile. The guilt slowly melted away from her features, replaced by a genuine, relaxed expression that made young Harrison's heart skip a painfully hard beat.

  She pushed off the wall, stepped closer to him, and extended her hand.

  "I want to start over," she said, her voice clear, bright, and completely devoid of any noble pretense. "The name's Lei. Lei Meihua. Nice to meet you."

  "And well... why would I ever say no to that?" the present Harrison laughed softly, shaking his head.

  In the vision, young Harrison stared at her hand for a brief second before reaching out and grasping it firmly. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her soft palm lined with the hard-earned callouses of years of relentless martial arts training.

  "Uh, Harrison," he stammered, his cheeks flushing slightly under her intense gaze. "Harrison Aster."

  "Well then, Harrison Aster," Lei smiled, her eyes crinkling beautifully at the corners. "Nice to finally talk to you normally like this."

  She let go of his hand, but before she stepped away to leave the alley, she leaned in slightly closer. A mischievous, wicked gleam sparkled in her dark eyes.

  "Oh, and just between you and me..." she whispered, her voice dropping into a teasing, playful lilt. "If you really just came to that class to flirt with girls... you won't get very far looking like a stiff breeze could snap you in half."

  She let out a bright, musical giggle that echoed delightfully off the brick walls, turned on her heel, and walked out of the alleyway, leaving young Harrison standing there, absolutely dumbfounded and completely, entirely captivated.

  "She saw right through me from day one," Harrison chuckled in the present, a solitary tear of pure joy escaping his eye.

  "After that day in the alley, we gradually grew closer," Harrison continued, the memory shifting seamlessly. "Not because I was particularly charismatic, or incredibly smart, or anything romantic like that. It was mostly because... I just kept getting relentlessly injured in class."

  Harrison let out a hearty laugh. "Whether it was from the other upperclassmen who were still bitterly jealous of me actually speaking to her, or simply from my own clumsy, uncoordinated mistakes... I was awful. I genuinely had zero talent for martial arts."

  The vision materialized on the university rooftop. The sun was dipping low over the horizon, casting a warm, honeyed golden light across the sprawling terracotta tiles. The sweeping view of Jinlun at sunset was breathtaking, the city painted in shades of deep amber and fiery orange. This quiet, breezy spot had quickly become their frequent, unofficial rendezvous point.

  Young Harrison was sitting on the edge of a low stone parapet, wincing loudly. He looked like a patchwork quilt of pain. A fresh, ugly purple bruise was blooming across his cheekbone, and his knuckles were scraped raw.

  Standing over him, bathed in the golden hour light, was Lei. She held a small, ceramic jar of medicinal paste, her delicate fingers thoroughly coated in the pungent, green substance.

  "You absolutely have no talent at this," Lei stated with brutal, unfiltered honesty, dabbing a generous glob of the cooling mint ointment directly onto a swelling lump on Harrison's forehead.

  "Hsssst!" Harrison inhaled sharply through his teeth, his entire body flinching from the sudden sting. "Then what should I do?"

  "Just quit," Lei said simply, capping the small ceramic jar. She leaned against the parapet beside him, the warm wind ruffling her dark hair. "This is literally just the starting class, you know. The beginner's foundation. You can still leave and easily choose another study to take. Business. Literature. Something where you don't end up looking like a pulverized tomato every Tuesday."

  "No way!" young Harrison said, puffing out his scrawny chest despite the pain radiating from his ribs. "Mama ain't raise no quitter!"

  "I don't even know why I was so incredibly stubborn back then," the present Harrison laughed softly under the Baobab tree. "I didn't even have any hidden goals or grand aspirations yet. It was just pure, unadulterated stubbornness."

  In the vision, Lei sighed, crossing her arms and pointing a critical finger at his battered frame.

  "Well, this 'mama's boy' is getting snapped in half during every single training session," Lei pointed out mercilessly. "You came back today with more fresh bruises than actual experience. Are you still just trying to look strong for the girls? Because it's having the exact opposite effect."

  "No," Harrison said honestly, the bravado fading. He looked down at his bruised hands. "Not really. Not anymore."

  "Then just quit," Lei argued again, her voice softening slightly with genuine concern. "You're going to get seriously hurt if you keep forcing your body through this."

  "Okay, okay. I will. Maybe. Probably," Harrison mumbled, kicking his heels against the stone wall. He looked up at her, his eyes wide and pleading like a kicked puppy. "But... should I? Really? Can't you give me just one last chance?"

  He leaned forward slightly. "You are the instructor's assistant, right? You're practically running the class. Can't you do something to help me?"

  Lei stared at him. She stared at his ridiculous, bruised face, the stubborn set of his jaw, and the sheer, idiotic determination shining in his eyes.

  "You're completely hopeless," Lei sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as if staving off an incoming headache.

  She let out a long, defeated breath and looked back at him, her dark eyes suddenly sharpening with the fierce intensity of a true martial artist.

  "Fine. One last chance," Lei declared, holding up a single finger. "The midterm sparring session is in three weeks. You better win your match. If you don't... I will personally tell the instructor to kick you out of the program for your own safety."

  "Great! You won't regret it!" young Harrison cheered, his face lighting up instantly. He tried to pump his fist in the air, only to wince immediately as his bruised shoulder protested.

  "And..." Lei added, cutting off his celebration. She stepped closer, poking a firm finger directly into the center of his chest. "I will personally tutor you from now on."

  Harrison blinked. "You will?"

  "Yes. Every single day after class, you better come straight to my place," Lei ordered, a dangerous, competitive fire igniting in her eyes. "I am going to beat your ass until you physically memorize every single foundational form. Do you understand?!"

  "Yes, ma'am!" Harrison practically shouted, snapping off a sloppy but enthusiastic salute. He dropped his hand, a sudden thought occurring to him. "Wait. Your place? Where exactly is your place?"

  "Amber Palace. The westernmost room," Lei stated flatly.

  At the exact same time Lei spoke the words in the vision, Yukari echoed them perfectly in the present.

  "Amber Palace. The westernmost room," Yukari murmured, her silver eyes widening in sudden realization.

  The words hung in the warm air beneath the Baobab tree. A deep, profound wave of nostalgia and connection washed over Yukari, melting away the last traces of her earlier frustration.

  "I guess..." Yukari said softly, a tender, emotional smile finally breaking across her face as she looked at her father. "Our room is still exactly the same... even back then."

  "I agreed to her terms, of course," Harrison continued, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. "I agreed instantly. But... that was the very first time I was going to an actual noble house. Let alone a sprawling estate like the Amber Palace. Even to this day, going to places with that much ridiculous grandeur is still not my thing."

  The vision shifted from the warm sunset of the rooftop to the intimidating, towering red-and-gold front gates of the Amber palace estate.

  "So imagine exactly how I felt back then," Harrison said. "Still a scrawny wimp, standing in front of gates big enough to swallow a merchant galleon, being physically held back by a pair of heavily armored guards."

  In the memory, young Harrison was desperately trying to inch past two massive men clad in full, polished crimson armor. They had their heavy halberds crossed firmly in an 'X' right in front of his nose. Harrison, wearing his modest, slightly dirt-stained linen clothes, looked entirely out of place in the opulent surroundings.

  "I'm telling the truth!" Harrison argued, raising his hands defensively. "I came here because Lei—I mean, the Lady Lei told me so!"

  "Nonsense, kid," the guard on the left sneered, looking down his nose at the boy. "There is absolutely no way a noble of her high standing invited someone looking like a lost beggar to the inner courtyard."

  "But it's true!" Harrison argued again, bouncing on his heels anxiously.

  "Then where is your official invitation notice? A wax-sealed scroll? You must have it, right?" the guard on the right demanded, holding out a gauntleted hand.

  "I... I don't have it," Harrison said meekly, his voice shrinking. "She just told me verbally..."

  "Thought so," the first guard laughed, an ugly, condescending sound. "Do you have any idea how many desperate people claim to be the Princess's 'friend' just to get a peek inside? Too many, kid. You are not special."

  The guard stepped forward, pushing Harrison back with the flat shaft of his halberd. "Scram!" they ordered in unison.

  "Wait!"

  A voice cut through the tension like a silver blade.

  The heavy jade gates creaked open slightly, and the sweet, familiar scent of jasmine washed over the entrance. Lei stepped out. She wasn't wearing her martial arts uniform, nor her heavy noble gowns, but a casual, light blue tunic that still somehow radiated absolute authority.

  "He is with me," Lei's voice rang out, clear and commanding.

  The faces of the two guards instantly drained of color. It was absolutely priceless. They quickly scrambled to uncross their weapons and bowed deeply at the waist.

  "Are you... are you sure, Princess?" the guard on the right asked, stealing a very confused glance at Harrison. "He is a... guy."

  "I'm sure. Don't worry," Lei said dismissively, walking past the guards to grab Harrison by the sleeve. "He is entirely too weak to even attempt anything against me. He is just here for a private tutoring session."

  Harrison physically winced in the vision, clutching his chest. Harsh. But... completely true, he thought miserably.

  "A tutoring session, Princess?" the left guard tried to caution, his brow furrowing with genuine concern. "But... your—"

  "No," Lei cut him off immediately. Not a single word of argument.

  She turned her head, and the easygoing girl from the alleyway vanished. Her dark eyes sharpened into a terrifying, glacial glare that seemed to drop the ambient temperature of the entrance by ten degrees.

  "Not one word. Understood?" Lei demanded softly.

  The guards gulped visibly and bowed lower. "Understood, Princess."

  "Her angry face... it was something that genuinely shook me to my core that day," the present Harrison admitted, a ghost of a shiver running down his spine.

  "With that rather intense display of power, I finally entered the Amber Palace," Harrison recounted. "She completely bypassed the grand halls and dragged me straight to the secluded inner practice courtyard."

  The vision showed a modest, walled-off section of the estate. It lacked the opulence of the front gates. There were no soft tatami mats here. Just hard-packed, dusty earth, several heavily dented bamboo striking posts, and the blazing afternoon sun.

  "She told me, 'This is where we will train from now on. No mats. Just hard ground and our own grit,'" Harrison said.

  "And let me tell you, she was relentless," Harrison laughed, though it sounded slightly pained. "She was an incredibly harsh teacher. And sometimes... a genuinely bad one."

  In the memory, Lei was circling Harrison, correcting his stance by lightly kicking the back of his knees.

  "No, no, no! Not like that! Like this!" Lei instructed animatedly, her hands flying through the air. "You step forward, and then... Byoo! And then you twist your hips and... Booosh!"

  She accompanied her flawless, lethal strikes with ridiculous, loud sound effects, leaving young Harrison completely baffled.

  "She would always just say 'not like that, like this', and then make random noises like byoo and booosh to demonstrate how body mechanics should work," Harrison sighed.

  "Wait... that sounds incredibly familiar," Yukari interrupted, her brow furrowing.

  She slowly turned her head, fixing a very flat, unimpressed stare at Zhu Lihua.

  "Wait a minute. Don't tell me," Yukari said, the realization dawning on her. "Your horrible, cryptic training style... it wasn't even yours? It was entirely based on her?!"

  "Your mother? Yes," Zhu admitted shamelessly, crossing her arms and looking entirely unbothered by the accusation. "I might have taken some heavy inspiration from her. Since I never actually formally trained someone before I trained you, I just used what I remembered."

  Yukari let out a long, long sigh, aggressively rubbing her temples. Years of trying to decipher Zhu's ridiculous 'swoosh' and 'bam' instructions suddenly made agonizing sense.

  "Continue," Yukari said to Harrison, pointing a finger at him while keeping an eye on Zhu.

  "Right," Harrison chuckled. "Either way, despite the terrible verbal instructions, the physical training was incredibly hard on me. I had barely even exercised properly before coming to Jinlun, let alone fought. But..."

  Harrison's tone shifted, the amusement fading into a focused, analytical memory.

  "There was always something very odd that I noticed when we trained," Harrison said.

  In the vision, Lei was demonstrating a complex sweeping kick. But right in the middle of her flow, a grand clock bell chimed in the distance. She stopped instantly, her breathing slightly heavier than it should have been. She grabbed a towel, wiped her forehead, and pointed to the gate. "Done for today. Go home," she ordered abruptly.

  "We would always end exactly at the 15-minute mark," Harrison noted. "Not a single second more."

  "I didn't think much of it at the very beginning. I was usually too busy coughing up dust and trying not to pass out," Harrison admitted. "But as the days went by, it made me much more conscious of her habits. I realized she had the exact same condition back in our university class. She only ever actively demonstrated or sparred for exactly 15 minutes. Never more."

  Harrison looked at Yukari, his brown eyes solemn.

  "Something is very off, I thought to myself back then. A martial artist of her incredible caliber... shouldn't be so strictly limited by a quarter of an hour."

  Until…

  Harrison's voice dropped, the fond nostalgia turning into a grave whisper. "I found her collapsed in the back alleyway behind the class."

  The vision shifted abruptly. The warm golden hour was replaced by the damp, chilling shadows of an early evening alley. The air smelled of wet cobblestones and spilled tea from the nearby merchant stalls. Young Harrison was walking home when he spotted a figure crumpled against the brick wall.

  "Lei!" he shouted in the memory, sprinting toward her. He dropped to his knees, heedless of the dirt, and gently cradled her upper body in his arms.

  "Hey, are you okay? Lei, talk to me!" Harrison pleaded, panic bleeding into his young voice.

  She stirred. Her normally vibrant midnight-blue hair was plastered to her forehead with cold sweat. She weakly opened her eyes, struggling to focus on his face.

  "Harrison... is that you?" she whispered, her voice incredibly frail, lacking any of her usual fierce energy.

  "Yeah, it's me. I'm here. What happened?" Harrison asked, his hands trembling as he supported her. "Do you need help? Should I call for a healer? Or the instructors?"

  "No!" Lei gasped, her hand shooting up to weakly grip his shirt. "Not one word. This is... this is something that must be kept secret."

  "But... but look at you!" Harrison argued, his brow furrowed in deep concern. He felt her skin through the fabric of her uniform. "You're completely pale. And you're weirdly cold... like ice. You need a healer!"

  "I know," Lei said, her breathing shallow and ragged. "I just... overexerted myself. Please, Harrison. Just take me back to the Amber Palace secretly. You can do that... right?"

  In the vision, young Harrison looked absolutely torn. The conflict was written plainly across his expressive face. On one hand, he couldn't just leave her like this; every instinct screamed at him to get professional help immediately. On the other hand, the sheer, desperate honesty in her pleading eyes made it impossible to ignore her request.

  But ultimately, the heavy burden of that decision would not be made by him.

  Suddenly, Lei's dark eyes blew wide open with raw terror. She looked past his shoulder.

  "Harrison, look out!" Lei screamed, her voice cracking.

  Before Harrison could even turn his head to see the threat, something incredibly hard and heavy swung from the shadows, slamming brutally against the back of his skull.

  A sickening CRACK echoed in the alleyway.

  The vision violently shattered into blackness as young Harrison was knocked completely unconscious.