"After all, Dad has been dead for twenty years."
"My childhood memories have faded. It's funny, really. My impression of Dad is mostly built from other people's boasts, the few brief lines in the history books, or the Storytellers in teahouses vividly recounting the tales of General Zheng Haoran."
Zheng Xiu looked down, clutching his chest, his brow furrowed.
He was speaking to Feng Bei in an unusually calm tone, as if he were just telling a story like any other day.
"Dad's death changed my life. I should have been doted on by my parents, born with a silver spoon in my mouth. If Dad had returned victorious from the war twenty years ago, I'd be a second-generation noble right now. His merits would have been enough for me to run rampant throughout Daqian, content to be a playboy scion."
"Truthfully, back in the early years when I was suffering and being bullied, I often thought that if Dad hadn't died, those bastards wouldn't have dared to bully my sister and me."
