Chapter 263: The Flame Of Your Hearts
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“For the first time in my entire life, Anna, I felt truly alive…” smiled the heavenly empress. “When I did something nobody else would do with their food. When I ran into the village in the middle of the night carrying bags of food and went into the darkest and most dangerous places of the village. And I met them, the children; they looked at me with fear. They thought I was going to beat them like the other thugs…”
The scene changed, and it showed exactly what she described. The young empress was in front of the children, hiding in the corners of the village covered in mud and filth.
“Hahh… Hahh…” she was gasping for air, looking at their misery.
With pity.
And empathy.
“Please calm down… I won’t hurt you,” she sighed. “Here, please eat… I brought everything I have. It’s mostly rice and seeds. T-There’s some fish in there- Woah!”
The children immediately jumped towards the bags of food, tearing them open and eating the seeds, rice, and the grilled fish.
They were like savages, and the little crane was afraid of them for a moment, but she didn’t back down; she remained there until all dozens of them finished eating.
She noticed as they ate that they didn’t fight for the food and equally distributed it, or well, as much as they could.
“It felt satisfying to finally do something in my life…” the empress sighed. “To finally act, even as weak and pathetic as I was. I helped people… I made of my life something else than just the empty husk I had become after my parent’s deaths.”
“Master…” I couldn’t help but smile at her. “And what happened?” I asked.
“Once they finished eating, well…”
The girl stayed there until they finished eating, and then she smiled back at them with a gentle smile.
“Was it tasty?” she asked.
The kids felt slightly weird, afraid even now…
Why would someone ever give them anything?
In this harsh world full of shit?
They thought it was a scheme, that she wanted to manipulate them or something; maybe the food was poisoned and she was going to use their bodies for something.
“W-What do you want from us?”
“Why did you feed us? Was it poisoned?”
“Just why did you show us kindness? What’s the reason?”
The kids asked; the black cat was there too; the boy had grown up a lot and looked… very bitter, glaring at her with suspiciousness.
“She’s probably up to something! I’ve only seen a white crane before, and she just ran away when I met her! She’s no good; she poisoned us or something!”
“It’s you,” the girl said. “Listen, I’m really sorry… A-Ah, I got some more fish here; can you give it to your sister?”
“My sister?!” The kid started crying, slapping the girl’s hand as the fish fell in the mud. The kids gasped due to the waste of food. “My sister died! She died of hunger… Her little body… her little body couldn’t hold on anymore… Mom used to feed her milk, but mom grew sick and died… I couldn’t… I couldn’t protect her… I was… I’m a terrible brother…”
The boy fell to the mud, crying tears of regret and sorrow.
Hue Xian remained in silence, looking at him, regretting her own decisions.
If she hadn’t run away that time, if she had invited them to her house.
If she had fed the boy and his sister…
She wouldn’t be dead right now.
“Maybe most people would find it stupid to ever blame yourself for something outside of your control,” the empress sighed. “But to me, that moment… It impacted me more than you imagine. It made me realize that there was a way for me to change people’s fate. If only I had done the right thing, if only I had given food—something as simple as food, which I always had plenty of—lives could have been saved. And the boy in front of me wouldn’t be crying.”
“I-It wasn’t exactly your fault-”
“It was!” she roared. “It was my fault she died! It was my fault my parents died too! This is my penitence; these are my sins! I carry many with me. The regret, the guilt! I… this is also part of my power. The power of Hope… Forgive me, I… I lost my composure. So old I am, yet to think old memories could move my heart. I am quite literally an old granny now, and yet… I have such outbursts of emotions. How shameful of me…”
“I-It’s fine… You’re a person at the end of the day, master,” I held her hands, caressing her feathers. “You’re a wonderful person… Don’t say such things about yourself… I admire you.”
“Anna,” she muttered. “I… Ahem, well… I am grateful, but let us continue.”
“Ah, yes…” I nodded.
The scene changed again; the kids that did not trust Master at first were fed regularly by her.
It was almost something that happened every few days, at least twice a week.
She couldn’t feed them every day; her farm wouldn’t give her enough food after all.
She fished as much as she could, picked fruits and berries, and edible herbs and roots.
Master fed the children without asking for anything in return.
Over time, they slowly trusted her.
“As I slowly got to know the children and the other poor people of the village and fed them, I learned about their lives, their stories, and how they ended where they were,” she said. “Most of them were simply born already in the streets, never ever given a chance at anything… I took upon my responsibility to take care of as many people as I could. But I mostly prioritized the children; they were the most vulnerable. The beggars that were old and wrinkly… they knew how to survive—to steal and deceive. But the children had yet to know how to survive the way the world wanted to. There was a chance for me to correct their path.”
“And so… let me guess, you recruited them?” I wondered.
“Naturally,” she nodded. “I felt guilt for what I couldn’t do, and I felt responsible for their wellbeing. Many of the people that saw me doing these things mocked me. They even reprimanded me and tried to assault me and steal the food from me, but I had wings, and they didn’t. Bird tribes were very rare around that area, so I flew away every time. My wings were my greatest weapon, but I only fled; I never fought.”
The scene showed young Hue Xian walking through the hidden path to her house, the children right behind her. The grumpy black cat that had blamed her for her sister’s death had changed a bit.
He had become overprotective of her and was always watching her back; although he still acted grumpy, he was perhaps the most loyal of the kids.
“I never asked you guys names! Especially you, what’s your name? I’m Hue Xian!” she said with a cute smile.
“M-My name is Ku Zi…” sighed the boy. “My sister was Ku Za… It means Right Half and Left Half in the tongue of our tribe…”
“Oh…” Hue Xian sighed. “I-I see…”
“Hmm, you know, you don’t… need to blame yourself for it. I was dumb, sorry…” the kid said. “Err, you’ve done a lot, so… I feel bad for it… I want to help somehow… at least to help you get the food.”
“Thank you, Ku Zi! And sure, everyone come!”
She led them to her house, big and old, surrounded by so much vegetation it was impossible to discern from above and even in the path.
This was the little sanctuary her parents built, hidden from the world outside.
“The path is sure thorny around here- Woah…”
“This is your house?!”
“So you’re rich then!”
“I-I’m not, I have no money, I just get food from the big farm and the river…” Hue Xian said. “But I always feel lonely. If you want, I can let you live inside… as long as you help me with the chores. And take a bath first.”
“R-Really?!”
“But this is…”
“Are we really worthy?”
“We’re just poor beggars good for nothing... Why would you go out of your way to help us so much?”
“I… I don’t know, I just want to, okay?” Hue Xian smiled. “I feel better when I use what I have to help others… It makes me feel like… Like I exist.”
“You’re weird… haha,” laughed Ku Zi. “This world, since I was born, has been harsh and horrible. People kill each other all the time... Everyone starves to death. Only the strong and wealthy live, or their relatives. Yet you’re neither strong nor wealthy… But you help others anyway, for no reason at all…”
“Thank you, Hue…”
“Thanks…”
“I-I want to help as much as I can!”
“Me too…”
The kids nodded, looking at Hue Xian with smiles full of…
Hope.
The world, which they had always thought to be so empty, crude, and cold…
So ugly and filthy, and full of hunger and pain.
A single girl, with wings, an angel, brought them food.
She asked for nothing.
She did nothing else than feed them and talk with them.
There were never ulterior motives.
Just pure kindness.
From the bottom of her heart.
And with her kindness, these innocent and young souls were rekindled.
The flame of hope once more lit up inside their hearts.
“And that’s when I felt it, for the first time,” she smiled. “I’ve eaten grass that activated meridians but was unable to control my Ki before. It was unstable… You see, every person is born with some sort of Elemental Ki. Oftentimes dictated based on the place they live, what they eat… or their bloodline. My bloodline, the White Cranes, were graceful and beautiful, but weak. Our talent with Ki manipulation was very pathetic. And our kind was often used as slaves, luxurious slave concubines for wealthy and strong people.”
“However, in that moment, when I had already given up on cultivating, when I had lost the Hope to use strength to save the weak… It surged. My element. An element I created, that I cultivated with my kindness and my actions, with changing the children’s fates… by rekindling the flame of hope inside their hearts.”
The scene showed it clearly.
As the children thanked her, from their chests, little flames of gold surged.
And they flew inside of Hue Xian’s chest, fusing with her heart.
FLASH!
“W-What is this?”
She gasped, unable to ever believe her eyes.
The children were surprised too; they saw the tiny flames reach her; they were shocked.
“T-This is… Amazing! Hue Xian! You awakened as a Cultivator! That’s the Aura of Ki!”
“You did? So nice!”
“You can be strong now! You won’t be trampled!”
“Hue Xian! I’m so happy!”
As the kids became happier, the flame became stronger. Hue Xian, who was always weak and meek, and only ran away…
Could now finally feel the strength of her bonds with the children; their emotions became her power, her element…
Hope.
“Instead of refining a Martial Core, my heart was refined by my element; it became a Heart of Hope,” she said. “I became stronger by giving Hope to people and keeping it up. By helping and asking for nothing in return… It wasn’t exactly my own power; it was the strength of everyone that relied on me…”
“Master… It’s so wonderful!”
“It is, isn’t it? This heart of mine…” she sighed. “I cultivated the power of Hope for three more years. Living with the children and becoming stronger. I learned to wield its flames, to use its power to move faster, to strike faster. I hunted Martial Beasts with them and taught them to become strong too.”
“A-And?”
“And eventually, of course… I avenged the old rat man. He was the grandfather of two of the children I took care of…” she sighed. “They loved him very dearly, and they were very traumatized after the death of their grandfather… I took revenge for them and fought that panda man. My first ever challenge.”
“W-When you were just a child?” I gasped.
“Yes…” she smiled. “Well, a young adult by then.”
Yeah, she’s truly a protagonist, huh?
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Author's Note: I know these last couple chapters been boring so far for some people, and I'm sorry if this isn't what you expected the story to be. But I was very invested into writing these characters, their backstories, and everything related to this amazing power Anna will inherit, which will help her all the way to the end of the story.
So I thought I had to put more effort into everything, more passion, more emotion, and all of that. I know everyone wants action and battles, don't worry, you'll get plenty of that too, you'll get as many battles as we also have chapters like this. So I ask you to have patience and appreciate things besides battles. Thanks for reading so far!