"Hmm?" Lin Fang blinked. "My father?"
Feng Xiu's sentence had sliced itself in half mid-air, and the silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Lin Fang stared at him, pulse climbing up his throat. "My father? You know my father?"
Feng Xiu shut his eyes for a brief mont, as if bracing himself. When he opened them again, there was resignation there—not reluctance, but the heaviness of soone about to reopen a wound that never closed.
"Actually… yes," he said quietly. "Lin Weiying and I were in the sa batch in the Hunter Academy."
Lin Fang's breath caught. "My father… studied at the Hunter Academy? I thought he studied at business school."
"Yeah, he did study at business school too..." Feng Xiu nodded slowly, then reached for his desk drawer. Sothing tallic clinked, and he pulled out a photo fra wrapped in the soft haze of old mories. He held it for a second, thumb brushing its surface as if debating whether this was a mistake.
Taking a deep breath, he then passed it to Lin Fang.
The mont Lin Fang's fingers closed around the fra, warmth rushed through him.
Seven young people stood in the old photograph, all in academy uniforms and laughing.
"This is ," Feng Xiu said, pointing to the far right—a thin, pale boy who looked like he'd been surviving on caffeine and spite.
"And this," Feng's finger slid to the third person, "is your dad."
Lin Fang's throat tightened. The young man in the picture looked nothing like the shadowy mory he had pieced together from grandparents' stories—this version of Lin Weiying seed bright, confident, and annoyingly handso.
His hand moved without thought, tracing the outline gently.
Then his gaze drifted to the girl beside him, who had his hands over her neck.
A breathtaking beauty with a slender face, cut like fine crystal, hair tied loosely behind her shoulders, one hand resting casually on Lin Weiying's shoulder. Her smile was subtle, but her presence stole the fra.
"Who is this?" Lin Fang asked, pointing at her. "She seed quite close with my dad."
Feng Xiu blinked. "Who else? Your mother."
Everything inside Lin Fang screeched to a halt.
"Eh?"
He stared at the photograph again, harder this ti.
That woman—this woman—looked nothing like the mother he rembered.
Nothing like the woman who had left him behind without a backward glance.
Nothing like the woman who remarried and pretended he never existed.
The features didn't match.
The aura didn't match.
The entire existence didn't match.
This woman had foreign blood—exotic eyes, sharp cheekbones, a presence that felt both fierce and gentle.
His heart thudded unevenly. "This is my mother?"
Feng Xiu frowned faintly. "What's with that reaction? You didn't recognize her?"
Lin Fang shook his head slowly, voice barely audible.
"No. My mother looked nothing like this. This woman looks a bit like half foreigner. Looks might change, but not one's race. My mother was a complete Zhonggou descendant."
A ripple of confusion passed through Feng Xiu's expression.
"Nothing like her? But this woman—" he tapped the girl in the fra, "—was definitely the one your father was with. Your batch called them the 'twin teors.' They were inseparable back then."
Lin Fang held the fra tighter.
His heartbeat stung.
This woman and the woman who abandoned him are sa? Why don't they look the sa at all?
Lin Fang's fingers tightened around the photo fra as if the truth might spill out if he held it hard enough.
"You an," he said slowly this ti to confirm that last bit of shred in his heart, "this is Su Lin? My mother? You sure?"
Feng Xiu froze mid-breath. "Su Lin?"
He looked genuinely thrown off, the na landing in the room like a rock dropped into still water.
"No," Feng Xiu said after a heartbeat. "Her na is Rachel. Rachel Li."
Rachel?
A na that didn't belong anywhere in Lin Fang's childhood. Lin Fang never even heard of it before.
Lin Fang shook his head imdiately. "That's impossible. She must've been just my father's girlfriend back then. She's not my mother. My mother's na is Su Lin."
Feng Xiu's brows furrowed deeply. "No… that makes no sense. I went to the hospital after you were born. I saw her holding you. Are you telling you had no idea who your parents were? Did your father… marry again?"
His voice trailed off.
Lin Fang didn't answer.
Because answers had already begun breaking inside him.
His mories before age nine weren't full. They were more in fragnts, but they weren't that clear. He could rember his mother Su Lin's face here and there. He didn't know how she treated him before the accident, but since he had mories of her at his ho, it would definitely an that she is his mother. That only made Lin Fang suspect that this white-haired woman is just his father's ex, and Feng Xiu might be confused about him.
Either that, or his mother was actually his father's second wife, and the so-called baby Feng XIu saw at the hospital was probably soone else.
As Lin Fang tried to make sense of his own logic, his mind whirled, spinning so other questions that he didn't have an answer for.
What if… his mother had died early?
What if his father remarried quietly after?
What if the woman who left him wasn't his biological mother at all?
If that were the case, the woman he grew up calling mother could abandon him without hesitation. it would perfectly make sense.
It would also make sense why she remarried so quickly or why his grandparents pushed him toward independence too early, as if distancing themselves from him. Perhaps, because his grandparents weren't his grandparents
His chest tightened at those thoughts.
But then another mory rose—of the sister who had stayed with him when his mother remarried soone else, although four years later, when he was 14, she too left him and never even called him back...
"If what you say is true," Lin Fang spoke in a hushed tone, "then… do I have any siblings?"
Feng Xiu nodded without hesitation. "Yeah. Of course. Your twin sister. Lin Siyi."
Lin Fang's blood ran cold. "Twin?"
His voice cracked on the word.
A bizarre, numb disbelief spread through him.
A twin sister?
But he already had an older sister whose mories, even if fragnted, he still had since he knew how to walk.
Suddenly, whatever things that made sense and didn't make sense crashed down altogether as he realized this was a giant misunderstanding from Feng Xiu for so reason.
He stared at Feng Xiu, expression twisting between confusion and exhaustion.
For a fleeting mont, he wondered if Feng Xiu was testing him, manipulating him, or simply insane.
But no—the man's face held no deception. It seed only concern.
Lin Fang sucked in a breath, steadying his heart, and said firmly, "Let's leave this topic for another ti. We'll talk about it later. Right now… let's focus on the matter at hand."
He set the photo fra down gently.
Lin Fang then slid the wolf mask over his face with a quiet click. The mont it covered him, his heart steadied even more, and his breath deepened. "Anyway, shall we proceed to the test?"
"A mask comforts you that much?" Feng Xiu asked softly, one brow lifting.
Lin Fang inclined his head. "Yes. And it's better for everyone if I keep it on."
Feng Xiu didn't press. He exhaled, a long breath that sounded heavier than the room. "Well, your biotrics are already linked to your file. Mask or no mask won't change who you are in our system."
"Thank you," Lin Fang nodded.
But behind the mask, his eyes sharpened.
He would not show Tiamat's power in the test.
After Myra's fiasco, enough secrets had escaped his grasp. The next ones should be guarded like blood.
Feng Xiu then tapped the desk once, rose, and said:
"Alright, follow ."
The door hissed open.
Cool morning air filtered into the hallway as Feng Xiu led the way out of the office, projecting authority with every step. Lin Fang's boots echoed behind him, purposeful and asured. Staff mbers stiffened when the duo passed, bowing slightly—so in fear, others in curiosity.
Most eyes lingered on the wolf mask.
They descended a set of stairs into a quiet wing of the rest zone—an area sealed off with reinforced silver alloy doors and scanners that humd with security barriers thicker than steel walls.
"Training Facility Three," Feng Xiu announced as they approached the final gate.
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