Chapter 1623 Forward
Selheira spoke about her parents. It turned out that her mother actually wasn't a Crystal Dragon, but was rather a Fire Dragon, an odd union, to be sure.
Usually, it was Fire Dragon men taking hold of Crystal Dragon women. This was probably the most common union across the entire Dragon Clan.
Selheira didn't see her mom often. She was quite a proud and arrogant woman, as one might expect. Even so, she was quite gentle around Selheira and coddled her as much as her husband did.
So as one might expect, Selheira's childhood wasn't filled with much hardship at all.
"How did your parents meet, then?" Ryu asked, a bit confused.
The banishing of Crystal Dragons shouldn't have been a recent matter.
Selheira smiled, pressing her cheek against Ryu's.
"My father went to get her."
Ryu could hear the smile in her voice, and he understood the implication. It seems the old man wasn't so gentle after all. He could probably imagine the pushback.
However, they clearly didn't quite have a happily ever after. The old man was here while his wife was probably still on the Ninth Heaven. Though it seemed she came to visit from time to time, because Selheira was a Crystal Dragon, she couldn't be by her mother's side for extended periods of time.
It was also clear by the way that Selheira spoke about them, that she didn't hate her parents. She actually loved them quite deeply. She probably hated the fact she was born a Crystal Dragon and not a Fire Dragon.
"What about you, husband? How was your childhood?"
Ryu smiled. "Good..."
He talked about his parents, his grandparents. He had quite a unique experience as a man born to such a high-level Clan. He had practically the full support of four separate Clans and even now, he was considered their successor.
Selheira didn't even know her grandparents. Well, that was because most of them were dead, and the two that weren't had too many grandchildren and children to care for.
"Then he..."
Ryu shook his head. "Primus is technically my great grandfather. In practice, he's nothing of the sort."
Selheira's pupils flickered. She had never really made the distinction. Whether she liked her grandparents or not, they were still her grandparents. But Ryu seemed to draw a hard line, dividing what it meant to be family and what it meant to be a sperm donor.
"Then how do you want to raise your... child?" Selheira suddenly asked. "I don't want you to get angry, husband... but you are very similar to your gr... Primus, don't you think?"
Ryu paused, not answering immediately.
Was he similar to Primus? He didn't really think so. They might seem similar on the surface, but they diverted in a way that was more important than anything else, and that was family.
He could never imagine leaving his family to rot because of some Dao Heart built on a bed of fragile glass. He couldn't stand the idea at all.
And it wasn't like Primus was just ignoring an extended family, and it wasn't like he had a thousand kids to worry about either. He had just one son. Just one grandson. Just one great grandson.
And lifting a finger to help any one of them seemed to be too much work for the old man.
"I will cherish my family," Ryu said firmly.
Was that not what he was doing right now? He didn't want to waste time coddling his women, learning every little detail about them or balancing their emotions.
It sounded cruel to even say, but it wasn't that he didn't care about them... it was rather that he felt that his purpose, his drives and goals, were actually a higher priority in his mind than this.
He cherished his women, he would give them anything they asked for, allow them to do as they pleased, but the extra step beyond felt like... a waste of time.
It was that extra step, though, that he was trying to take more often. Because he believed that they deserved it.
And that was a step he was certain Primus would never take.
The duo fell into silence as Ryu continued to walk. It was hard to tell how far they had gone, and there didn't seem to be an end to the path coming anytime soon.
"Then do you want a lot of children, husband?" Selheira asked.
Ryu raised an eyebrow. He never really thought about it. But he would have to give his wives at least one child each, right? He couldn't leave them barren. So by definition, it seemed that he was already locked into such a path.
He smiled bitterly. It seemed that his father was more right than he knew. Honestly, he didn't think that far.
He put a lot of thought into his cultivation, but these were things that never crossed his mind because, once again, they weren't his top priority.
"I guess I will have to."
"Then how will you cherish them all?"
Ryu sighed, thinking about how much effort his parents put into just him alone. How his mother cooked his meals even well into his hundreds, how his father trained him and taught him the value of running a Clan from infancy to now...
Could he really put the equivalent amount of effort into all of his children? Was it even fair to try and do so?
"Not sure," Ryu finally responded.
Selheira giggled. "Maybe you can use your incarnations."
Ryu had heard that word a lot recently. It seemed to be an ability of Dao Lords to split themselves into perfect clones.
Though he knew Selheira was joking, it felt kind of gross to think about having to split his attention like that for his children.
'Well, it seems I just have to lie in the bed I made now.'
Ryu suddenly made it to the top of a mountain range, overlooking what seemed to be an endless rise and fall of many more.
He didn't know what this old man wanted out of them... But it seemed he wasn't done yet.
He took another step forward.
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