Chapter 561: Saint Sapphire
‘Ey yo, why did he just convulse and glow like that?’
‘A mindscape what now?’
=Its a wholly unnecessary trick that allows one to subject the host to a more…in-depth flashback? Honestly, a slideshow works about the same but it appears our resident lacewing has a plan in mind. That or she is making this up as she is going along. The Kaijin way, was it?=
‘Uh…okay then…should I be sitting him down somewhere?’
=Unless you don’t mind your uncle just collapsing on the floor from sudden consciousness shifts.=
‘Normally I’d be okay with that, but not this time.’
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[Hey!,] the debonair bug exclaimed while tapping Zhen Hou in the forehead. [Can’t have you passing out on me while we’re in here. Otherwise we might be dealing with a dream within a dream scenario, and I am not equipped for that.]
“Wait, what?”
Just as Zhen Hou was about to pass out again, probably ending up in another mind bending landscape, the bug woman had stopped him mid-knock out by grabbing him before he could fall over and lightly tapping his skull.
From an outside point of view, it looked as if the bug woman was “dipping” Zhen Hou like they were dancing together.
[You’re not about to fall asleep on me, right?]
“Uh…no?”
[Good. Yoink!]
“Whoa!”
The debonair bug woman proceeded to lift Zhen Hou from the dip and even spin the man for a bit before settling him back onto his feet.
[And that worry about feeling off-kilter, having to relive one’s old memories have a tendency to cause one to feel more…youthful.]
Once the large-sized man managed to regain his footing, he began to notice some details about the newly formed cityscape that seemed familiar to him.
“Wait, what did you, just say-hold on…I know this place.”
Or to be more precise, he recognized that he lived here before.
“I haven’t been here in years, how did you-‘”
[Shh!,] the debonair bug hushed while snapping a chitin covered hand[,stop and look.]
“Stop and look at wha-”
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“What?”
Soon after that familiarly childish laughter echoed in Zhen Hou’s ears, phantoms made of wind and sand began to form around him, bearing the faces of people he remembered seeing long, long ago.
But amongst these phantoms, Zhen Hou’s eyes were drawn on a particular group of them.
A simple family of four.
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Stone Claw City wasn’t always the Zhen Clan’s home, as hard as that statement was to believe.
But years and years prior, back when the Matriarch was still alive and the Patriarch was just some young dumb man who had nothing to his name except the clothes on his back, the two of them were simply just a pair of immigrants looking for a new life on a new continent.
Of course, this search for a new life didn’t stop the two of them from settling into a town that was very reminiscent of their life back at Roaring Tide.
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About several hundred miles south of Stone Claw City, literally at the border of the Wasting Sands desert, was a massive river that connected the heartlands of the Iron Heart Kingdom to the coastline. More specifically, it was a river that connected the kingdom’s capital to an estuary about ten miles south of Pearl Tusk Harbor.
There were originally plans to establish a city in the aforementioned estuary, but the local aether beast populace made that idea…untenable.
Regardless, such an important water route had to have someone watching over it, which is why the city of Saint Mercury was established, quite literally in the middle of the river’s path.
Saint Mercury was a fairly typical large city, composed of several prominent families, ran by a lord with the power to back it up and an underground scene that everyone says doesn’t exist but definitely had roots in the local governmental structures.
However, what made Saint Mercury unique in comparison to the other cities in the region was that it was incredibly cosmopolitan thanks to the literal river connecting it to the coastline and beyond.
As such, many immigrants that came to Stampeding Bison for a new life would end up literally floating into the city of Saint Mercury, with some moving on to newer and possibly greener pastures, but many of them would choose to settle in Saint Mercury in general. This in turn lead to the development of several prominent ethnic enclaves that would call the city home.
There was “Little Cinder” that catered to the people of Dozing Salamander, there was “Hovering Strix” that was home to those from Soaring Gryphon and there was a place called “Shadow Web” from the people who called Umbral Spider their ancestral homeland.
But among all of these enclaves, the oldest and most developed among them was “Tidepool Town”, a slice of Roaring Tide that was developed right along the edge of the city’s main canal.
And it was here, that a runaway princess and a nobody from a clan of heromkaers, managed to settle down…for a couple of years at least.
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A solid five years had passed since Zhen Shi and Bai Hua managed to escape Roaring Tide and moved to Stampeding Bison, and a lot had changed for them in that time period.
For starters, thanks to their martial prowess, the two of them managed to secure a couple of gigs as mercenaries and use the money from those ventures to acquire a small yet comfortable estate in Saint Mercury.
While it wasn’t big enough to support say an entire sect, clan or a family powerful enough to be a political and economic faction, it was big enough to comfortably serve the needs of a family of four, which was exactly what they needed anyways.
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The second, and more important thing, to happen to them though was the birth of their sons, Zhen Long and Zhen Hou.
Separated by no more than a year, maybe a year and a half, the birth of their sons was a momentous occasion and a pleasant surprise for both Zhen Shi and Bai Hua.
Their first son, Zhen Long, was born part way on their journey to Saint Mercury, and the boy had proven himself to be a smart yet sensitive lad that would surely be able to handle whatever inheritance he may receive in his lifetime, with grace and elegance.
In other words, he was an ideal eldest son.
Shortly after him though, when the Zhen Family managed to settle down some roots and call Saint Mercury, the second son, Zhen Hou was born.
Unlike Zhen Long, who was quiet, patient and courteous, Zhen Hou was loud, impatient and a little rude. Not enough to be insulting, but enough for others to call him “blunt” as opposed to being tactful. In other words, they were polar opposites to one another.
That being said though, the Zhen Family got along swimmingly with one another.
After all, in a foreign land with no other relatives or friends to call upon for aide, who else can one rely on other than family?
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[Well aren’t you an adorable little toddler. I see you still had a bear theme going on before you could even properly walk.]
‘Yeah…Mama said that she gave me and Zhen Long those patterns on our clothes because she knew that those animals were going to be important to our lives in the future…but I personally think she just used them because she was practicing embroidery patterns.’
[Hah! Sounds like a certain spider I know…]
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The Zhen Family of four eventually managed to reach their destination for the afternoon, a part of the main city canal that was in the “import” section of the city, i.e., the place where all the traders and merchants from outside of Stampeding Bison would enter.
Supposedly, a merchant fleet from Roaring Tide was coming into town this day, and Bai Hua wanted to show it to Zhen Long and Zhen Hou, in order to help them become more familiar with their ancestral heritage.
They might’ve been set up in Tidepool Town, an ethnic enclave for everyone from Roaring Tide, but there was a still tinge of outside influence that made the place not as familiar as one would like.
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Granted, neither Zhen Shi nor Bai Hua expected that the first time they decided to take their kids out to see the foreign ships, they’d spot an emblem that was a little bit too close to home.
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