My mom is waiting for treatment, and you're summoning me to be a hero?

"I am Gao Yang's parents."

As Ren'ai revealed his identity, Yin Xue gasped in shock.

In fact, both the Judgement and the God of War were shocked, but they couldn't breathe.

Ren'ai raised his right hand and gently patted his chest, causing a small cloud of white dust to rise from the flour on his apron.

"To be precise, there are two people living in this body, Gao Yang's father and mother. Together with Gao Yang's compassionate emotions, they constitute this body called benevolence. I am his father and also his mother."

Lin Mo sat opposite Ren'ai, his fingers still resting on the hilt of the black sword, but his knuckles were no longer white.

He knew that Benevolence had not lied.

He had seen this face after he gained Bai Mu'en's memories.

Deep in Gao Yang's memory, in that recurring recollection, the face of the middle-aged couple silently weeping at Gao Tiantian's funeral was this one.

"Can I see my daughter?"

Ren'ai's voice suddenly softened, and the calmness in her tone was covered by an extremely faint tremor.

With a thought, Lin Mo caused a faint light to flow across the black sword, and a milky white, semi-transparent figure slowly floated out from the sword.

Gao Tiantian walked barefoot on the wooden floor of the dessert shop, her short hair swaying slightly.

She had merged the two fragments of her soul—the one of anger and imagination and the one of desire—and her body was much more solid than before. She was no longer so transparent that you could see the wall behind her, but instead shone with a soft, milky-white glow.

She looked around curiously.

Macarons in the glass display case, hand-painted watercolor paintings of desserts on the wall, and a steaming chiffon cake on the table.

Ren'ai stood up from the chair.

His movements were slow, so slow it was like walking in water, and every movement seemed to be restraining something.

He looked at Gao Tiantian, and for the first time, an expression that defied description appeared on his gentle face.

He reached out his right hand, wanting to touch Gao Tiantian's head.

Gao Tiantian happened to turn around and meet his gaze at that moment.

His hand hovered in mid-air, his fingertips trembling slightly, before he slowly withdrew it.

Then the corners of his mouth turned up, as if he wanted to pour all the tenderness he had accumulated over the years into this smile.

"Tian Tian".

His voice was very soft, so soft that it seemed as if he was afraid the name would be blown away by the wind.

"do you remember me."

Gao Tiantian tilted her head and looked at him. There was no fear or hostility in her milky white eyes, only the curiosity that a child has when looking at a strange adult.

She looked at it for a while, then shook her head.

Ren'ai closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. Her eyes were still red, but her smile was more composed than before.

"It's okay if you don't remember, your brother has kept you hidden for far too long."

He sat down in the chair, pushed the chiffon cake towards Gao Tiantian, then looked up at Lin Mo, resuming his previous gentle and calm tone.

"Gao Yang was a very well-behaved child. He was a model student and received awards every year. His awards covered half a wall. His favorite thing to do was to teach Tian Tian how to do her homework. Tian Tian couldn't do math, so he would take small cookies and arrange them one by one until she could do the math correctly."

Every weekend, I would ride my bicycle to take Tian Tian to her piano lesson. Tian Tian would sit on the back seat, hugging his waist, her legs swinging back and forth.

……

Then she talked about some of Gao Yang and Gao Tiantian's daily life.

Then the tone shifted, becoming serious.

"Until Tian Tian's birthday..."

Ren'ai looked down at the still-steaming chiffon cake on the table and remained silent for a long while.

"You all know what happened that day. We don't know how much of a blow it was to him, but we are doing our best to help him get out of the shadow of the past."

Yin Xue frowned upon hearing this.

She flew to Ren'ai, crossed her arms, and her scarlet eyes churned with extremely complex emotions.

There was confusion and doubt.

"No, we saw Gao Yang's memories in Shenglin Village. You were there too. You were standing among that group of people, accusing Gao Yang of killing Tian Tian. You said it yourselves, 'It's all your fault.' We saw it clearly."

Ren'ai shook his head.

He didn't refute, but simply raised his hand and waved it lightly.

A screen of light slowly unfolded under the warm yellow lights of the dessert shop, revealing an ordinary living room, exactly the same as the living room after the funeral in Gao Yang's memory.

A middle-aged couple was sitting on the sofa.

The father was wearing a faded shirt.

The mother wore an apron, her eyes red and swollen.

Gao Yang squatted in the corner, burying his head in his knees, his shoulders trembling violently.

Then his mother stood up, walked over to Gao Yang, squatted down, reached out and lifted his head from her knees, wiping away the tears on his face with her thumb.

Her hands were rough, but her movements were very gentle: "Yangyang, it's not your fault. It really isn't your fault."

Gao Yang didn't look at her, but kept repeating, "I just won't lie to her," "It's all because of me," and "Why don't you blame me?"

The father stood up from the sofa, walked to Gao Yang's side, and draped a blanket over his shoulders.

His voice was hoarse and deep, but every word was spoken with great force.

"Yangyang, listen to your dad. No one is to blame for Tiantian's situation except the person who drank and drove. You can't take the blame for someone else's mistake."

A benevolent hand hovered in front of the light screen, its fingers trembling slightly.

The images on the light screen continued to play.

The two parents stood outside Gao Yang's room. The mother was holding a bowl of hot soup, and the father knocked on the door.

The door was not opened.

The mother placed the soup by the door, leaned against the doorframe, and whispered through the crack in the door, "The soup is at the door. Drink it while it's hot."

Then she turned around, her back to the closed door, and tears silently rolled down her cheeks.

The images flashed by frame by frame.

The parents were flipping through a photo album in the living room, looking at Tian Tian's pictures. The mother cried until she couldn't breathe, and the father had his arm around her shoulder, his own eyes red.

It wasn't that they didn't care about Gao Yang; they just didn't know how to open the door to Gao Yang's bedroom.

They themselves had just lost their daughter.

They were in pain too, but they gave all the tenderness they could to Gao Yang, though Gao Yang didn't see it.

"Gao Yang deleted these images himself, or rather, he felt so guilty that he didn't want to see them."

Renai finally spoke.

He withdrew his hand, gently dispersed the light screen, and looked up at Lin Mo.

"He deleted all the words of concern, comfort, and reassurance we gave him from his memory, leaving only what he believed to be his guilt. He repeatedly replayed the funeral scene in his memory, distorting everyone's gaze into accusations in his mind, because only in this way could he feel better. This is not atonement, it is self-torture."

Renai's head slowly lowered.

"He locked himself in a cell where his crimes were repeatedly played, threw the key far away, and then told us outsiders, 'Look, I haven't been forgiven.' We never gave up on him; he gave up on himself."

The dessert shop had been quiet for a long time.

Mianmian nestled on Lin Mo's shoulder, all eight of her eyes fixed on the still-wet tear stain at the corner of Ren'ai's eye, forgetting even the churning discomfort in her stomach.

The goddess of judgment lowered her eyes, her gray eyes churning with extremely complex emotions.

The God of War stood silently in the corner, leaning on his battle axe.

The blood slowly dripped back onto Lin Mo's shoulder, and he crossed his arms and remained silent.

Only Lin Mo remained cold-eyed and indifferent in tone.

"These things have nothing to do with me. Gao Yang is just a beast who won't let me go home. These things won't change my opinion of him at all. I can't even verify if these things are true. If you want to change my opinion of Gao Yang with these things... you might as well just defeat me."

Lin Mo's tone was firm, devoid of any sympathy.

His thinking was simple: does having a tragic past make an enemy worthy of sympathy?

It's a joke, a huge joke.

If you really think that way, then you're just torturing yourself like Gao Yang.

Ren'ai was not surprised to hear this. Instead, she took a deep breath and calmed her voice.

He put down the corner of his apron, raised his head, and looked at Lin Mo with his gentle but tired eyes.

"You've misunderstood. We only want you to... kill Gao Yang."