Chapter 1124 Father and Son (Fifty-three) (Patreon)

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The snow of Asgard always seems more romantic than on Earth. The rootless water falling from this floating island in space is lighter than anywhere else.

The fluttering snowflakes, when falling on the window, the ice flowers spread from the edge of the window frame, and the silhouettes of a few people could be seen vaguely.

Wearing armor and a cloak, but without a crown, Loki's expression appeared very indifferent. He said to the two attendants and a protocol officer in front of him, "I'm sorry, but what I said is true. The Celestial Palace no longer needs so many attendants, you can go home."

The two attendants glanced at each other, and the protocol officer looked at Loki's expression before asking in a deep voice, "Your Royal Highness, may I ask whose order this is?"

"You are my attendants, of course, it's my order." Loki's expression began to show some impatience, but he still explained patiently. However, the three people opposite him showed no intention of leaving.

Loki didn't say anything like "Can't you understand what I'm saying?" or similar threatening statements. He directly took out the hammer from his waist, weighed it in his hand, and then said, "I have something else to do later. If you don't leave here, I'll have to try another method. Please leave."

The three people in front of Loki glanced at the hammer in his hand, looked at each other, and then bowed before leaving.

Loki could even hear their incessant whispers as they left.

But Loki wasn't angry. He just weighed the hammer in his hand and said to it, "Now I understand, the hammer is indeed useful."

He sighed, turned and left. As soon as he went out the door, he saw another figure wearing a robe and a crown waiting for him at the end of the corridor. It was the elderly Loki.

Loki went over and said, "Why are you here?"

The old Loki shook his head and said, "I'm not like those young brats. I have to remind you, do you know what you're doing?"

Loki lowered his head and laughed, then raised his head and looked at the old Loki, "It seems you've adapted quite well here, much better than others."

The old Loki's eye contact was calm and unruffled. He turned and stood by the window, looking at the heavy snow outside, and said, "I haven't been home for so many years. Even though this is not my home, it's much better than the desolate end of time."

After saying that, he turned his head back and looked at Loki with a serious expression, "This is not something you should be doing. You can't order them to leave here, and you shouldn't order them. You are not the king of Asgard."

The old Loki sighed and said, "In your universe, Thor has already become the new king of Asgard. He has always protected Asgard's warriors. Treating his subordinates like this will only create conflicts between you two, and serve no other purpose."

"Do you think Thor is stupid?" Loki asked in response.

The old Loki sighed and said, "Thor is the most foolish person in this world, but at the same time, he is also the most intelligent."

"He always behaves like a fool, disregarding rules and etiquette, as if he can't see anything. But I know he's not really unable to see, he just doesn't care."

"You underestimate your significance in his heart." Loki looked at the old Loki and said, "Do you think Thor won't care if these people mistreat you?"

"Hasn't it always been like this?" The old Loki showed a bitter smile, "I'm not the heir, who would care about me?"

"But you are still one of the only two princes of Asgard." Loki looked at the old Loki, although he used the second person, it seemed as if he was talking to himself, "You are Odin's son, Thor's younger brother. Why do you think they wouldn't care about you?"

"But in their hearts, I'm not as important as their subordinates." The old Loki stared into Loki's eyes and said, "Whenever I conflict with the warriors of the Celestial Palace, whose side does Thor stand on? In the end, who is considered unreasonable and making trouble?"

The old Loki looked at Loki with a mocking gaze and said, "Your reputation in Asgard has become so bad, and your good elder brother deserves half the credit. He never understands you, only thinks you're immature, and then apologizes to others on your behalf."

"Hoping that everyone can truly understand you is the most naive thought." Loki said without giving an inch:

"Everyone has their own hardships, everyone has their own worries. If someone is willing to spend an extra second understanding your troubles, it means they love you."

"Why can't you ask for more?" The old Loki said regretfully, "Why are you never the most important person to others?"

When an elderly Loki and a young Loki stood face to face, it was as if they were looking in a mirror. Every sentence they uttered was not addressed to the other, but to themselves.

"Perhaps I'm just unlucky," Loki said in a rather casual tone.

But upon hearing his answer, the elderly Loki seemed stunned, and then he asked in a somewhat desperate manner, "Are you just giving up? You still have so many opportunities! You're so young! You can still go back to Asgard! Why can't you fight for it?"

"Fight for what?"

"You must become the most important person in someone's heart! Loki! Ask yourself!"

"Why are you always second? Why is someone always more important than you? Why does no one value you the most?" The elderly Loki's tone was like ocean waves in the wind, rising higher and higher.

"Why do you always want to be the person others see you as?"

Just a short sentence, and the raging waves in the storm suddenly subsided.

The elderly Loki looked at his younger self, his eyes filled with tears. He wanted to smile, but he couldn't control it, and instead said tremblingly, "I always thought, if I hadn't left back then, perhaps I would have already gotten everything I wanted, but I also realized that even if I hadn't left, I still wouldn't have gotten it..."

"Why do you want to be the person others see you as?" Loki repeated the question, but this time, he wasn't asking the person in front of him.

"Loki, from the moment you were born, you were an abandoned orphan. You weren't supposed to exist. Only when they loved you and paid attention to you did you feel like you weren't a burden," Loki murmured softly.

Looking at the tearful elderly Loki, Loki's tone became more subdued, like a piece of music reaching its final notes.

"But if someone said they loved you, you would think they were lying because you knew you were a burden."

"If someone showed their love through actions, you would feel undeserving because you knew you were a burden."

"When will I ever reconcile with my own existence?" Loki's green eyes blinked with a moist glow, like emeralds at the bottom of a spring. Suddenly changing the subject, he looked at the elderly Loki and said:

"How much love from others do I need to prove to myself that I deserve to exist? How much response do I need to believe that I will always receive a response?"

"...I don't know." Loki shook his head and said, "All greed, in essence, is pessimism—if you don't have it now, you feel like you'll never have it in the future. If you can't have it all the time, you feel like you've never had it at all."

Loki glanced at the hammer in his hand and said, "Even if you once had it, you'd still resent why it wasn't enough, why you couldn't have it forever, why others had it but you didn't."

"Greed is the curse of all intelligent life, making us endlessly crave from others, never satisfied, loving and hurting at the same time."

Loki took half a step forward, looking into the elderly Loki's somewhat clouded eyes, and said, "And I'm able to appear more composed than you because I've accepted it."

Loki revealed a smile, but it looked like he was crying.

He looked at the elderly Loki and earnestly asked, "Too many people have already shown me through their actions that the end of the path of greed is losing everything."

"Have I reconciled with myself? No. Do I no longer want to prove my existence? No. Is my affliction cured? No. It's just that when I think about how I'll lose everything, I've resigned myself."

The elderly Loki gripped the window frame, his fingers bulging with veins. Where his fingers touched the window, the frost slowly melted.

Loki sighed and said, "And you're not resigned because as long as you don't go back, you can assume they'll exist forever. But will they really exist forever?"

"Stop it," the elderly Loki's Adam's apple trembled violently, but Loki continued rapidly, "You didn't have to hang around with those kids, and you had the ability to leave that desolate place..."

"It's just that you knew Ragnarok would inevitably come, and you were powerless to change anything. But as long as you didn't go back, the Asgard in your memory would remain forever beautiful and glorious."

The tearful elderly Loki fell silent.

After a while, he looked at Loki's youthful face, but suddenly revealed a smile, and then spoke:

"You're correct, I remember everything there, every cloud, every drop of water, every sunset, every thunderbolt storm that swept across the sky."

"Perhaps, I can never return to my homeland again, but perhaps, I have never left my home." The elderly Loki smiled while shedding tears.

When Loki looked up at him, in his eyes, he saw the mischievous and malicious smile unique to the god of mischief, Loki.

"Perhaps, you were right about everything," the elderly Loki lowered his arms, standing in the light reflected from the snow, and said in a light tone: "But only one thing was wrong."

"I was powerless against Ragnarok? No, Ragnarok will never come..."

The elderly Loki stretched out his hand, and Loki slowly widened his eyes, because he saw a point of light appear in the elderly Loki's hand.

The point of light slowly grew larger, emitting a gentle glow, and when the glow dissipated, within the tiny glimmer of cold light, there were endless space and stars.

Amidst the cold glow of the snowfall entering, Loki's attention was attracted to that small space, and when he looked through the space and stars, the Asgard that was no different from reality was also experiencing a heavy snowfall.

Thor and his warrior friends were rolling in the snow, Odin was inspecting his fleet, Frigga was using magic to restore the frozen fountain to its original state...

When he saw the gleam in their eyes, Loki understood that this was not an illusion, not magic... this was a real space.

When Loki looked up at the elderly Loki again, he had disappeared without a trace, as if he had never existed.

Loki instinctively stretched out his hand and gently pushed open the window in front of him.

But outside the window was not the snow-covered Asgard, but a warm study.

An old man sat at the desk, and when the firelight shone in his eyes, it was like the glow of the setting sun spilling onto a lush bed of moss.

He blinked drowsily, took up a feather pen, and began to write an ending for a story.

Meanwhile, Loki stood at the window, shouting into the open snowy field.

"Who are you?!!"

The distant birds were startled and took flight, their small black dots fluttering and turning to ash as they fell. The firewood in the fireplace was almost burnt out.

After writing the last word, the creator seemed unsatisfied, so he took up his pen again and added a commentary to his recent favorite story.

And in the sound of the wind, Loki heard a voice that seemed like an illusion.

"The unfortunate need not seek their existence in others; the most convincing proof of their existence is their beautiful and brilliant inner world."

"The angry person's roar is like a song, the sorrowful person's tears are like a painting. The unfortunate should write their tenacious life of overcoming misfortune and hardship into a brilliant story."

"Cast aside self-pity, wipe away resentment, and discard all self-reproach. I only wish to write with a resounding clang, like the movement of wind and thunder, so that wherever my gaze falls, my cries can be heard."

"If one day I become a tiny spark in the seething furnace that forges others' iron will, then the sounds of emotion that rise and fall with brilliant stories will see suffering as a mere sheet of paper, seize fate by the throat, and prove my existence."

"Who am I?"

"I am a child, a child who loves to hear stories, and also a father, the father of all stories."

"I am... the god of stories, Loki."

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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