Hearing the voice, Tang San slightly frowned. He stood up, dusted off the dirt from his pants, and walked toward the shop.
Although his memories showed that this father often beat and scolded him, for someone who had never really experienced fatherly love in either of his past two lives, just having someone to call "Dad" and make him food after he turned six was already satisfying enough.
In his first life, he was an orphan, and in his second life, Tang Hao had never shown him any fatherly love during his childhood. Tang San had even taken on the responsibility of cooking, and the task had fallen entirely on him.
As for their living conditions, being in Heaven Dou City, where land was extremely valuable, it was already Tang Ba's limit to lease a small shop. So, they made do with the back part of the shop, where the forge was located, for both living and working.
Heaven Dou City was located in the northern part of the continent, where the temperature remained low for most of the year. Sleeping near the forge allowed them to use the heat from the furnace to stay warm.
Upon entering the forging room, Tang San saw a scruffy, disheveled middle-aged man carrying two plates of food from the back kitchen. As soon as the man saw Tang San, his face darkened visibly.
"Always coming back the moment food's ready. I have to serve you all the time, and you can't even bring the food to the table yourself. Useless brat! Do you expect me to feed you too?!"
This man was, of course, Tang Ba, Tang San's father in this new life.
Seeing Tang San lower his head and remain silent, Tang Ba snorted coldly and motioned toward the pile of empty wine bottles with a jerk of his chin.
"Go fetch me two bottles of wine."
"Yes, Dad."
Tang San rummaged through the pile of empty bottles for a while before a look of awkwardness appeared on his face. Looking toward Tang Ba, he whispered, "Dad, it seems like all the wine has been drunk."
Hearing this, Tang Ba clicked his tongue irritably. After searching his body and finding only two silver soul coins, his expression grew even more displeased.
The business at the forge wasn't doing well, and they never knew when the next job would come in. If they spent the remaining money on wine, they might not have enough to eat for the next few days.
"Fine, get over here and eat. Why didn't your mother take you with her when she left? Now I can't even afford wine..."
Tang Ba unceremoniously vented his frustrations on Tang San before sitting down heavily in his seat and starting to eat.
There were only two dishes on the table, one of which had a few bits of meat—something Tang Ba used to accompany his wine.
Naturally, the dish Tang San could eat was the plain, vegetable-only one. But this was no big deal to him. After all, he had endured days in his past life where he could only drink porridge.
After all, this man was his father!
In Tang San's eyes, regardless of how wrong a father might be, a father was still a father. He had heard a saying in his first life: "Of all virtues, filial piety is the most important."
Though he was an orphan in that life, he deeply agreed with the sentiment, yearning to have a family of his own. Perhaps this yearning was what moved the heavens, allowing him to have a father in every life after that.
As for the mother his father had just mentioned, Tang San had a vague impression of her. She was a very beautiful woman. While not a peerless beauty, she was striking enough to stand out among ordinary people.
As for how his parents met, Tang San remembered hearing stories from his mother during his childhood. Tang Ba, upon arriving in Heaven Dou City, had been proud and ambitious, but his life had been difficult in the first few years. However, his luck wasn't bad. Because he hailed from the Haotian Sect, he occasionally received orders to forge hidden weapons for the Tang Sect, the strongest sect on the continent from ten thousand years ago.
Even though the Tang Sect had declined, it was still struggling to survive, allowing Tang Ba to earn some money. His life gradually improved, and it was during this time that Tang San's mother, impressed by Tang Ba's skills, married him. Two years later, Tang San was born.
But the good times didn't last. The Tang Sect continued to decline, and before long, they stopped sending orders to Tang Ba. With his primary source of income gone, Tang Ba succumbed to the pressures of life and developed a drinking habit, frequently arguing with Tang San's mother. The arguments eventually escalated into domestic violence.
At first, his mother had hoped that Tang Ba would overcome his difficulties and return to his former self, but all she got was disappointment after disappointment. Finally, when Tang San was four years old, unable to bear it any longer, she abandoned both her husband and child and left.
From that point on, Tang Ba's drinking problem worsened. He not only cursed the Tang Sect when he was drunk but also directed all his anger at Tang San, blaming him for being abandoned by his wife.
It was worth noting that Tang Ba had named his son "Tang San" to vent his frustrations over the injustices he had faced in the Haotian Sect. Now, with the additional burden of his wife's departure, the beatings and scolding only became more severe.
However, for the current Tang San, this wasn't a big deal. After all, filial piety was paramount, and no matter how his father treated him, he was still his father.
As luck would have it, although Tang San's mother was an ordinary person without any soul power, her martial soul was the Blue Silver Grass, while his father's martial soul was the Haotian Hammer.
Thinking about this, Tang San couldn't help but feel a sense of destiny welling up within him. Excited, he looked up at Tang Ba and asked, "Dad, I'm six years old now. When can I awaken my martial soul?"
Tang Ba frowned, giving him a look as if he were an idiot. "Why bother awakening your martial soul? If I had that kind of money, I could drink for days. Be grateful I'm feeding you. And you want to spend my money to awaken a martial soul?"
Hearing this, Tang San was momentarily stunned and instinctively asked, "Isn't martial soul awakening free?"
"Free?" Tang Ba sneered. "There's a way to get it for free. Join some noble family as a servant, or enlist in the army, and you'll get a free awakening. When you're older, I can send you there."
"But I heard that ten thousand years ago, the Spirit Hall would awaken martial souls for commoners for free."
Hearing this, Tang Ba raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Seems like you've picked up something other than food while lazing around. You even know about the Spirit Hall? Who told you that?"
But before Tang San could answer, Tang Ba continued, his tone laced with mockery. "The Spirit Hall did offer free awakenings, but where is the Spirit Hall now? It was wiped out ten thousand years ago."
For a brief moment, Tang San's face stiffened. If he were still a god, he wouldn't care about whether or not he could awaken a martial soul. After all, the Divine Realm had strict rules prohibiting gods from interfering in lower realms.
As one of the three enforcers of the Divine Realm, Tang San had always adhered to these rules.
It was precisely because of his strict observance of these rules that the God of Evil and the God of Good had entrusted the Divine Realm to him before they left, placing high hopes on him.
Yet now, he was faced with the bitter fruit of the seeds he had sown ten thousand years ago.
And he had no choice but to taste it himself.
(End of Chapter)