My niece had sharp eyes. She spotted me instantly and let out a theatrical shriek.

"Oh my god! Who is this? Isn't it the sanitation-worker grandpa from the village?"

Her smirk widened, voice shrill enough to turn heads.

"What's the matter? Didn't you get enough handouts at the party? Did you come to the front door to mooch some more?"

Poisoned darts, every word. People entering and exiting the building slowed to watch.

My son's face darkened. He looked even angrier than he had the night of the banquet.

He stormed over. Disgust radiated from him in waves.

But he didn't speak to me.

Instead, he turned his fury on the security guard.

"What is wrong with you? What do I pay you for? How can you let random vagrants block the entrance? Do we care about the company image or not? Get him out of here! Now!"

Only then did he turn to me.

His eyes were shards of ice.

"Sir," he said, the word dripping with distance. "I am very grateful for the care you and the villagers showed me in the past."

"However, this company has standards. Even a security position requires professional skills and education you do not possess. You don't meet our requirements."

His jaw tightened.

"Please understand and do not come here again. You are affecting our business."

*Sir.*

He called me *Sir*.

*Affecting our business.*

My heart plunged into a frozen lake. I couldn't even shiver.

My niece stood beside him, arms crossed, sneering. She happily poured gasoline on the fire.

"Exactly. Joshua is on a different level now. You clinging to him like this is shameless. If people find out, how bad will that look? Strangers might think the Lambert family treated you poorly! Have some dignity, will you?"

I looked at my son's indifferent face.

That familiar, twisting pain in my chest returned.

But this time, it was violent.

A sledgehammer to the ribs.

I clenched my jaw, refusing to collapse in front of them.

Summoning the last dregs of my strength, I raised my head and looked my son in the eye.

In that look, I poured a lifetime of bitterness.

Confusion.

Love.

And finally… total, despairing resignation.

I didn't say a word.

I didn't look at anyone else.

I turned around silently and began the long walk back the way I came.

Behind me, the glass skyscraper loomed like a massive, cold tombstone.

It buried my hope.

It buried my son.

I don't remember how I made it back to the guesthouse.

I collapsed onto the bed, gasping for air, skin slick with cold sweat. The world tilted and went black.

The terrified guesthouse owner called an ambulance.

When I drifted back to consciousness, I was in a hospital bed. An IV drip stuck in my hand. Oxygen tubes threaded into my nose.

A young nurse was checking my blood pressure. Seeing my eyes flutter open, she spoke softly.

"Sir, you're awake? It was acute angina. A heart attack. You're lucky they brought you in when they did. Don't move. Rest."

I tried to speak, but my throat was sandpaper.

That afternoon, the ward door swung open.

My son walked in, his secretary trailing behind him.

Still impeccably dressed, though he looked slightly haggard. He placed a generic fruit basket on the bedside cabinet—the kind you buy for a stranger.

He stood by the bed, looking down at me. His expression was complicated.

But devoid of love.

After a long, suffocating silence, he finally spoke. The icy corporate tone was gone, replaced by the whine of a victim.

"Dad… I told you. I told you so many times not to come."

He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated.

"You insisted on causing a scene. Now look at you. Lying in a hospital, letting everyone laugh at us."

His voice sharpened.

"Are you satisfied now?"

I closed my eyes.

I couldn't bear to look at him.

A joke?

Is that what I've become?

I, Asher Lambert, lived my entire life with my head held high—upright, honorable. Yet now, in my twilight years, I was nothing more than a punchline to my own son.

When I didn't respond, Joshua paced the length of the hospital bed. His shoes clicked against the linoleum like an irritated metronome.

"I know you're angry." He stopped, glaring down at me. "But have you considered *my* position? Do you think it was easy getting where I am today? Do you have any idea how many people are watching me, just waiting for me to slip up?" His voice climbed. "They're *desperate* for dirt on me!"

He threw his hands up. "You're my dad. That's a fact I can't change. But why can't you think about me for once? Why couldn't you just stay peacefully in the village? Why did you have to come to the company and make a *scene*?"

Silence.

*Think about him?*

Every step I had taken in this life—every drop of sweat—had been for him.

The ward door slammed open.

Paul Lambert, my cousin, surged in, trailed by a gaggle of relatives whose names I couldn't even recall. They flooded the small room like a tide, packing it so tight the air seemed to vanish.

"Good heavens! Asher!" Paul's voice boomed as if he were afraid an audience might miss his performance. "What on earth did you do to end up like this? You nearly gave us a heart attack!"

He lunged for the bedside and grabbed my hand. Instinctively, I tried to pull away, but my body was too weak.

Trapped.

A woman—Paul's wife, I assumed—chimed in, her voice shrill. "Uncle Asher! You really scared us to death! You're an old man now—what could possibly be so important that you can't let it go? Why did you have to get into a huff with Joshua? The boy is so busy, and here you are causing trouble for him!"

She swiveled toward my son, her expression shifting to practiced sympathy. "Joshua, don't worry too much. Your uncle is just venting. Once he cools off, he'll be fine. But honestly, you should treat the elderly better in the future!"

Her words were dressed up as mediation, but the underlying message rang clear: *This is all the old man's fault for not knowing his place.*

I watched this farce unfold. A bone-deep exhaustion settled over me.

Slowly, I opened my eyes fully, my gaze drifting past their feigned concern to the gray, lifeless sky beyond the window.

When I spoke, my voice was low. Devoid of anger. Yet it carried a weight that silenced the room in an instant.

"Son, do you remember when you were ten? It was winter then, too."

I paused, letting the memory take shape.

"You had a fever. Burning up. Scorching hot to the touch. The snow was so heavy it had sealed off the mountain roads. The village doctor was too afraid of the storm to come to us."

Joshua stiffened.

"I carried you on my back," I continued, my voice steady. "Trudging through drifts that rose from my knees to my waist. Twelve miles of mountain road to get you to the clinic in town. When we finally arrived, the doctor said if we had been half a day later, the fever would have permanently damaged your brain."

A violent tremor ran through my son's body. The color drained from his face, leaving him deathly pale.

I went on, narrating the events as if they belonged to someone else. A story from a distant lifetime.

"The year you got into college... the day the admission notice arrived, your mother was so happy she wept. But the tuition?" A pause. "We didn't have it. I sold the only yellow ox our family owned. Our livelihood. But I sold it for you."

"Your mother took you to the station. When she came back, she fell ill. She told me she was just tired, but the truth was heartache. She couldn't bear to part with you."

My vision blurred slightly.

"When she passed, she held my hand and said, *'Asher, our boy has made something of himself. I can close my eyes in peace now... Don't work yourself to death...'*"

A breath rattled in my chest. "She told me to enjoy the blessings of having raised a son."

I closed my eyes again, my voice dropping to a whisper.

"But, Son... since you think I've made you lose face..."

"It's fine."

"I will grant your wish."

"Let's sever the relationship."

"Your blessings... I can't enjoy them."

"And I can't enjoy them for your mother, either."