Lin Mu looked directly at the patriarch, his expression calm but firm. "Patriarch Shanhu Haiyang… what exactly did you learn from the records?"
The old man remained quiet for a full minute.
His fingers trembled slightly as he closed the ancestral record on his lap. His throat bobbed once as if swallowing back memories too heavy to voice. Only after taking a deep breath did he begin to speak.
"It seems," he said slowly, "that our records never told us the full truth. They gave us pieces, but not the picture itself." He paused, his eyes distant. "We knew there was an old conflict. One so ancient that even our longest lived clansmen could not remember anything about it. But our records mentioned it in vague terms. A war between humans and the marine tribes. A war that involved not only our Shanhu Clan, but the Merkin and Fishkin as well."
Lin Mu listened quietly, but his eyes narrowed when he sensed the weight behind the patriarch's words.
