His gaze drifted slowly across the room.
"You speak proudly of bloodlines and family names, yet some of you cannot even offer warmth to your own relatives. You measure success by titles and possessions, but I have always believed that a person's greatest wealth is the way they treat those who have less power than they do."
A quiet stillness settled over the hall.
"No matter how much money we gather, none of us carries it beyond the grave."
"No matter how important we believe ourselves to be, one day our names will be carved into stone just the same."
He smiled faintly.
"The earth has no interest in whether the person it receives was rich or poor."
"What remains behind is something else entirely."
"The memories we leave in other people's hearts."
"The kindness we showed."
"The wrongs we chose to correct."
"The family we chose to protect."
His eyes lingered briefly on ShangYan before moving to Guiying.
