Qi Like Tar

Father called all of his children "kiddos" or "kid" if he was upset with them. It didn't matter if they were a few days old or over a thousand; they were all kiddo to him.

Paike was sure that it wasn't because he couldn't remember all of their names. Once he had asked Mother why. She had told him it was a custom from wherever Father was from. It was a term of endearment for children. He said it helped remind him and all of them of their familiar connection.

There was a bit of embarrassment in front of outsiders, but he was so powerful now that it hadn't been a real problem in a very long time.

Father was full of these odd mannerisms. His speech was still strangely free of any accent, despite some odd customs that didn't match those of the empire's high families. He was present enough in all his children's lives that Paike hadn't even realized it was odd until he was much older. Despite how many children he had over the millennia, he saw them all at least once a year, if their duties allowed.

In all that time, only a few of his children had fallen. If they fell in battle in an honest fight, they were mourned, but the two times they were killed by cultivators of a significantly higher realm via ambush or assassination, vengeance was terrible. The first time, the entire offending family had been massacred to the last. It was a large imperial family stretched nearly ten generations. Every branch and offshoot was exterminated. The second time, nearly an entire province had been wiped out.

It almost reached two percent of the empire's population, as Father was insistent that the world hadn't learned its lesson the first time, and that not only the family but everyone and everything they ruled over needed to be destroyed. The fourth emperor himself had to step in and put a stop to it. Even then it almost came to blows. The last of the offending family was executed by the emperor himself.

There were now laws preventing higher-realm cultivators from killing those of lesser realms without cause. It was far from perfect, but most followed it for all, not just the Kong family. The grand sect moderations came downstream from such efforts, as it became clear how much this helped cultivators survive in the lower realms.

The respect they all showed him was natural. Not once had he insisted on it, and sometimes he even told them to tone it down a bit. All his children, though, learned from their siblings. On top of that, they were raised on tales of his power and great deeds that fit in, if not eclipsed, any of the tales of the heroes of the empire.

Quickly, the father who tossed them in the air as little children became larger than life. While he was present as much as he could be, especially in their early years when they were forming their first memories, he was a very busy man. Between his cultivation and work for the family and the empire, he was gone for much of each month. And there were many children.