Betrayal!

As he walked, Karen suddenly realized that he hadn't taken a stroll in a very long time. He had walked plenty inside the Gate of Samsara, but that was completely different from a leisurely walk. A walk required a certain state of mind, whether good or bad. The residential houses along this street resembled detached single-family homes, not particularly orderly, but clustered closely together like densely grown scallions. If he kept walking down this street, turned a corner, and went down another street, it would take an estimated fifteen minutes to reach the funeral parlor. Ahead was a small truck. Karen saw a familiar figure carrying a chair out of a nearby house. Alaiye set the chair onto the truck, took out a handkerchief to wipe his sweat, and turned his head, happening to spot Karen standing there. "Oh, Young Master, what a coincidence." Karen smiled at Alaiye and asked, "Busy?" "Yes, helping Mrs. Sidra move. She plans to sell this house, and I just signed an agency contract with her." "Hey, you know each other?" At that moment, a tall, overly plump woman walked out, carrying a table all by herself. Her hair was purple. After what happened last night, she was already preparing to sell the house this morning. Clearly, she was terrified and intended to relocate—the kind of person unwilling to stay even a moment longer. "Mrs. Sidra, this is my friend, my former..." "Good enough that you know each other." Mrs. Sidra cut off Alaiye's introduction and looked at Karen. "Since you're friends, could you help me move?" Karen offered a polite smile. Before Karen could refuse, Mrs. Sidra spoke again: "Help a poor woman who's been driven by racism into moving early in the morning. Perhaps it'll ease your guilty conscience for having done nothing last night." "Last night?" Karen was slightly puzzled. Mrs. Sidra pointed at Karen's clothes and said, "Though your clothes have no brand tags, the fabric is exquisite. That means you live quite comfortably and probably have maids at home. Yet it's morning now, and your clothes are so wrinkled. I doubt your maid happened to take a leave; more likely, you made do with sleeping somewhere unfamiliar last night. Well? Did what happened last night scare you?" "A little." "Then come help me move. On behalf of our compatriots who died last night, I'll forgive that little bit of guilt in your heart." "Madam, Young Master Karen isn't..." Mrs. Sidra interrupted Alaiye once more, smiling at Karen. "I saved the money on moving hands and bought a big Lake Hisen fish. It's roasting in the fireplace right now. Plus, I have some white wine stored in my basement. I'd like to invite you to join us." "Madam, the property deed doesn't state that your house is permitted to have a basement, nor did you tell me." "Oh, sorry, my oversight. I dug the basement secretly myself. Do you have any idea how hard I worked digging, terrified of neighbors overhearing and reporting me? Oh, almost forgot—should the basement's area be factored in as well? I'm sure the next occupant won't complain, 'Good heavens, how did our house end up with a damn useless little basement?'" "Madam, do we need to draft a new price?" "Forget it, no need. Just help me sell it quickly. I need money right now. The house prices in those slightly upscale neighborhoods are truly expensive!" Alaiye nodded. "With a basement added, the house will be easier to sell." "Hey, friend." Mrs. Sidra looked at Karen again. "Care for some wine and roast fish?" "All right, Madam," Karen agreed. "Then let's get started!" Alaiye leaned close to Karen and whispered, "Young Master, you don't need to do this." "It's fine. Good exercise." The moving continued for an hour. Mrs. Sidra didn't make things difficult for Karen; she carried almost all the heavy items herself, only asking Karen to help with smaller pieces. Once everything was loaded onto the small truck and secured, Mrs. Sidra let out a long sigh of relief. "Come on, let me treat you two helpful gentlemen." The house was stripped almost entirely bare of furniture, including chairs. So when Mrs. Sidra pulled the roast fish from the fireplace, the three of them could only sit on the floor to eat. Fortunately, the wine glasses had been intentionally kept out. The roast fish was tender and delicious. Karen quietly noted the side dishes and seasoning, thinking he could make it for Pu'er later. Mrs. Sidra was clearly getting a bit tipsy. She pointed at Karen and said, "Sir, you really are handsome." "Thank you, Madam." "If my husband had been even half as handsome as you, I would never have agreed to let him join the army and head to the empire's colonial battlefields." Karen didn't reply. Alaiye didn't reply either. Mrs. Sidra rambled on: "He died in Rula, at the hands of a bunch of... natives." That was a war from ten years ago. On a peninsula called Gangsen, the Wien Empire had established a colony and appointed a governor-general. But an uprising against colonial rule erupted among a local ethnic group called the Rula. At first, it was considered only a minor nuisance, because that ethnic group—or tribe—numbered merely thirty thousand including the elderly, women, and children. However, when the Governor-General of Gangsen personally led imperial troops to suppress them, his entire army was wiped out. Following that, the Wien Empire dispatched a new governor-general while drafting imperial troops and auxiliary forces from neighboring colonies. The war lasted three months, and the Wien Empire's forces began to collapse. If not for the imperial navy firmly holding the coastline, the imperial infantry might have been driven into the sea to feed the fish. Once the war reached that stage, it was no longer merely a calculation of a single colony's interests; if the rebellion were not crushed, other imperial colonies might follow suit. The empire began mobilizing troops from the Wien mainland and organized a third campaign. And then came another crushing defeat—even more absurd, as the commanding general was captured alive. Meanwhile, riding the prestige accumulated from continuous victories, the Rula tribe began assimilating other tribes across the Gangsen Peninsula. Thus, the result of the empire launching three campaigns was that the empire's enemies on the peninsula grew stronger and stronger. Next, the empire poured more resources into the war, fighting for five full years. That war directly led to revisions of the empire's military service law, allowing many foreign nationals, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and illegal immigrants to serve in the military by taking an oath. The war ended with the Rula tribe recognizing the empire's legal sovereignty over the Gangsen Peninsula and the authority of the governor-general, while the empire recognized the high degree of autonomy of the Rula tribe—a so-called win-win. Mrs. Sidra chuckled. "Isn't it ridiculous? My husband gave his life for the empire, yet I never saw even a single riel of pension, because under the military service law at the time, my husband was classified as a voluntary auxiliary. "Almost ten years have passed, and I never imagined that today I'd still be forced to move because of such things." Karen changed the subject and asked, "What is your profession, Madam?" While moving furniture earlier, Karen had noticed that quite a few pieces were fine, expensive items. If Mrs. Sidra were truly just an ordinary widow, her standard of living seemed a bit too comfortable. Alaiye answered immediately, "Mrs. Sidra is an author." Mrs. Sidra looked at Karen and smiled. "I live off royalties." With that, Mrs. Sidra stood up and walked to a corner where a luggage bag remained—items she intended to take with her when she finally departed. She took out seven or eight books from inside and handed them to Karen. "These are all my works. If you enjoy reading, Mr. Karen, I can give them to you." "Thank you, Madam." Karen didn't decline and took them into his hands. The covers of these books were rather grim, with titles like *The Bled Lamb*, *The Man-Eating Manor*, *The Desiccated Corpse Rising from a Pool of Blood*, *Marriage of the Dead*... Horror? Or mystery? "Leaving this place really brings a pang of reluctance. By the way, I saw Mr. Luther leading people around this area this morning to offer condolences." "Yes, I saw him too," Karen said. "Do you know about Mr. Luther, Mr. Karen?" "I've read about him in newspapers. A remarkable man." "Yes, he is. He isn't a coward, but he knows that in Wien, we can't defeat the police and military. We don't have the soil to fight for our rights through violence. "He saw the future trend and believed that only through civilized struggle can we attain legal equality and civil rights, and truly join the game. "He is right, don't you think?" Karen nodded. "I believe he is right, too." Mrs. Sidra added, "Yet I also feel he won't succeed. Because he is walking a righteous path. If he walked any other path, he might manage to keep going, but walking the truly right path is doomed to yield no results. "Because Wien is, after all, an empire built by the Maclay people. They will set up checkpoints before the path that is truly right." Karen pursed his lips and said, "Madam, perhaps you're being too pessimistic." "Pessimistic? Perhaps. That's why my plan is simple: since this place isn't safe, I'll move to a more upscale neighborhood. At least the police there are paid well and will actually do something. "Besides, I can keep writing. My pen name won't state my hair color, haha." After finishing the roast fish feast, Karen and Alaiye left Mrs. Sidra's house. At the doorway, Karen pointed at the small truck still parked outside and asked, "The driver hasn't arrived?" "Mrs. Sidra didn't hire a driver. She said she'd drive over and unload the goods herself. Haha, when it comes to expenses, Mrs. Sidra always economizes wherever possible." "She is a very knowledgeable lady." Her remark about checkpoints being set up before the right path had resonated deeply with Karen. "Yes, indeed," Alaiye agreed with a nod. "Young Master, where are you headed next..." "I'm heading back. Come over for tea when you have time." "Will do, Young Master." Watching Karen's receding figure, Alaiye smiled, turned toward his own home, and mumbled under his breath, "You forgot to tell me where your new home is again, Young Master." ... The roast fish was finished, but some wine remained. Mrs. Sidra sat on the floor with her legs splayed, drinking and weeping. "You said that what you pursued was an equal future. You said that even if you couldn't live to see it, I would. You even said that the ideal era we yearned for would surely arrive, and its radiance would shine over this world. "You left, and I stayed behind. I waited, and waited, and waited... "I waited long enough, and I saw it. "Darling, do you know? My heart is broken. "Not because of the attacks and slaughter targeting hair color last night, but because of the notice specially issued by the Regional Administrative Office before that." Mrs. Sidra stood up, took her wine glass, walked into the kitchen, arrived before the innermost door, and opened it. Below was the basement. "We have always believed in Order. We were enchanted by the phrase 'all are equal under Order.' Yet in the end, the divine religion we were loyal to and sacrificed for used a circular to divide us by hair color. "Do you know what they were doing last night? On the surface, it was slaughter by ordinary mortals, but in truth, they were the ones driving it from behind the scenes. "I felt it, and I detected it. They were running an experiment, haha. "I could calmly face the Maclays butchering us over our hair color. I thought it was merely temporary chaos and friction, that in the future, everything would blend together—that this was friction between ethnic groups, friction between social classes, and had to undergo a period of grinding and adjustment. Those were the exact words you told me when we first met. "But on what grounds does even our divine religion take it upon itself to shatter the faith in our hearts?" Mrs. Sidra walked down into the basement. She switched on the light. The space was not large, holding only a single coffin. She walked over to the coffin and caressed it. "Darling, I feel like the two of us are a joke. I feel like what we've believed in all along is a lie. "What we cared about so deeply, cherished, believed in, and thought they held dear as well—in reality, has long been trampled brutally beneath the soles of their boots." Mrs. Sidra pushed open the coffin, revealing a desiccated corpse lying inside. It was her husband. But on the corpse's chest was a hideous face inscribed upon it—the totem revered by the Rula people, an evil spirit that protected them. "You said your greatest dream in this life was to enter the First Knight Order after death, to dedicate your last bit of strength to Order, to the divine religion, to the great God of Order. "Alas, you went missing. The divine religion's reply to me was that they failed to recover your remains. "I found you. To find you, I spent half a year before I finally tracked you down. But you had already used your life to seal this evil spirit. "The situation must have been dire back then, forcing you to choose such a resolute way to perish alongside the evil spirit. "Yet was your sacrifice worth it? "I secretly dug out this basement and hid you here with utmost care. I thought this would be the final resting place for the two of us. Now, I see I was wrong." Mrs. Sidra gently poured the remaining half-glass of white wine into the coffin. Wiping her tears, she laughed softly again. "I saw Karen Silva. The outstanding young man I mentioned to you when I read the newspaper to you a while back. I also told you how good-looking he was. Were you jealous when I said that? "Yet he really is good-looking—much handsomer than in the photographs. "If not for the age gap between us, if I had met him before I met you, I might not have looked twice at you. "When I saw him at the door just now, I was startled. I thought he had been sent specifically to keep an eye on me. Who would have thought he was truly just passing by and actually knew that real estate broker? "I thought so. "Only a single night had passed, and I had barely composed myself—how could the higher-ups possibly react so fast?" Mrs. Sidra looked at her husband in the coffin. She reached out and gently caressed his shriveled face. "You silly fool. Truly." Remaining in this posture for about a quarter of an hour, Mrs. Sidra took a deep breath, took half a step back, placed her palm over the corpse, and said in a low voice: "Order... Awaken!" The desiccated corpse inside the coffin slowly opened its eyes. His hands slowly grasped the sides of the coffin. He sat up, looked at the woman before him, and spoke in an extremely raspy voice: "Darling, I thought you would grow more and more haggard after my death. But why have you gained so much weight?" Mrs. Sidra wiped her face and snapped, "Just because you died means others aren't allowed to eat?" "Haha, that's not what I meant. I..." The corpse suddenly froze. He lowered his head, looked at his palms, and then at his chest. His originally muddled, excited emotion upon waking and seeing his wife began to subside, and he immediately realized the gravity of the situation: "Where is this? Where are the other priests?" "This is our home. You're in our home—the home of the two of us." "Where are the other priests? Where are the other priests of the church?!" "There are no other priests. Only the two of us." "How could you awaken me without other priests present?! When this body of mine awakens, the Rula evil spirit sealed inside my body will awaken along with it!" "I know." "You know?!" The corpse urged frantically, "Call the Whip of Order quickly! Call the Emergency Office! Report to the regional headquarters and request full-scale reinforcements! Under no circumstances can this evil spirit be allowed to leave my body!" Mrs. Sidra shook her head. She tore open the front of her clothes, fully exposing her upper body, and then used her fingernail to slice open a bloody gash across the middle of her chest. She spoke: "Lord Evil Spirit, care to switch to a fresher body to stay in?" Puffs of black mist billowed from the corpse, actively surging toward Mrs. Sidra. The corpse stared at his wife in shock and disbelief: "You... have betrayed the church!" "No... it is the church that betrayed me."