Wine and Song

This was bad. What should you do when the family you're out to exterminate turns out to be your own friend's? Asking online, pretty urgent. In the awkward silence, Ji Jue and Wen Wen stared at each other—one face utterly bewildered, the other torn with conflict, both hesitating to speak. Ji Jue suddenly began to wonder: Had he already had too much to drink? How else could he be hallucinating something so outrageous? He desperately wanted to ask, "Sister Wen, are you joking?" Unfortunately, she wasn't. The expression on that familiar profile remained deeply troubled, completely devoid of any smile or teasing glint. "Wait, my head's a bit scrambled. Let me sort this out..." Ji Jue looked at her suspiciously, scratching his head as he racked his brain for a long while before seeking confirmation once more. "Those two who came yesterday... they're your relatives?" "Yeah." Wen Wen picked up the freshly opened bottle of whisky again. Without even adding ice, she poured a full glass neat and downed it in one gulp. Then, setting the glass aside, she grabbed the bottle itself. "That Heart Pivot is my sister." "Ugh..." Ji Jue rubbed his chin, sighing with genuine feeling. "Doesn't look like it at all." "What doesn't look like it?" "The figure?" Ji Jue gestured at his chest. "I mean, completely flat—" *Wham!* Wen Wen rolled her eyes and threw a punch without a second thought. Fortunately, she pulled her strength. Otherwise, a casual blow from an Exalted of the Desolate Ruins was no different from getting hit by a speeding dump truck. It nearly scrambled Ji Jue's brains, sending dark spots swimming across his vision. "Stop joking around!" Wen Wen snapped. Ji Jue sighed, rubbing his numb shoulder. "Wasn't I just afraid being too serious would make you feel worse?" "Brat." Wen Wen shot him a glare and let out a sigh. Glancing at the liquor nearing the bottom of the bottle, she couldn't help another heavy breath. She didn't know whether she felt pity for others or for herself. "I have a hard time believing it too..." She lowered her eyes and murmured softly, "Back when she was little, she was such an obedient kid, a little crybaby who could only weep when bullied. How did she end up like this...?" "What about the one behind her?" Ji Jue asked. "That pitch-black one—also your relative?" *Crack!* A hairline fracture appeared across the liquor bottle. Wen Wen replied expressionlessly, "A pile of non-combustible trash. *Ptooey.* I should have burned him to ashes back then. After I snapped his bones one by one and ground them to paste, I never expected him to survive... Vermin like that sometimes just have lives too stubborn to end." "..." Ji Jue couldn't help shaking his head. He couldn't shake the feeling that despite both being relatives, the disparity in treatment was quite extreme. Yet he couldn't say much, only listen in silence. He genuinely wanted to offer some comforting words, only to realize that all his conversational talents seemed poured into mockery. Silence was truly golden. Otherwise, what if he accidentally caused Sister Wen to break down? More importantly, if she broke down, she would drink like mad; the drunker she got, the harder she cracked, the tougher her fists became, the more ruthless her blows, and the more it hurt to get hit. With his build, even if he had reached Regeneration, in her hands he was brittle as a wafer. Best not seek death like that. "Hey, Ji Jue." Amid the gloomy silence of their drinking, Wen Wen suddenly spoke up. "Yeah?" Ji Jue looked over. "About A-Su..." Wen Wen paused, offering a stiff plea. "Even though she did wrong, she's still my sister after all. Could you do me a favor?" "Huh?" Ji Jue froze in surprise. "That really doesn't sound like you." "No, what I mean is—" Wen Wen steeled her resolve, squeezing the words through gritted teeth. "If she ever falls into your hands again... for my sake, give her a quick death." "What?" Ji Jue was dumbfounded, doubting his ears all the more. *Wait, big sister, you agonized for so long, begging for favors and dropping hints back and forth, and I thought you were asking me to spare her life. What do you mean by giving her a quick death?* And more importantly... "Sister Wen, what kind of person do you take me for?" Wen Wen was rendered speechless. *What kind of person are you? Does this lady even need to wonder?!* *How you handled Pacquiao is practically turning into a horror story in the Wasteland Market, all right!* *Besides, do you think your 'Rehabilitation Assembly Line' is just for show?* *A few days ago, the first batch released after serving their sentences came out. They looked alive and kicking, but inside they were practically dead already. What normal person cries, screams, and craps their pants the second they see a stun baton!* She rolled her eyes and countered bluntly, "If I hadn't said anything, what were you planning to do?" Need you even ask? Ji Jue thought without hesitation. A Celestial Chosen was a treasure trove from head to toe, let alone such a rare high-tier Heart Pivot! Setting aside blessings, matrices, and research value, the flesh was premier spiritus-conductor material, while the heart, brain, and bones had endless wonderful uses... Yeah, first extract the soul and keep it fed to periodically harvest and distill, and then—that damn vivid imagery flared up in a flash. By the time he came back to his senses, it was too late to deny it. Wen Wen's gaze had turned razor-sharp! "Uh, cough, cough—" Ji Jue lowered his head, took a sip of liquor, and deflected: "As expected of you, Sister Wen. Decisive when it counts." "Bullshit!" Wen Wen sighed wearily. "Did I have any other choice? What about you? If your family did something like this, what would you do?" "..." Ji Jue fell silent at once, looking over with a dark, gloomy gaze. *Sister, isn't that question a bit unhinged? No matter how fierce a family feud gets, the prerequisite is having a family in the first place, right? ... Is the theme of our drinking session today stabbing each other in the heart?* "Ah, sorry." Only after asking did Wen Wen realize her slip of the tongue. She buried her head in furious drinking to cover the awkwardness. "It's fine. It's been so long already." Ji Jue didn't mind. "Though speaking of family... Mother Lu and the others probably count, right? "Xiao Ling has a straightforward nature, and Third Sister and Lao Yao are sensible kids. Mother Lu's way of raising children would never go wrong, not to mention having surveillance watching them twenty-four hours a day—it would be hard to take a wrong turn even if they wanted to. As for Lu Feng, well, he also acts like a decent person." He was an Embers, not an Ascension; he was hardly an emissary of justice punishing evil and promoting good. When family and righteousness were placed on opposite ends of the scale, he already knew which way it would tip. He couldn't be as clean and decisive as Wen Wen. To an artisan, everything had its inherent value, yet the value of certain things outweighed all others. Even so, he still wouldn't permit such weighing to take place. Throughout his journey, grinding like crazy and climbing upward at all costs, wasn't it precisely for the freedom to pull out a hammer and smash that so-called scale to pieces at the crucial moment? "Though..." Holding her glass, Wen Wen studied his expression with an air of hesitation and probing. "You seem never to have talked about your father?" "Huh?" Ji Jue was suddenly at a loss. Why did it feel like Sister Wen had gone soft-headed today, prying into his personal life? After a long while, he shook his head with a sigh. "Probably because I can't remember much." "Sorry," Wen Wen sighed. "What's with you? Apologizing and sighing constantly—it really doesn't sound like you." Ji Jue poured himself another glass and took a light sip. "By the time I started remembering things, he had already passed away. Supposedly a workshop accident, intracranial hemorrhage. He was gone by the time they reached the hospital... Still, once in a while, I can recall a few scenes from when I was little." Those fleeting glimpses of the past. Just a single moment. It seemed to be some night right after comforting a child, when the television broadcast finished and dissolved into flickering static. In the intervals of sleep, he saw that figure sitting at the desk, absorbed in writing and sketching. He couldn't make out his face. Yet the desk lamp illuminated that back, outlining a reassuring silhouette. The cool breeze of a summer night drifted gently, and the chirp of insects rose from the grass outside the window. And so, sweet dreams. "Besides that, there are plenty of ridiculous stories too." Ji Jue gave an amused smile. "They say whenever my mom wasn't around and I wailed as a baby, he would read the Engineering Materials Handbook to me." "And then you stopped crying?" "Then I cried even harder, all right?! Who in the world comforts a baby with that kind of thing?" "...Yeah, true." Wen Wen nodded, unable to argue. "My mom told me my dad was the dull type—taciturn, oblivious to romance, with no sense of ceremony. "If anything, he was like a wound-up clock—moving step by step, spinning tirelessly without complaint, steady enough to make people feel safe yet exasperated. "Still, whenever he looked at the most precious thing in the world, he would shine, his eyes like stars." Ji Jue recalled his mother's expression back then. It had brimmed with cheerful, happy radiance, as if describing the best person in the entire world. By now, Ji Jue could barely remember his father's face. After all these years, stumbling and wandering through life, the only thing left behind was a photo his mother had specially scanned and saved when sorting through old belongings during a move. A wedding photo against a red backdrop. The young man held his wife's hand tightly, his smile slightly awkward, yet when looking into the camera, he couldn't suppress the happiness and hope. "How nice." Wen Wen gave an envious soft sigh. Resting her chin in her hand, she swirled the ice in her glass, hesitating. She wanted to say something, but didn't even know where to begin. Compared to that tiny remnant of light in Ji Jue's memories, she had once thought her life was illuminated by the sun. Yet that sun had been nothing more than an illusion. There had never been any light at all. She had merely harbored unrealistic fantasies, racing through the darkness in delusion. Even now, when recalling her father, the vividest impression beyond resentment and anger was that smile—one that looked just like a mask. As if it had never changed in the slightest. Ever since she was small, she had felt her father was the greatest person in the world—strong, formidable, smiling like the sun. Until he wore that very smile as he shoved another child into the incinerator. The kid hadn't done anything wrong, had tried harder than anyone else. His only fault was that after striving until age eleven, he had failed to achieve Autonomous Awakening. His mistake was being valueless. What sickened her even more was that for a split second back then, she had actually felt that was right, perfectly natural—a valueless piece of trash didn't matter if he died. Yet no matter what, she could never forget the last look that child had given her over his shoulder. Tears in his eyes, a smile on his face. As if finally freed, bidding a silent farewell. He escaped the hell through flames, never to be seen again. As those flames lit her face, a thought arose in her heart that had never crossed her mind before: One day, will Father abandon me like this too? From that day forth, unspeakable terror and hesitation welled up within her, driving her to strive and torment herself endlessly just to win approval and praise. Unbeknownst to her, the brothers and sisters around her grew fewer one by one, and their relationships gradually shifted from warm and gentle to treating each other like bitter enemies. There could only be one good child for Papa. And that person had to be her! It had to be her! And so they envied one another, and so they slaughtered one another. Until she could bear it no longer and escaped from that hell at all costs. Yet had she truly escaped? Was her past rebellion not just Wen Zheng's indulgence? And that scene back then—hadn't Wen Zheng deliberately staged it before her eyes? She couldn't care anymore. Drifting and fighting all the way, tearing and seizing in vain like a beast, lost in the mortal world, and then slowly learning human rules bit by bit until she became this entirely different person today. Only when looking back did she understand what kind of monster her past self had been. Yet every time she looked back, she found that past self looking back at her too. Right beside her from beginning to end, drawing closer and closer, relishing her futile flight and evasion, clinging like a nightmare that would never let go. In the end... old habits died hard. "How laughable I am." Wen Wen closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and downed the remaining liquor and ice in one go. In the silence, she turned back to look at the person beside her. "Ji Jue?" "Yeah?" Ji Jue asked, puzzled. For a moment, Wen Wen seemed to hesitate, but soon smiled, as if setting down some heavy burden, relieved of all weight. "No, nothing." Wen Wen smiled and raised her glass. "Let's drink." She said, "Thank you." Such a soft, cheerful smile... Ji Jue had never seen it on her face before. In a fleeting daze, he instinctively raised his glass. With a crisp clink, he drank it down. That was the last memory he could recall before blacking out. Everything after was far too chaotic. Amid the drunken haze, letting loose, playing drinking games, taking penalty shots, cheating at dice and getting pummeled—he seemed to have even performed a little routine, only for a backflip to turn into a split. In his memories, he seemed to have slung an arm over Sister Wen's shoulder, patting his chest and swearing: *Between brothers like us, say no more! I'll definitely give your sister a clean, swift death. When the time comes, we can even turn her skull into a goblet as a keepsake for you to drink with! If you don't feel like using it, we can also use it to hold your dad's ashes...* And then, he got beaten up again! He had meant well, honestly. Anyway, when he woke up, his face was bruised blue and purple, his whole body aching as if run over by a truck. His head pounded with a splitting ache, filled with regret. It was already noon. His phone was packed with missed calls and unread messages. Aside from advertisements and spam, there were really only two things. First: after drinking last night, Sister Wen had gone to Duanmen, thrashed the repair shop owner and his apprentice, snatched back her sixteen hundred yuan, and swaggered off. Second: she had resigned. Without waiting for any approval or permission, she had simply left a resignation letter on her desk—one that finally found its use. Without warning, she left without saying goodbye. In the dead of night, Yu Shu couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning, he seemed to have had a dream, waking up drenched in cold sweat. He closed his eyes, trying hard to fall back asleep. Yet in a daze, he heard the singing again—so distant, like weeping and longing. Above the dark sea, the bright moon hung high in the night sky, quietly illuminating the mist over the rolling waves. Rotting, bloated corpses bobbed and surged within the oceanic swell, gathering into a tide drifting toward a distant isolated isle. Across those joyful, decomposing faces, lips opened and closed. The blissful souls sang at the top of their lungs.