Let the Ancestors Suffer a Little

When the sweat has run dry and every ounce of effort is spent, all that remains are tears. Late at night in the dormitory for sixth-class cannon fodder, snores rose on all sides in a cacophony of noise. Tang Qian, who usually slept like a dead pig the instant his head hit the pillow, lay wide awake, tossing and turning. Incomprehensible. He was furious! Unable to bear it any longer, he called forth the ancestors residing within the Heritage Offering and demanded, "Fourth Granduncle, what in the world are you thinking?" "What I think doesn't really matter. What matters is—what are you thinking?" Fourth Granduncle countered serenely, "Do you really want to live like this for the rest of your life?" Tang Qian fell silent. Not out of shame, but from sheer bewilderment. He couldn't understand it, couldn't make heads or tails of it. Are you fucking kidding me? Trying to make me laugh? Well, you win! "Fuck me!" Tang Qian snapped in a fury. "What's wrong with my life? If I spent it building bridges, paving roads, and doing good deeds to hoard karma, would my future be bright? Is this shit my fault? In this damned lineage, every generation went around murdering, setting fires, and fighting tooth and nail just for their own kicks, leaving zero leeway for their descendants! Living sloppily and dying grotesquely was just par for the course. But now that it's come to me, how I spend my life suddenly becomes so fucking critically important?! Don't you feel like something's wrong with that picture?" "Why, Fourth Granduncle?!" Tang Qian pressed, "Isn't 'good enough' good enough? What's wrong with muddling through life! Drifting along in a daze isn't so bad, is it?" "Indeed," Fourth Granduncle said approvingly, as if nodding, before adding another question: "But is it good for them?" "......" Tang Qian fell silent once more. Left speechless, he rolled over angrily, refusing to speak. "Just give me some time. Just give me some time, alright?" Heritage Offering, terminate. Yet it wouldn't terminate. This kind of two-way resonance worked fine if both sides agreed. But it wasn't a cheap phone call where you could ring him up whenever you felt like it and then hang up the moment he answered. Who did he think he was talking to? Fourth Granduncle remained connected. No anger, no resentment. Only a sigh. "There's one thing Lord Tianlu said that was right on the mark—the dead shouldn't be giving orders to the living. Inheritances and bloodlines are all bullshit anyway. It's no big deal; if they're gone, they're gone." Fourth Granduncle spoke slowly: "The Path of the Swarm dictates that the victor lives and the loser dies. Once a person dies, no matter how much they say, they're just a clown. Only the living are winners." "Then what are you blathering on about?" Tang Qian rolled his eyes. "Stop nagging. Tomorrow I'm packing up and running. What the hell does it have to do with me? I'm done playing!" "Suit yourself," Fourth Granduncle said indifferently. "I only rambled so much because I couldn't stand watching you dilly-dally. I thought after wasting some time you might gain a bit of enlightenment, but you're an embarrassment of a creature. You can't be pushed, you don't understand when spoken to, you don't listen when told, and no one can talk sense into you. What can I do? Cold comfort, pack it in, do whatever you like. Just one thing—as an 'elder,' I must tell you this:" He said, "At least give yourself a chance, Ah Qian. Be a real man for once. Cut others some slack, and cut yourself some slack, too. You have to make a choice eventually." Tang Qian closed his eyes, turning a deaf ear. After a long while, he opened them and let out a helpless sigh. "...What if I can't bring myself to decide?" "Then just hang in there," Fourth Granduncle chuckled. "Reaping what you sow is fine, too. You'll bloody well deserve it." Heritage Offering, terminated. The Sacrificial Lord declined your call and wished to block your number. Tang Qian couldn't even dial back to cuss him out. He could only toss and turn even more. Closing his eyes, opening them again. After a long time, he rolled over and looked out the window into the empty, desolate night. Silently, he cursed under his breath. Stuck with such a rotten inheritance, this life of mine is truly done for! The next day, Old Tom—who had originally intended to pack his bags and flee—ended up gritting his teeth during a patrol interval, sneaking off once again to the place Ji Jue had mentioned. On a stretch of muddy flat, a speedboat that had long been waiting picked him up. Cutting through the wind and waves, taking winding detours, it brought him to a dilapidated warehouse. Ji Jue had been waiting for some time. Holding Pan Ying in his hand, he was casually polishing and honing it. When Tang Qian arrived, he tossed the sword over. "Holy crap—" Tang Qian's face lit up, his previously scowling mug instantly sweetening enough to drip honey. Stroking the three Sacrificial Lord emblems upon the blade, he clicked his tongue in admiration: "Generous boss! May you live in good health, boss!" "Just lending it to you. You have to return it once the job is done. Of course, if you're willing to sign a long-term contract, I wouldn't be opposed to considering it." Tang Qian turned a deaf ear, acting as though he hadn't heard a word, not taking the bait at all. Ji Jue acted like he hadn't spoken either. He shot a glance toward Tang Qian's rear, then reached out and pointed behind himself: "Alright, that's roughly it." He said, "Pack it all in." Dead silence. A long, stretching silence. Tang Qian tilted his head back, staring at the shipping containers piled high as a mountain. At a total loss for words, he couldn't help bursting into laughter. "Ji, you—" To begin with, convenient though the Heritage Offering was, it couldn't store just anything. Out of consideration for 'family,' so long as the offerings were limited to Tang Qian himself, anything went—just like borrowing a hoe or shovel from relatives, borrowing and depositing at will was no issue. However, foreign objects that did not belong to him imposed a severe burden. After all, the ancestors couldn't shoulder everything for him, nor could just anything be stuffed into the ancestral shrine. To forge iron, one needed to be hard oneself. And Tang Qian belonged to the kind that was—well, exceptionally hard. He loaded at least half of it, and then some! After that, he adamantly refused to load another scrap onto himself. If he stuffed any more in, even if he wasn't crushed to death, the ancestors would beat him to death outright. And so, after a brief rendezvous, the bearded Swarm member clutched his backside, limping away out of the warehouse. Walking toward a future full of hope. *** Something was wrong. Beneath a shattered white tower, a short-haired ascetic monk walked barefoot and half-naked, holding a fractured, rust-pocked iron bowl to catch the rain dripping slowly from the tower above. Drop by drop, meandering, it trickled down his throat. The monk's lips were parched and his frame emaciated, resembling a beggar. Just like the monks seen everywhere across Tacheng, he amassed no private property and left no descendants, having vowed to follow the legendary King of Benevolent Relief, using his own being to bear the trials of the mortal realm. He drank only water from the heavens and ate only the fruits of the earth, accepting no help from others and relying on no tools, using his own strength to haul massive white stones from the wilderness beyond the city, meticulously polishing them into bricks to build a tower. When the white tower was fully erected, his ascetic practice would be deemed complete. Only then could he accept offerings and donations from the faithful. From antiquity to the present, countless such monks had lived in Tacheng. White towers, some intact and some ruined, stood in clusters around the city. It was precisely because of this that it was called the City of a Thousand Towers. And now, the emaciated monk's movements hesitated once again. That unsettling sensation had returned. The pack's blood oath had wavered. Once, twice, and yet again— It felt as though a pack member was facing a mortal crisis. Had that fellow Kelbasu blown his cover? Impossible. A cowardly brute like him, fierce on the outside but weak within, would rather hide inside the Imperial base twenty-four hours a day without showing his face than expose himself outdoors. Yet why was the blood oath's connection shaking in waves? Was he dying? No, even if he were on the verge of death, after three or four days he should already be dead. Yet as time passed, this connection was only growing fainter and fainter. This was a sign of severance... Did that fellow want to jump ship? Tampering secretly with the blood oath bound to his soul, thinking himself clever and stealthy, never imagining that the oath's restraint penetrated down to the bone marrow and soul—the slightest tremor could never escape the Wolf Lord's eyes. In any case, this anomaly made the monk—or rather, Shehri—grow increasingly vigilant, his murderous intent stirring. Indeed, a two-faced turncoat who hopped back and forth between the Evil Transmutation Cult and the Wolf Den was ultimately not one of their own. He could not be kept around any longer. The silent monk raised his iron bowl, treading upon dust and mud along the street as he moved forward. Yet, in the end, he only hovered between the wilderness and the settlement. He gazed at the distant garrison base from afar, making no approach. A trace of suspicion surfaced in those clouded pupils, unable to suppress his caution. Even with his target practically within arm's reach, he refused to act rashly. Suppressing the killing intent in his heart, his steps came to an abrupt halt. He sat down in the muddy water, scrubbing the irregular white stone in his hands. Just like any wandering monk seen across the wasteland. His mind gradually grew serene. And within this extreme tranquility, he finally sensed it—at this very moment, amidst the countless chaotic, tangled auras within the Imperial garrison base, a faint wisp of malice. A wisp of malice directed at him. Shehri's movements paused slightly, his guard snapping up instantly—a trap aimed at him? Without hesitation, he scooped up the scrubbed white stone, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and turned to leave. Across the sky, what came rushing toward him was an intensely brilliant streak of fire. In an instant, it swept over his head, speeding toward a farther destination. What the hell was that? Shehri's steps halted. Subconsciously glancing back, he saw—flames abruptly billowing up from within the garrison base! Three seconds later, a colossal roar washed over the entire wilderness, surging toward Tacheng like a tidal wave. *BOOM!!!!!* *** 4:11 PM. Three minutes after Old Tom used a flare-up of hemorrhoids as an excuse to slip away to the restroom, in the heavily guarded command center at the very heart of the garrison base, a red icon suddenly flashed on the main screen. Radar warning! The lieutenant before the console froze, eyes going wide, before slamming down the alarm button and shouting, "Unidentified flying object approaching—distance sixty kilometers—speed accelerating!" In an instant, the quiet command center erupted into chaos. One interceptor missile launch pad after another was urgently brought online. With personnel scrambling and monitoring, the lock-on was swiftly completed. The missile trajectory adjusted, and the launch pad unlocked. The colonel on duty stared with wide eyes as if sitting on pins and needles, his finger hovering over the launch button, unable to decide. It was impossible to tell whether this counted as an overreaction... "Any movement from the Federation?!" "All clear, negative!" "What about the urban district?" "Clear!" "Clear the base perimeter—" Before the colonel could finish his sentence, he heard the radar operator's relieved report: "Target confirmed! It's not a missile, repeat, not a missile—it's an unmarked, makeshift drone!"