Am I Not Human?

Thirty seconds. Perhaps even less. Amid the sudden, howling gale, the mist churned as if boiling. Darkness danced within the grayish white like wild beasts hungry to devour human prey. Having realized how close he had just come to the brink of death, Minkler dared delay no longer. He pulled open his collar without hesitation, revealing a ring hanging around his neck. It looked simple and unadorned, lacking any intricate or ostentatious design, yet across the whole of Xiangzhou, no one dared imitate it. It was the symbol of the Minkler family's identity. As an alchemical creation, it also appeared to possess a verification function, discerning authenticity and granting certification. Ji Jue had seen it before on Minkler's hand, but now Minkler had kept it hidden away, not daring to let anyone see it—because inside the gemstone set into the bezel, an erratic glimmer of vermilion light swirled and rose silently like a flame. Ji Jue froze. He had seen that faint glow before—back before departing for the Mid-Continent, during the reception banquet in Xiangzhou, when the family head had raised a glass in welcome. In the entire Minkler family, only the family head's ring bore that glimmer of light! Yet now, that faint glow had appeared in Minkler's hands out of thin air. Which meant... "I—I'm the next family head!" Minkler's expression contorted, half-crying and half-laughing. "This was Father's final decree, and also the certification granted by the House God." *The House God.* Nowadays, when anyone ventured into the world to make a name and build an empire, they had to have real tricks up their sleeve. The greater the merit, the vaster the domain, the more vicious those tricks had to be. To plant one's banner and reign supreme amid the chaotic Thousand Islands, even founding a city-state as fabulously wealthy as Xiangzhou to serve as the economic hub of the western Endless Sea, one clearly could not get by without serious backing. The House God was without question the Minkler family's ultimate trump card. Whether one called it an ancient ancestor, a guardian spirit, or the ancestral forebears—it was a secret ritual born from the amalgamation of Ascension and Tianyuan. Centered on the surname, rooted in bloodline, and embodied in the family, after generations of ancestors passed away, their lingering spirits gathered within the hearth fire, gradually transforming into a ferocious and bizarre artificial spirit capable of shielding the family whenever descendants faced calamity. One could say that from the moment the very first person surnamed Chopra appeared, their House God had been born from the sacrificial fire. Having carried on for so many years, the longer the family endured, the stronger the House God grew. It was essentially a domesticated vengeful ghost and guardian deity. Though it couldn't match a Celestial Chosen in flexibility, as the fusion of the shattered consciousness and power of countless ancestors, it was an anchor akin to a fusion bomb for the entire family. As for Ji Jue... *What? Minkler's ancestors are still around?* *Well, that's just too—cough, cough, cough—too damn great!* *Let me study that later.* As for why the House God recognized Minkler, there was only one reason: the arrangement made in the previous family head's very last thought before dying. Only, unfortunately... "Your old man was truly vicious," Ji Jue couldn't help marveling. To offer up a biological son as cannon fodder and a scapegoat—even if he was just one among dozens of sons. In that brief span right before death, to make such an arrangement without a second thought... the sheer ruthlessness and malice left Ji Jue in awe. Minkler was already weeping profusely, choking on tears. "The old bastard looked down on me my whole life, and in the end he still used me as cannon fodder!" Designated by the family head? Certified by the House God? Was it of any use? Like hell it was! If it were really of any use, would Minkler have fled desperately to Xinquan like a stray dog just to beg for a way to survive? Appoint him as family head? That would only work if the appointment actually carried weight. Besides, if the old man really wanted to choose him, why wait until death's door at this exact juncture to pick him? What a joke! If he were genuinely considered a candidate for family head, arrangements would have been made long ago for him to enter politics! And the reality? He had been turned out to pasture all his life, raised like a pig. Living off a modest monthly stipend, he had more than enough to squander on wine and women, but nowhere near enough to accomplish anything of significance. The only time in his life he had ever hardened his resolve to make a name for himself, he had joined the military as a commander of an auxiliary cannon-fodder unit. After getting a bit of gold-plating on his record, he was shoved into the Seven Cities Joint Defense to idle his days away. It was only during operations that he had met Lu Feng, and through a series of coincidences managed to connect with Ji Jue. Otherwise, making it big? Keep dreaming! At present, Minkler had barely managed to squeeze from the family's fringes into its inner circle. Commander of the Seven Cities Joint Defense Fleet? Just look at those ships, older than Ji Jue himself! Weapons phased out by the Empire and the Federation decades ago, coupled with abysmal dispatch capabilities and organization. It was merely the seven families scraping together to get by, tossing out old junk to cobble together an empty shell. On ordinary days, patrolling and catching smugglers was fine. When real fighting broke out, each family still had to muster their own elite private forces to fill the gaps, disbanding and heading home the moment it was over. Minkler was still an officer without an army. Better than the worst, worse than the best—a pure middle-manager meant to take the fall. Even after climbing with all his might, he had only earned the privilege of becoming a sacrifice in this round of infighting. So what if the House God recognized him as the new candidate for family head? It was merely recognition. Without an ancestral ritual, without pouring holy oil and blood into the hearth fire, he couldn't mobilize the House God at all—it wouldn't even pay him any heed. The holy oil that truly made the House God bow its head was gripped firmly in his fourth brother's hands! With this kind of certification, the moment Minkler died, they could immediately switch to the next one. Goodbye and good riddance—the next one would be more obedient anyway. The only purpose his father had achieved was putting this son over the fire, drawing everyone's gaze, turning him into the protruding rafter that would rot first—all to buy time for the chaotic family to reorganize... Which meant his own kin would never save him. In fact, they wouldn't even let him live! Once he understood that, two hours after his father died, Minkler used the excuse of going to the toilet to slip away from the Seven Cities Joint Defense port, driving a confiscated speedboat and fleeing into the night. Tears flowed inward; he hadn't even dared look back. And he dared tell the truth even less. This wasn't some landlord hit by misfortune; this was cannon fodder waiting to die—the kind everyone had a right to execute... "You've got to help a brother out, Old Ji!" He grabbed Ji Jue's hand, clutching it tight, refusing to let go as tears and snot poured down his face. "At a time like this, you won't believe any big promises I make. But if we pull through, whatever you want, I won't stop you! As long as you can keep me alive, anything's negotiable!" "You trust me that much?" Ji Jue was amused, paying no mind to the fact that Minkler had abruptly lowered his generational standing. Minkler retorted decisively, "Of everyone I know, who else can I trust? Who else has two Medals of Supreme Goodness?! Who else could throw billions of dollars at the Church of Chongguang when they had nothing to their name? "Ever since we met, I bore the reputation of a traitor at home to secure all those terms for you. I didn't want anything from you—I just wanted to get on your good side so that if anything went wrong in the future, you'd pull me out of the fire..." He pleaded meekly, "My demands aren't high—really, they're not! As long as I can keep my life, whoever wants to be family head can have it!" "If you'd been this forthright from the start, would there have been so much trouble?" Ji Jue pulled his hand back coolly to keep the tears and snot off his sleeve. "At least it's more sincere than earlier when you hugged my leg and pretended to call me godfather." "You agree?!" Minkler was overjoyed, practically blowing a snot bubble as a smile broke across his face. "Friends are friends, after all. As for whether I'll help you, we'll talk after we deal with the trouble right in front of us." Ji Jue walked forward with his hands clasped behind his back, stepping up to the bow one pace at a time. Glancing at the eerie shadows churning in the fog, he suddenly asked curiously, "Not advancing, not retreating, not running, not attacking... Why is that?" In that instant, the sound of someone stumbling seemed to come from within the fog. Immediately following was a terrifying roar like a tsunami suddenly bursting forth! "Ji Jue!" On a reef jutting out from the sea, the Celestial Chosen holding a water mirror suddenly twitched, her face deathly pale as she nearly slipped into the sea. She shrieked, "Dammit, it really is Ji Jue!" In the water mirror, that indistinct figure suddenly grew sharp and clear, flashing a broad grin at everyone. Though brimming with warmth and generosity, it sent chills down their spines. Like falling into an icehouse. She hesitated, looking toward the hunched, sinister, shriveled old woman beside her. "Mom, should we pull back..." The old woman's face twitched once, then again. She had never imagined that an easy job meant for picking on a soft persimmon would end up crashing headfirst into an iron plate. No, why?! Why would a Federation artisan meddle in the affairs of the Seven Cities?! Yet feeling the chilling gaze piercing from deeper within the fog behind her, the old woman's expression twitched again, and she forced words out between gritted teeth: "So what if it's Ji Jue!" An unarmed artisan who wasn't even in his workshop, aboard a beat-up rustbucket of a ship—no matter how fearsome his reputation, could he really turn the heavens upside down? As if this old woman would fear you! A ruthless glint flashed in the old woman's eyes. "Ignore him!" She said, "Kill our target quickly and we leave! Be careful and leave no trace behind. Worst comes to worst, we can hide in the Empire for a couple of years..." Having enjoyed decades of wealth and luxury, bound now by a blood pact, there had long been no room to retreat. If she didn't flee, she only had to face Ji Jue. But if she ran away, for the rest of her life she would be hunted down by the furious House God, her soul tortured endlessly in its belly... "Do it!" Her mind made up, she pulled a blackish-green bone flute from her bosom and blew a silent melody. Amidst a piercing howl, eerie silhouettes emerged from the void, like spirits who had died of thirst and hunger crawling up from the seawater. A foul stench materialized out of thin air on the deck of the *Prosperity*. Watery footprints and handprints flecked with crushed seaweed manifested along the hull, climbing upward at uncanny speed and spreading toward Minkler. Rotting corpses tangled in seaweed and barnacles, their swollen faces coated with pus and crusty shells, scrambled on all fours toward Minkler, shrieking and wailing his name. Minkler screamed at the top of his lungs in terror, his face deathly pale as he practically hung off Ji Jue's body. Yet Ji Jue saw absolutely nothing. He only felt Minkler getting in the way! It had to be said that no matter what kind of Sovereign Virtue it was, once it reached a place like the Thousand Islands—boundless on the surface yet cramped with countless narrow nooks and crannies, where cultural chasms between islands were starker than night and day—it would always end up tainted with Great Sins or all sorts of bizarre hodgepodge. Perhaps the orthodox essence was unattainable, but when it came to stitched-together monstrosities, bizarre additions, and secret weapons, they were truly a sight to behold. Ascension mingled with the Abyssal Depths; transcendence coexisted with perdition; there was even a bit of Mirror and Rainbow mixed in. Even a curse had turned into something this bizarre. It completely ignored Ji Jue, gunning straight for Minkler. The result was Minkler shrieking more shrilly than a rubber chicken, while Ji Jue couldn't see a single ghostly shadow. The Celestial Chosen casting the curse had clearly obtained the guy's date of birth and personal belongings. If he hadn't fled to the Federation, he probably would have been sucked into an empty husk by the attracted vengeful wraiths and evil spirits long ago. An outsider simply had no way to intervene... Then again. An outsider might indeed be an outsider, but unfortunately... Ji Jue was not human.