Are You Even Worthy?

"Ah." Bustamante stood frozen, stiffly tilting his head back to read Ji Jue's expression. He was utterly mystified, unable to comprehend what was happening. It was as though he had walked through the door one day, opened his arms to embrace his godfather's thighs, only to suddenly receive a resounding slap across the face along with a sharp interrogation: *Did you always love seducing people like that when you were out on the streets?* Wait, brother, even settling old scores shouldn't look like this, right? How much time had passed already? Why dredge up ancient history all of a sudden? Thoughts raced through his mind as he instinctively tried to divine Ji Jue's intent. Yet staring into those pitch-black eyes, any excuse to deflect blame died in his throat. At this point, what fancy lies could he even tell? What was done was done. Trying to be clever was suicidal; honesty was the only way to invite leniency. He lowered his head, prostrating himself on the floor in penitence. "It had nothing to do with anyone else. It was entirely my own idea." Silence. In the protracted quiet, Ji Jue said nothing. The corner of his mouth merely curled upward, as though he had been amused. A cold chuckle. Bustamante felt plunged into an ice cellar. He knocked his head against the ground repeatedly, pleading, "Mr. Ji, I know I was auda—" "No, I'm just musing." Ji Jue waved a hand, cutting him off with a soft sigh. "People are often blind to themselves, Bustamante. They don't know their own measure, they don't know what they're doing, and they don't know what they've truly done..." He cast a glance at the trembling House God on the floor, making no attempt to conceal his contempt. "Are you even worthy?" "Huh?" Bustamante grew even more bewildered, yet breathed an inward sigh of relief. He finally understood that this wasn't some retroactive reckoning. But precisely because of that, his confusion only deepened. Modifying the House God was the crowning pride of his life, his most brilliant concept and scheme. Decades of unremitting effort and perseverance had finally blazed a trail from scratch. If his dutiful son hadn't suddenly poisoned him to death, and if Ji Jue hadn't barged in, the path of replacing the House God with himself had at least a forty percent chance of success! Yet now, under Ji Jue's gaze, panic suddenly seized him. "Mr. Ji, are you saying... there was a flaw in my idea?" "No, I'm merely skeptical." Ji Jue asked impassively, "Was that idea truly yours?" Like a stone-faced professor nitpicking every detail during a thesis defense, Ji Jue fired off questions in rapid succession: "Where is the supporting evidence for your theory? What were your references? Where did the source material come from? "What did you reference for the mutations along the Ascension branch? What tier and what sacrifices were used for the secret rite of consciousness fusion and replacement? Where did they come from? Who taught you?" Suppressing his tremors, Bustamante answered each question one by one. Fortunately, Minkler hadn't been in power for long, and the former patriarch's belongings had yet to be cleared out. Under his direction, they located the secret compartment behind the office where he had once researched the House God, along with an extensive collection of rare books. From Heart Pivot to Ascension, from Embers to Vortex. Craftsmen's manuscripts, handwritten scriptures and liturgical chants, reserve sacrifices, and parchment scrolls detailing numerous complex secret rites—even yearbooks published by the Ring of Taiyi, alongside countless treatises and papers on related fields. Even more voluminous were the records of his longstanding observations, explorations, and understanding of the House God, as well as the accumulated knowledge passed down by previous patriarchs. It was clear Bustamante had poured immense effort into this. Though his answers faltered at times, every single one of Ji Jue's questions received an explanation. The ancient tomes and papers within truly could address the questions Ji Jue posed. The entire trajectory of research and explorations down wrong turns were all documented. Ji Jue flipped through them casually. The more he read, the tighter his brows knitted. It was unbearable to look at. Ugh, what a dumpster fire! It was as if someone had found all the right reference books, memorized every question type and core concept, invested blood and sweat, and had even been given an open-book exam where an honors student could score one hundred with their eyes closed—only for this hopeless lump of mud to scrape by with a bare passing grade, and even then only because the advisor took pity and gave him a boost. It was so slipshod! Shallow understanding, mediocre capability, clumsy operations, disastrous execution, and an efficiency so hideous it made eyes bleed... but it had to be said, the direction was right. Especially regarding how to handle the House God—it was a stroke of genius! He had actually managed to grope out this path from scratch! It possessed the brutal beauty of a quack doctor treating a cold: cranking the dosage to the absolute max and popping antibiotics like rice. The cold got cured; don't ask how many side effects were left behind—just tell me if you're cured or not! Impressive! Yet was that truly how it happened? Something felt wrong. First of all, in this world, the idea that effort guaranteed reward was a false premise to begin with! If effort were useful, the Profound wouldn't exist! If the direction was wrong, no amount of effort mattered. Even if the direction was right, effort without talent was useless; talent without opportunity was useless; and opportunity without luck was equally useless! There could be ten thousand wrong answers, but only one correct one. A Seven Cities parasite with a mind full of petty machinations, whose aptitude was nothing more than a puddle of mud, who had forcibly triggered a blank-slate Ascension via High-Rank Beckoning—where could he possibly have gotten the vision and the sheer luck? He hadn't even figured out what self-nature, ego, and selfhood were, yet out of nowhere he had connected the dots, slapped his forehead, and proclaimed: *I get it! I've succeeded!* Wasn't that a little too convenient? Previously, Ji Jue might have chalked it up to dumb luck, a blind cat stumbling across a dead rat. But now that he was scrutinizing the matter and thoroughly interrogating Bustamante, he realized just how enormous the discrepancy was. Even Heaven picked its favorites when handing out blessings. Even if Ji Jue was looking down on him, and Bustamante—despite being rotten on the outside—possessed some shred of hidden talent worthy of being called fine jade... these notes and records wouldn't be this abysmal! How did someone like you even get into graduate school?! What kind of nonsense was stepping on an answer sheet and getting a perfect score? If you had that kind of luck, what were you doing floundering in the mud pit of the Seven Cities? The Association's giant hand would have descended from the heavens to tie you beside a forge as an upgrade catalyst, if only to bump success rates up by a single percentage point! Under Ji Jue's cold, piercing gaze, cold sweat began to pour from Bustamante. He racked his brains, thinking furiously. He was on the verge of tears. "B-but that really was my own idea... I... I also..." No matter how Bustamante turned it over in his mind, he could find nothing amiss. "Does Mr. Ji suspect that I was controlled by a Heart Pivot? But that shouldn't be possible. With the House God's protection, a Heart Pivot couldn't have succeeded." "If a Heart Pivot truly wanted to alter you, would you even know?" Ji Jue shook his head. "Besides, why would changing a person require a Heart Pivot at all?" Wasn't the greatest threat of a Heart Pivot precisely that stealth? Subtle, insidious influence accumulating day after day—a single glance, a single syllable, a single expression, silently rendering a person unrecognizable. Yet what could change a person went far beyond just the Heart Pivot. "Mr. Ji, if you ask me... you won't get a coherent answer out of this old ghost," Minkler suggested. "Why don't we just find a Heart Pivot and crack his skull open to search inside?" A classic display of filial devotion. Yet facing Minkler's proposal, Bustamante nodded repeatedly, desperate for a Heart Pivot to arrive and help clear his name. At the same time, fear and unease gnawed at his core. The greatest achievement and most significant accomplishment of his entire life might not have originated from him at all... After strutting and throwing his weight around Xiangzhou for decades, he might have merely been someone else's chess piece and puppet. What did that make his life? A joke?! Certain questions couldn't bear scrutiny; once you started dwelling on them, life became unlivable. He wanted an answer too. In any case, he was already dead, clinging to life through the House God. Whether his current self was even his original self was up in the air, so there was nothing left to be embarrassed about. Regrettably, a Heart Pivot was hard to find. Finding *any* Heart Pivot wasn't difficult—just as hiring a craftsman was child's play for an organization of the Chopra family's scale. They were everywhere on the street. Finding a trustworthy Heart Pivot or a dependable craftsman, however, was another matter entirely. A craftsman's professional ethics were at least backed by the Association, but who could guarantee that your trust in a Heart Pivot wasn't implanted by that very same Heart Pivot? Heart Pivots loved doing that sort of thing! Before they were exposed, every single one acted pure and innocent, like a lotus rising unstained from the mud, selling their art but not their bodies in a karaoke bar. But once stripped bare, there was no telling what depravities they indulged in behind closed doors! On that front, Ji Jue had no worries. A Heart Pivot was already on the way. * Ten minutes later, beneath the Chopra estate. In the secret chamber built by past patriarchs, isolated from the outside world by the House God, Ji Jue checked repeatedly to ensure no eyes or ears were present. Then, supported by a crutch, a delicate-featured young man crossed the void from the distant Mid-Continent, transported via the Myriad Phenomena Engine. Yan Chang! "Why is your body still like this?" Ji Jue frowned, looking him over. "Did Supervisor Xu fail to root out the problem before? Are there lingering aftereffects?" "I'm actually fully healed. It's just that my progress has been a bit fast lately, and my body hasn't kept up, leaving me a little weak." The youth offered a slight smile. "My consciousness is putting pressure on my body, causing a bit of discordance. It'll be fine after I rest for a while." Though his frame appeared exceptionally frail, an extraordinary aura lingered around him, one that would stand out at a glance even in a crowd. An almost tangible peace and tranquility, clear as crystal and round as a precious pearl. His dark pupils held a soft, glistening sheen, black as polished sandalwood, instinctively inspiring goodwill and a desire to confide one's troubles. Even with a passing glance, one would conclude without reason: *This person can be trusted; he is a good person.* Even if he suddenly asked for someone's bank card password, they might find it abrupt, yet simultaneously feel that since he had asked, it would be rude not to answer. His current physical weakness stemmed precisely from a soul too powerful, overwhelming his flesh in turn. And that warm, serene aura naturally radiated outward as a result. Piercing delusion, severing sorrow. Along the path guided by Avidya, Yan Chang was advancing by leaps and bounds! "Reached Metamorphosis?" Ji Jue clicked his tongue in admiration, tousling his hair. "That's remarkably fast." "It's all thanks to your guidance." Yan Chang smiled. "The Paradise system is quite interesting. Once I threw myself into it, I advanced without even realizing it." For a Heart Pivot to progress, interacting with ensouled beings was essential. By now, he had taken part in breeding the Lord of the Flies colonies and maintaining the Paradise system. Using his abilities to mediate internal conflicts and anomalies was grueling work, but the harvest was equally bountiful. The Spirits of Creation were generally pure, harboring little of the darkness and filth of the human heart. Even when anomalies and mutations occurred, handling them was straightforward. What fed back into him was pure spiritus and thought, without creating any entrenched pollution. If word of such an enviable setup got out, countless Heart Pivots wallowing in the cesspool would cry themselves hoarse with envy, biting their handkerchiefs to shreds. "Speed of progress doesn't matter; what matters is stabilizing yourself. Go get some proper rest later, and don't push yourself too hard." Ji Jue offered a few comforting words before asking, "Where's your brother?" "He's still busy assisting Mr. Inayat and the others," Yan Chang said. "Out early and back late. It looks like he's learning a lot." Understanding dawned on Ji Jue. No mention of cultivation progress. It seemed Yan Chang had already left his older brother in the dust... He was simply too embarrassed to say so. Brothers through and through—still covering for his elder brother even now.