Always the Same

In the very beginning, there was only weeping. With just a momentary trance, the world seemed to have changed completely. The instant the lighthouse's radiance shone upon Ji Jue, the blazing flames slowly opened like an eye. Awakened from the fire, Its eye gazed toward him. There was neither wrath nor pity, only looking down with calm indifference. Looking at Ji Jue. And Ji Jue looked back at It. Then, like a rising tide, those distant cries came crashing down upon him once more! "It was all a fucking lie!" In the chaotic slums, a desperate man screamed at the debt collectors. Grabbing a shovel, he swung it wildly, howling in frenzy: "You knew all along! You knew the water wasn't clean, you knew something was wrong with this sickness! You even made us take your loans and owe you money just to buy your medicine... "I have nothing left! I don't have a fucking thing left! What more do you want?!" *Smack!* "Watch your mouth, buddy. Nobody forced you to borrow that money. When you signed the contract, didn't I tell you to think it over carefully?" The debt collector's expression darkened. His subordinates swarmed forward, pinning the indebted man down into the mud and holding him fast. An iron rod came swinging down, shattering teeth and vomiting up blood and bits of tongue. "If you gamble, accept the loss; if you owe a debt, pay it back. You signed your own name, you borrowed the money yourself, and we even fronted you the medicine. Now that your disease is cured, you say you can't pay? Nothing's ever that easy." The debt collector waved indifferently and pointed toward the ramshackle shanty behind the man. "Take everything." The crew filed in. Terrified screams and children's sobs erupted, but soon, all sounds faded away. There was only the muffled whimpering of the man in the mud, struggling in vain before being dragged to his feet, shoved into a vehicle, and locked behind shut doors. Among the dead-silent shanties, no one dared utter a word. The debt collector simply flipped a page in his ledger and glanced at the next address. Next house. And so, soon after, weeping broke out once more. Down at the docks, gunshots rang out, instantly silencing the chaotic crowd. Under the muzzles of the military's guns, boat owners who had resisted in vain stared trembling at the repossession notices before them. Their faces twitched uncontrollably until, at last, they wearily lowered their heads and closed their eyes. They signed their names on the repayment agreements. Selling away everything in the rest of their lives. Or else, resisting hysterically, only to have their heads bashed in with rubber batons, tumbling awkwardly to the ground and getting trampled over as they watched their final possessions chained up and towed away by tugboats... Even more crewmen, with nowhere left to go, wandered the streets, looking around in bewilderment. They watched as the eager, welcoming smiles of yesterday turned cold as frost, distant and unapproachable. In a narrow alley, a disheveled man skillfully tied off a tourniquet. Gritting his teeth, he injected the concoction into his wrist, soon drifting into a deep sleep amidst hallucinatory bliss. Amidst the stench of rotting calamity beast flesh, gaunt and hunched paupers curled up in their shanties. Gasping for breath as they turned over, they clawed at their open wounds, prying off sharp scale after sharp scale, wailing in agony. Closing their eyes in the gloom, they tried to sleep, yet the crying outside was so loud. People shouted hoarsely, roaring in rage. They smashed everything in sight in a frenzy, trying to deny everything before their eyes and deny the outcome of this reckless gamble, yet they could not stem the endless tide of catastrophic news. Until the final straw that broke the dying camel's back drifted down, silent and unseen. "It's all fake!" A madwoman knelt in the street clutching a dead infant, screaming and sobbing with all her might. "Those pills are all made of flour! They don't do anything at all! "They're all liars..." Cradled in her arms, the dead child's body was covered in scales, its features twisted, thick and putrid fluid leaking from its nose and mouth as maggots crawled out. Having sold off all her belongings, wagered her entire future, and even degraded her own body, all she had gotten in return was a pill containing not a single active ingredient. Merely a fake pressed from starch and painkillers in some shoddy workshop. "There isn't any medicine!" When the enraged mob stormed into the workshop, the man hung from the rafters wept tears and snot: "The real medicine was resold by those beasts long ago... I had no choice, I really had no choice... I was forced into this too... I—I didn't..." "Burn him! Burn him to death!" Twisted faces burned with fury, driven utterly mad. They surged forward and set the entire workshop ablaze. Amidst the weeping, flames spread. From within those cramped shanties, faint flickers of fire gradually expanded and linked together, until at last they turned into a raging blaze that dyed the entire sky scarlet. Billowing smoke blotted out the sun, and furious roars echoed endlessly. The firelight reflected in Ji Jue's eyes. He saw the vast crowd surging onto the streets, angrily brandishing weapons and tearing apart everything before them in uncontrollable fury. A riot—a riot was spreading. Toward the splendid Governor's Manor, toward the seemingly peaceful upper city, the crowd surged like boiling water, hurling Molotov cocktails and stones. *Crash!* Flames arced past the defensive line and landed before the commander. A feeble lick of fire crawled onto the edge of his leather boot, only to be ruthlessly extinguished into the mud by the lifted heel. "Fire." When the order came over the radio from the Governor's Manor, the commander raised his hand coldly and brought it down like a blade! Gunfire erupted, volley after volley. Amidst the deafening roars, blood splattered. The densely packed crowd fell in swathes like grass before a violent tempest. The roars and shouts vanished, replaced only by screams and wails. The streets were dyed red with blood. Soiled corpses littered the ground, their festering faces still marked with sores and scabs resembling scales. Ji Jue looked down and saw those hollow pupils. Their lips parted and closed as though still trying to say something, yet no sound came out. Only eyes that had long run dry of tears gazed up at the blood-red sky, slowly dimming and losing their luster. In that instant, desperate shrieks rang out. From within the crowd, from the dying wounded and the lifeless corpses, the spreading pool of blood seemed pulled by an invisible gravity, converging toward the center. Toward the sick who had already succumbed to deep aberration... Their withered, dried bodies rapidly swelled. As flesh writhed, jagged carapaces and scales sprouted from muscle and bullet wounds. Broken arms elongated rapidly like tentacles and arms. Exposed white bone grew razor-sharp barbs. Aberration and mutation! Amidst the corpses and gore, unrecognizable aberrant beasts rose to their feet, shrieking at the top of their lungs! On faces stripped of any human semblance, nothing remained but bestial fury and madness. Howling, they threw themselves toward the machine guns and soldiers before them. Aberration spread rapidly like a torrential storm. Right before Ji Jue's eyes. Yet this time, the wailing crowd did not scatter in flight. They did not even recoil in panic as they once had... Instead, they bent down, seized the weapons from the ground, and followed behind their mutated kin, charging straight toward the resplendent districts! Like an uncontrollable blaze, nothing could hold them back anymore. Hatred, indignation, agony... Driven past all recourse, they were reduced to beasts, bloodthirsty and manic. Even as what little consciousness and sanity they had left rapidly dispersed, pairs of crimson eyes remained locked fiercely upon the highest vantage point. They shrieked at the heavens! They sprinted and rampaged, venting this tormenting power. Surging wave upon wave, they rushed toward the palaces that had once been unreachable, climbing the walls heedless of life and limb, ignoring the hail of bullets to tear into those high-and-mighty nobles. Even if they turned unrecognizable and fully aberrant, it did not matter. Even at the cost of everything, they would make those people pay the price! Yet there was no price— Ji Jue closed his eyes. *Boom!* When the screeching echoed through the delicate flute music and dancing, someone inside the luxurious hall frowned and waved a hand without expression. Among the guests, someone dabbed at his mouth, rose from his seat, and drew his sword. The aberrant beast was cleaved in two at the waist! The moment the radiance of Supreme Virtue manifested from the chaos, all turmoil ground to an abrupt halt. Beneath the blades of the Celestial Chosen, the rampaging beasts fell dead where they stood. Carapaces and scales shattered under iron and stone; bones and blood were consumed by flames. Hatred held no meaning. Neither did resentment nor agony. Even sinking into beasts proved utterly futile. Burned bones turned to ash, and the rioting crowd scattered in wailing despair. From beginning to end, the singing and dancing never ceased. Just as it had always been. "Understood. Clean it up, then." Listening to the report, the Ruler of Yamen waved his hand with impatient dismissal. "There's an endless supply of such things anyway. Don't waste my time." He smiled, raised his wine goblet, and offered a toast of thanks to the returning guests. Before Ji Jue's eyes, the song and dance resumed. This time, no sound interrupted the merrymaking or disturbed the feast. It could hardly even be called a riot—merely one of countless minor commotions over the years. It was not enough to count as hardship, nor could any wailing be heard. Under the suppression of the reorganized troops, the crowd was thoroughly dispersed. The entire city returned once more to silence, save for carts of corpses being hauled to the incinerators. The weeping, grieving crowd soon began to stir once more. Scrambling over one another, they rushed onto the streets to receive the Governor's mercy and benevolence. Crates of medicine and expired grain surfaced on the black market, met with frantic brawls and hoarding. Ji Jue watched them jostle and push, faces still covered in bruises and dried blood as they obsequiously handed over their money. He saw the dying infected, the mutants in the sewers, the vagrants shivering in the freezing wind... and even more people who dared not step out of their homes, counting on their fingers how much longer their food and savings could last. They accepted reality. In despair or numbness, they lowered their heads, sipping the dew that would allow them to scrape by for just one more day. Again, and again, for who knows how many times... It had happened countless times before, and it would happen countless times again. In the distance, thick smoke from burning bones rose into the sky, drifting into a firmament dyed crimson by the flames. From beginning to end, he saw no anomalies—no Great Sin, no destruction, no salvation—nor did he find his enemy. Only, at some point, he could no longer hear any crying. "Daddy said that once he comes back, we'll be able to move into a house where we won't freeze." A young child looked up at a haggard elder, filled with curiosity. "Grandma, will things get better in the future?" In front of the cold, extinguished heater, a pair of cloudy eyes lifted blankly. She shook her head. "I don't know." "Then... will it get worse?" "I don't know." Hugging the innocent child close, leaning against each other, she stroked the child's yellowed hair and murmured softly: "Probably... it will be just like it is now." "I don't understand what you mean, Grandma." "You'll understand when you grow up." The elder's face twitched faintly, whether in tears or a smile, as if she no longer had the strength for either, leaving only numbness. "It's all the same. It's always been the same." Living as a matter of course, suffering as a matter of course, torment as a matter of course, and dying in the end as a matter of course... Hadn't it always been this way? Why bother being troubled or lost? And so, those hollow eyes opened once more, finally awakening from dream after dream, fantasy after fantasy that had never belonged to them, gazing blankly upon everything before them. Arriving at the final realization. Perhaps... This was simply how the world was. Then, from the distant darkness, laughter that had waited for decades rang out, uncontrollable at last. The final offering had been presented! Ji Jue finally saw it... The world fell into dead silence, and upon the sea that seemed long dead, ripples surged once more. Waves stirred upon the Sea of Bitterness. The corrupt flames that truly belonged to this world were thoroughly ignited from within the lighthouse!