Whence Water and Fire?

With just a single glance, he had already seen straight through the creature's nature. The dregs left behind by the House God... No, perhaps to the Chopra family, this was the true essence. Innumerable Chopra ancestors, their souls, their ravenous greed, and the evil karma they had forged—when the flames of Stagnant Rot dyed all Seven Cities, the natural aberration and reification began right here. No, rather, from the very day the House Fire was lit, today's outcome had been sealed... To cement their power, they created the House God. To attain status, they willingly embraced the curse of their bloodline, thereby laying the foundation for a cycle of reincarnation where every generation struggled desperately, yet none could escape. Born of the family, returning to the family. Made by the family, devoured by the family. In this ceaseless cycle, lured by the bait of power and status, clan members had scrambled one after another into the House God's gaping maw, turning themselves into sacrifices. As long as the Chopra line endured, this sacrifice would never end. Spinning a cocoon to bind oneself; reaping the fruits of one's own karma. Was this not the exact bitter fruit that had been brewing all along? Now, the bitter fruit sprouted from the mire. The thoroughly aberrated House God broke free from the shackles of the Paradise System, completing its final hatching from the flames of Stagnant Rot. With instinctual hunger, instinctively pursuing the family's descendant, the current head of the house... The building-sized centipede monster bellowed at the top of its lungs, reckless with frenzy, and came lunging forward! And immediately after, a giant descended from the heavens. *Boom!* As if an iron mountain had abruptly crashed down, whipping up a tempest, a falling star wreaked devastation, causing all of Xiangzhou to shudder violently like a dying wail. A merciless trampling! The Iron Colossus, Dragon Mountain, brought its foot down upon the rampaging monster, snapping its waist in two. But right after, giant hands reached out and crudely kneaded the pieces back together, crushing those hollow, frenzied faces, smashing them into a ceaselessly writhing ball of flesh and blood. Then, one punch, another punch, and yet another! Scalp-numbing cracking sounds rang out incessantly. The monster that had just been so overbearing was now howling and thrashing in vain, lacking even the strength to resist. Once the vast majority of its soul and power had been taken by Ji Jue and incorporated into the Paradise System, how could these meager dregs accumulated by the House God over centuries stir up any real trouble? Fierce and rampaging as it appeared now, it was nothing more than an undernourished premature infant. It posed no threat whatsoever. At most, it served as a punching bag for Dragon Mountain. In the buffeting gale, Minkler heard Ji Jue's command: "Next, the Paradise System will forcibly assume control of Xiangzhou. Go arrange your men and cooperate fully." "Understood!" He nodded without a second thought, not caring in the least whether he would be sidelined or whether his so-called authority had been stripped away. After witnessing firsthand the consequences of his subordinates' deceit and feigned compliance, forget Ji Jue—even he wanted to personally scatter those vermin and useless wastes to the wind. Now that Ji Jue had stepped forward to take charge and clean up the mess in his stead, how could he possibly object? "Only... some civilians have begun showing mutations..." He hesitated for a moment, not daring to act on his own authority after all, and plucked up the courage to ask, "How should we handle them?" Ji Jue fell silent for a breath before saying, "Leave them to the exoskeleton company and the Riot Cats. If they pose no threat, keep them under watch for now." Minkler nodded resolutely. Wiping away cold sweat, he turned his head with lingering terror to gaze at the wailing wreckage of the House God and the city steeped in chaos. Emerald flames rained down continuously from the firmament. The entire world seemed to have transformed into something he no longer recognized. Yet bizarrely enough, he could feel no surprise, as if... this was simply the way things were always meant to be. Such contradictory feelings made him dizzy in waves, his face twitching repeatedly as he gasped, "Just... what is going on here..." Ji Jue said nothing, casting one last glance over everything before him. He turned and walked toward where the fire was rising. *Rumble!* Amidst the spreading flames, the grandiose, imposing hall collapsed with a deafening roar. Broken silhouettes of aberrated, reified beings shrieked and hissed, dancing and reveling in the blaze. The Seven Cities Parliament was reduced to ashes amidst hysterical, shrill singing. Everything in sight—all the painstaking effort once poured into this place, the solitary achievements left behind from a lifetime of agonizing patching and mending—fell into the flames, mangled beyond recognition. Gone forever. "Save... save me... Mr. Fernan... save me..." A burning, grotesque wreck writhed, raising a hand to clutch at the bewildered old man, wailing in vain. But in the next breath, the agony and despair seemed to vanish entirely. Laughter and song drifted from the flames, piercing and sharp. Fernan staggered backward, fell, and scrambled back up. Wandering the streets, he looked around at his surroundings in a daze. He opened his mouth, letting out hoarse roars and cries. Yet no one answered. In the end, all his strength left him, and he sank to the ground. The spine he had kept straight his entire life bent inch by inch, no longer able to bear the weight of what lay before his eyes. "Suffering as flame, the human heart as the crucible—" "Turning natural disaster into man-made calamity, subtly exerting influence in the shifting tides of the world. Water and fire are formless, imperceptible, yet omnipresent. In the end, as a matter of course, All Things Self-Transform! "Who would have thought that the craft of the Profound could be so grand and magnificent!" At the edge of the flames, a voice of admiration sounded. Amid the ashes drifting down like snow, the figure of a craftsman emerged from the deepest reaches of the blaze. Step by step he approached, offering applause to the true architect of it all. Heartfelt admiration and respect! "Truly, an eye-opening spectacle!" "..." On the stone steps, the hunched old man lifted his head, staring at him blankly, bewildered and exhausted, as though unable to comprehend. "Just what... are you talking about..." "Why bother putting on an act, Mr. Fernan? Or should I say, Master Fernan?" Ji Jue stood before him, bending forward in accordance with the Association's etiquette to pay respect and deference to this former master. "Isn't everything today created by your own hands? "Everyone, myself included, was led around by the nose by you. Now that the great work is accomplished, why maintain the hypocrisy?" "I... I have no idea what you're talking about!" Fernan's expression twitched violently, as if stung by Ji Jue's accusation. His face flushed red, then turned livid, his fury no longer suppressible. "This wasn't me! This was never what I wanted! I... I..." His lips trembled, his scorched beard quivering as he choked out in wretched grief, "You've come to humiliate me, haven't you? It doesn't matter, none of it matters... I poured a lifetime of effort into this, I invested all my time! It's ruined, completely ruined! "The Seven Cities could have been better! Everything could have been fucking better! "And instead, here you are, an outsider who doesn't give a damn about anything!" Bloodshot veins netted his eyes as he glared fiercely at Ji Jue, rebuking and interrogating him: "What do you understand?! Everything I did was for... for the Seven Cities..." "Is that so?" Ji Jue chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. "Let's say that's true. But Mr. Fernan, have you truly made any real contribution to the Seven Cities?" Fernan froze. He opened his mouth to lash out or defend himself, but Ji Jue's voice cut through first. "You pushed legislation to legalize prostitution and grant them freedom. As a result, countless people trapped by hardship sold their bodies just to survive, only to be discarded like worn-out shoes after being legally exploited and drained. "By now, even an eight-year-old child's right to sell themselves is protected under that law. "You legislated to regulate the proper use of illicit drugs, and the result was runaway addiction. You poured funds into rallying everyone to build orphanages, which in turn spawned the largest child-trafficking pipeline in the entire southwestern Endless Sea. In the nursing homes of the Seven Cities Alliance, every ward is packed with organs and souls ready for harvest at a moment's notice. "On top of that, there's the unusable medical insurance, the minimum wage that could never possibly be enforced... Even just a few days ago, you were still busy regulating the prices of grain, medicine, and phlogiston." Ji Jue sighed softly, filled with lament. "Sometimes, it's really hard to tell the difference between you and that pack of vermin. No, perhaps that's precisely why they tolerated having someone so righteous among them, isn't it? "They loved you, and depended on you, even more than they realized. "In all the Seven Cities, only you could endlessly provide them with brand-new pretexts for extortion, helping them push the bottom line lower and lower, step by step, all to forge a 'brighter tomorrow.'" "Shut up!" Fernan flew into a rage. Staggering forward, he seized Ji Jue's collar, tugging and shaking it violently with white-knuckled fists, his eyes practically bulging out. "I... I did my absolute best! Aside from me, did anyone else in the entire Seven Cities..." *Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!* Crisp applause rang out, brimming with admiration. "Yes, exactly, Mr. Fernan. That right there is what I admire about you most." Ji Jue patted his shoulder, praising him from the bottom of his heart. "My teacher told me that a true craftsman must be able to craft things well, but also be able to naturally, flawlessly make a mess of things. Once, I thought I understood. But compared to you, I amount to nothing! "After all, you didn't have to do anything. All you needed was to play the well-meaning, incompetent fool, squandering a heart full of good intentions, and that was enough to make everything grow worse and worse as a matter of course! "Even in the end, even now, even in future history books, no one will ever blame you! "Because everyone knows you did it for their sake, that you already did the best you could!" Even as an enemy, Ji Jue could not suppress his admiration for Fernan. Constant dripping wears away stone; a rope saw fells timber... Compared to this dedication spanning decades, what mattered even more was the perseverance and endurance. Casting off sagehood and forsaking wisdom, thoroughly vanquishing the arrogant pride of the Embers, severing the instincts of a craftsman, and genuinely turning himself into an utterly ineffective pedant. It was like a sane man forcing himself to cover his body in fur every single day just to blend into a troop of zoo monkeys. Day after day, playing games with the monkeys. To any craftsman, this was a torture far more terrifying than death itself. Yet he had endured it to this very day, never once giving up. He had even become a saint whom everyone thanked and revered to the very end! Those who rotted and despaired because of it probably never imagined... that their beloved Mr. Fernan had never intended to save a single soul! All those laws and policies were merely drawing a pie in the sky they could never taste, a dream that could never come true. Helping them back to their feet time and again, only to push them back down time and again. Through countless shifts, from start to finish, nothing ever truly changed. Through wave after wave of reform, from beginning to end, there was never any true revolution. It was nothing more than a futile, repetitive cycle, continuously re-enacting the past, over and over, until the very last spark of flame was utterly snuffed out. The entire Seven Cities was his crucible. Everything here today was his masterwork. This was a Higher Calling that had spanned decades, lasting across three generations! And who could have imagined that what truly forged the hell before their eyes was neither suffering nor despair, but the sheer force of habit accepted as second nature... After repeated blows and despair, utter numbness set in. When the ashes rekindled time and again without a trace of warmth, the desire for change and renewal was completely extinguished. From this day forward, everything sank into the mire. In that instant, the Stagnant Decay Hearth answered the call. No—long before this, all of this had already fallen into the realm of Stagnant Rot! It was just that they had never realized... All along, they had been living in hell.