It was like snow fluttering down into a burning furnace.
Specks of pale white danced, rising and falling amidst waves of emerald fire and shattered skies, drifting with the wind toward every horizon.
In the silent storehouse, a long-sealed door was pushed open.
Those mountain-high piles of notices, those announcements prepared so long ago, those invitations drafted since the very first day Ji Jue set foot here, finally saw the light of day.
There were no pages of self-aggrandizing rhetoric or boastful introductions—only plain, straightforward details printed in both the Federation and Imperial tongues on the front and back, dense script filling every corner.
*Haian Group Seven Cities Industrial Park: First Grand Recruitment Notice.*
*Haian Group cordially invites you to join us. We are currently hiring for the following positions: Operations, Assembly, Quality Inspection, Maintenance, Logistics, Warehousing... Forklift Operators, Heavy Truck Drivers... Shipbuilding, Maintenance, Sailors, Shipwrights... Security, Gatekeepers, General Labor... Night school training provided... Comprehensive benefits, competitive pay.*
Fluttering, they rose into the air, soaring lightly upon the gale, crossing vast and endless distances to scatter over everything burning in the flames, drifting toward the places where blossoms bloomed.
Blotting out the sky, filling everything.
Falling into the mud, falling into sewage and ruins.
Falling into the fire.
Falling into every deformed, aberrant palm, delivering this invitation before every hollow pair of eyes, carrying the offer and guarantee signed by Ji Jue.
"What is this? Can't read it."
"What a bother."
"My eyes hurt looking at it... it hurts... feels awful..." In a narrow alley, a hunched drifter squirmed uneasily, his aberrant frame swaying as he mumbled incoherently, "Makes me... feel sick..."
Subconsciously, he crumpled the flyer into a ball, instinctively tearing it to shreds.
Yet another drifted down from above, making him irritable and furious. He tore it apart, then another, and another... He averted his gaze, unwilling to look at the words that stung his eyes. He burrowed deeper into the alley, but the flyers kept falling in an endless stream, settling over him one after another.
Until he had nowhere left to run, and looked up at the blizzard filling the sky.
An incoherent, beast-like snarl escaped his throat.
He curled into a ball.
Amidst the cascading flyers, he clutched his head, shivering and weeping in agony.
Yet he did not even know why he felt so sorrowful, so frightened.
It was merely an instinctive dread.
It was as though the pain and torment he had deliberately forgotten were threatening to resurface once more, driving him to choke and wail.
"Look..."
"Lies, all lies!"
"But..."
"What if?"
"What if it's real?"
Low murmurs rose in dark gutters, in dilapidated shanties... seemingly everywhere, rising and falling, coalescing.
Upon the dead-silent Sea of Bitterness, a ripple spread.
"It's pointless. Don't think too much about it. It's always the same."
"Deceiving people again."
"Once he leaves, it will all be over."
"People always change."
"All of it... lies."
A man with nothing tore the slip of paper in his hands in agitation and hurled it to the ground, furious. "Liars, every last one!"
Staggering, he tried to shut the door, to crawl back into bed, to forget all of this. But when he turned, he saw shattered glass—and in the glass, his own reflection.
Upon a face covered in cracks bloomed a tiny flower.
For a fleeting moment of daze, he seemed to see a gaunt worker with hands covered in calluses, equally hunched, walking with the very same unsteady gait.
Like another version of himself—another version he envied far, far more.
Holding his head high, straightening his spine, looking back at him.
With eyes so peaceful...
"Mr. Ji paid me my wages, not a cent short."
"Mr. Ji had me treated when I was sick, and the cost was covered by just two days of overtime."
In a shelter on Luo Island, an old boatman wrapped in a blanket picked up a flower before him, carefully placed it into a bottle on the table, and admired its blossoming form.
"He said that when we're hungry, we don't have to eat rotten meat anymore. And when we fall sick, we don't need to beg the ancestors."
"And at night, there's no need to be afraid."
Under the shelter's lamplight, among several young men who couldn't sleep and had gathered to play cards, one grinned broadly as the conversation grew lively:
"I want to buy a refrigerator... a small one would do..."
Someone said, "I heard if you perform well, you can even take a trip to Haizhou. I... I want to see the Federation."
"Then you'll need to earn a bit more to bring back some local specialties."
"The first batch is already over; you signed up too late."
"Still got to wait a while..."
"Go to sleep, stop staying up. We might have a shift tomorrow afternoon."
"Didn't they say we're on break?"
"All the more reason to get some extra sleep."
Between the somewhat crowded, messy bunk beds, faces young and old wore different expressions—worry or serenity, excitement or irritation.
Yet across all their expressions brimmed a certain sense of peace... almost like an illusion.
When they closed their eyes to sleep, they didn't have to fear tomorrow.
They even had the courage to speak of the future.
As long as you worked, you could put food on the table; as long as you signed a contract, you could support your family.
As long as you worked honestly, you didn't have to worry about being abandoned... You didn't have to fear that a single slip, a single illness, or a single mistake would cast you into the abyss with no hope of ever getting back up.
No need to sell your life cheap. No need to throw away your dignity.
Those responses from the soul echoed in everyone's ears, telling them:
"We can have a future, too."
Ripples in the quagmire grew denser and denser. Connected by the blossoms, countless sunken consciousnesses surged instinctively, unconsciously resisting, denying, even raging.
"Those are all lies!"
"They're just tricking you!"
"No one could ever be that kind!"
Yet what answered them was only silence, devoid of any resentment.
Those pairs of eyes, whether turbid or clear, remained calm, simply gazing back at those angry, exhausted faces.
They listened; they stayed calm; they gave their answer:
"Yet, he delivered."
He made good on every single promise.
For every ounce of effort, a harvest. For every drop of sweat, a reward.
As long as you could pick yourself up, you could keep moving forward.
Even if you were exhausted and unable to walk, you didn't have to fear being discarded...
It sounded just like the lies every ruler constantly repeated, an impossible dream: for the Seven Cities, for everyone, for each and every one of you.
Every one of them spoke of how wonderful the future would be, how prosperous the prospects, yet none ever addressed the present.
No one had ever said: you, too, can have a future.
Yet now, as promises of a starkly different kind drifted before everyone with each lightly descending invitation, ripples stirred once again in the quagmire that should have been utterly dead and silent.
Numb, exhausted souls looked up from their descent, gazing at the blooming flowers close at hand.
Excitement, bewilderment, disdain, or revulsion.
A multitude of reactions.
Yet regardless of who it was, each had a moment where words failed them, lingering on the tip of their tongue.
As if they had heard a voice from far away.
Or more like an echo from within, from a corner they themselves had completely forgotten—from the self that once held hope and dreams.
"What if... there's still a chance?"
A flyer, an announcement, an invitation.
A chance.
Even if insignificant, even if seemingly unreachable.
Even if they accepted it, poured their hearts into it, strove and struggled with all their might, there might not be a happy ending—it might just be a fleeting blossom.
Yet if it could make the world before them, make themselves, just a little better...
Even if just a tiny bit.
Would you still be willing to make a choice?
In that instant, amid the dead silence of a foul-smelling dump, a trembling hand deformed into pincers lifted with great effort, reaching out...
And picked up the paper resting in the mire.
Cupping it carefully, dusting away the flecks of mud, scrutinizing it.
Reading word for word, searching for a position he might suit.
Reading it once, and then again.
Yet for some reason, the world before his eyes blurred. Drops of moisture slipped down his cheeks, pattering onto the paper.
Clutching that featherlight page, he could bear it no longer and wailed!
Weeping, long silenced, rose once more.
Beneath the cracked vault of heaven, from all directions, from every corner, sharp or low, hoarse or piercing.
As though they had finally awoken from an endless nightmare.
They opened their eyes once more.
They felt hunger and thirst, aching sorrow, pain, exhaustion, and confusion. And so, unable to endure any longer, they wept aloud, tears falling like rain.
Just like newborn infants.
Just like...
A true human being.
In the quagmire of suffering, those people who had long lost everything reached out their hands once more.
And so, cracks appeared across the Realm of Sinking.
A deafening roar erupted.
Right before Ji Jue, the fractured Celestial-Human body shuddered violently, as if crushed by an invisible weight, trembling and spasming until it bent down bit by bit and dropped to one knee.
No longer able to bear this terrifying, formless weight!
It was countless souls struggling to crawl up from the mire... seeking to drag down the ascending Celestial-Human completely!
In the void, the projection of the Chixiao Tally-Standard manifested once more, radiating fierce brilliance, ascending inch by inch into the pitch-black sky like a sovereign blazing sun!
The blinding light swelled, swelled, and swelled again.
Guided by the myriad drifting flyers, channeled through the lighthouses spanning the Seven Cities, it recklessly encroached upon the domain of the Realm of Sinking, drawing into its grasp soul after soul that reached out.
Growing ever more dazzling, ever more searing.
Riddling the solemn, majestic Celestial-Human Foundation with cracks.
Raging flames of light spread swiftly until they set the entire night sky ablaze, burning those venomous, rotting stars to utter ash!
No matter how desperately Fernand scrambled to patch the damage, no matter how violently the power of the Celestial-Human surged to suppress it, all was in vain.
When the first soul mired in muddled sinking chose to reach out, it set off an unstoppable chain reaction.
When a third of the Seven Cities chose to get back up once more, the faint ripple had already swelled into earth-shattering waves.
When those who had forgotten the future preferred to face pain once more, the erosion of the flames of Stagnant Rot could spread no further.
Even if all they did was bend down and pick up a single flyer that had fallen from the sky.
They had made their choice.
Regardless of whether Ascension or ruin awaited them.
At least they could choose for themselves!
"...A life that amounts to something?"
In the sewers, a dying drifter clutched the flyer in his hand and looked up. A sliver of skylight illuminated his shattered face, so wretched.
Yet within those hollow eyes surfaced a glimmer of longing.
"Sounds... not bad at all..."
Haian?
Must be a nice place, right?
He seemed to recall hearing people mention it. A pity it was too far away.
If only I could go there.
If only...
Clutching the flyer, he stared blankly at the fading daylight. His pupils gradually dilated, losing focus and luster.
Breath departed.
Across his reified face, a crack spread silently, tilting up at the corner.
As if he were smiling.
So peaceful.
Chapter 783