Happiness Board

Today was June 4th. Only four days had passed since the update to the Scheme Board, still six days short of the normal update time. According to Annan’s statistics, the Gospel had always suffered from severe procrastination. Cases like the Art Board and the Family Board represented its normal update cycle—stalling until the very last second of the deadline before updating. Five times in the history of the Weaving Ceremony, updates had been delayed until eight in the morning the following day. Each time had sparked panic across the entire Gospel, keeping countless people awake as they worried the Gospel was broken and the Weaving Ceremony could no longer go on. Evident from this was the severe psychological trauma the Gospel's delays inflicted upon its vast readership. In stark contrast, an early extra update from the Gospel had never happened once in all of history. Not even once. At least across the ten Weaving Ceremonies Annan had cataloged, it had never occurred. At the absolute best, it updated punctually at midnight on the day itself. To the people of the Gospel who waited in torment for updates, that was already the mercy of God, a boon of fate. Therefore, when Annan and Banjie saw the Book of Gospel pop open, their first reaction wasn't pleasant surprise, but panic! Over these past hundreds of years, mountains had crumbled, rivers had run dry, winter thunder had roared, summer blizzards had fallen, and heaven and earth had even merged as the Void Realm threw wide its gates to otherworldly invasions—yet never once had the Gospel released an extra update! In particular, people like Annan who ran agencies were the ones who understood the Gospel best. They knew intimately that the Gospel was bound to act according to rules. If the Gospel broke its rules, it signified an order handed down from a higher authority—an angel, or God Himself? Though countless thoughts flashed through their minds, everyone flipped open their Books of Gospel without hesitation to view the Gospel’s latest masterpiece. The Happiness Board. Yaxiu and the others looked at Annan with admiration. Although the eldest young miss had proven her capabilities time and time again, managing to obtain accurate insider information every single time made one genuinely wonder if Annan was the Gospel’s illegitimate daughter. "[Happiness Board, 10th Place: The Happiest Wedding]" "[Synopsis: Daphne Bonaparte and Carlos Bonaparte are lovers of ten years. Over the past decade, they have weathered countless joys and sorrows, partings and reunions, and trials of life, until at last lovers became spouses. The day of their wedding in the Hanging Gardens marked both the end of their tribulations and the beginning of their happiness. They shall stay by each other's side forever, never to part, conquering countless diff...i...culties with love... or will they?]" The text on the Book of Gospel suddenly blurred. Smears and streaks even began to appear, as though someone were violently altering the history woven by the Gospel. What was more, the scribbling grew wilder and wilder—not merely defacing the synopsis and board details, but smothering the entire page in deep, pitch-black darkness. Then, red ink bloomed outward within the black, forming a name intimately familiar to them all: "Yaxiu Heath". "Huh?" Looking completely bewildered, Yaxiu faced everyone's questioning stares. "Why are you looking at me? Look at the eldest young miss! Eldest Young Miss, why is my name showing up there? Is this some surprise you prepared?!" "If I could pull that off, your name would be in the groom's slot," Annan retorted tartly. "Maybe halfway through updating, the Gospel decided your wedding was happier after all... Hmm?" The board abruptly transitioned to visual footage. Within the image was the Hanging Gardens of a second-tier city. The brilliant sun hung high in the sky without being blinding, while down below spread a magnificent, prosperous city, and in the distance stood snow-capped mountains. The scenery was so gorgeous it looked straight out of a fairy tale. Guests in the garden were dressed in their finest, children were well-behaved and adorable, and as the orchestra played, multicolored blossoms rippled with rainbow hues. The festive joy practically leaped out of the recording to infect its viewers. "Looks so boring," Harvey remarked. "If it were my wedding..." Yaxiu felt he was gradually adapting to the necromancer's train of thought. "Would it be held in a graveyard?" "How could that be? I have common sense too. A wedding obviously has to be held somewhere bustling, hot-blooded, and packed with people," Harvey said earnestly. "For instance, a battlefield right after a great war. Corpses strewn across the wilderness, rivers of blood flowing, the soil soaked with warm blood, the air thick with lingering obsessions—it's practically the seam between life and death. Getting married on a battlefield would definitely be romantic." Even though Yaxiu desperately wanted to refute him, when he thought about it carefully, getting married on a blood-spattered battlefield did sound kind of romantic... "Papa, wake up!" Lisi rushed over and shook him frantically. "Don't listen, don't feel, don't think, or you're going to end up learning necromancy!" The moment he heard the word "learning," Yaxiu snapped back to his senses at once, quickly giving Lisi's head a vigorous rub to anchor his sense of aesthetics. As expected of a necromancer destined to wield gods in the future, Harvey had been getting more and more outrageous lately—in just a few sentences, he had nearly lured Yaxiu into the world of the dead. "The venue is decent, but there are too many people," Igola commented nonchalantly. "How many of those guests are offering sincere congratulations? What purpose do those children serve other than causing trouble? The orchestra is far too noisy, too; replacing them with a solo pianist would be much better..." "Are you already planning your wedding with Anfiel?" Yaxiu asked. "Remember to send me an invitation." Igola shot him a sidelong glance. "Rest assured, I will never let your name appear on my guest list." Lisi asked, "Then what kind of wedding do you want, Papa?" "To be honest, I don't really like loud, bustling ceremonies like that. It makes me feel like a sacrificial offering. If it were up to me, I'd just skip it..." "No way!" Annan and Lisi cried out in unison, rejecting Yaxiu's sacrilegious thought. "A wedding is a very, very important moment! Most fairy tales end happily ever after with a wedding!" Lisi said earnestly. "Exactly!" Annan added. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime event! If you miss it, there's no making up for it!" "Might not be once in a lifetime..." Yaxiu muttered under his breath. At this point, the visual recording finally reached the marriage ceremony. The newlyweds entered, dressed in a princess bridal gown and sorcerer formalwear. Wedding ceremonies in the Gospel Country were heavily influenced by the Book of Gospel: both sides wrote their own names onto the cover of each other's Book of Gospel, where the names would be preserved permanently. This step possessed no practical significance whatsoever; the Gospel did not grant newlywed couples twenty percent off their expenses because of it. Yet in the traditions of the Gospel, this was an entrustment of the highest order. By analogy, it was like using matching profile pictures on social media, wearing wedding rings on ring fingers, tattooing a lover's name on the lower back, stamping a qualified pig with an "Inspected and Approved" seal... In short, the moment you showed your Book of Gospel, everyone would know you had formed a party in the game of life. When the newlyweds stamped and certified as the "happiest" by the Gospel showed their faces in the footage, looks of sudden realization dawned on everyone's faces—though the man was handsome and the woman beautiful, their facial features were remarkably similar. Simply put, anyone with eyes could tell they were biological siblings. Even in the socially open Gospel Country, romance between siblings was an extremely sensitive subject. Unless a family was wealthy enough to use miracles to modify genes, even the Gospel advised against having children. From this alone, everyone understood that the wedding truly deserved the descriptor "happiest." Not just others, but even the Gospel would use all sorts of clever arrangements to tear them apart if possible—such as introducing the elder sister to a more suitable partner, or arranging for a more suitable girl to pursue the younger brother. In the Gospel's original plan, that was what constituted their "better life." Their tribulations stemmed from their desire to break free from the Gospel's shackles. If they had listened to the Gospel's guidance even once, or complied with the Gospel's arrangements even once, all their tribulations would have vanished like smoke, and happiness would have instantly been theirs for the taking. Yet they never did. And so the Gospel admitted defeat; this future was the advance compensation paid by the Gospel. The bride and groom looked into each other's eyes. In their gaze was neither the sweet, burning passion that could consume and melt all things, nor the serene nonchalance reserved for family. Rather, the world in their pupils held only each other, and all else was dust—if one had to make a comparison, it was the look Harvey had when talking about necromancy; no one else came close. Those were two halves of an unforgettable, bone-deep madness. When they could answer one another, they became a happiness against which even the Gospel was helpless. As the newlyweds sat at the stone table to exchange their Books of Gospel and picked up pens to sign each other's covers, the visual footage suddenly flickered. The next second, a sword abruptly cleaved the stone table in the Hanging Gardens in two, startling everyone. "['To be honest, I don't like loud, bustling ceremonies like that. It makes me feel like a sacrificial offering. If it were up to me, I'd just skip it and fast-forward straight to the intimate merging.']" A familiar voice, and even familiar words. Everyone subconsciously glanced at Yaxiu. Yaxiu remained thoroughly calm. "It's confirmed. The Gospel is plagiarizing my live book reviews." "[The hilt of the longsword was gripped by a hand. At some point, a young man clad in a dark red trench coat had appeared in the center of the garden. He looked around, yet before he could even speak, the surrounding guests began screaming in terror. 'Yaxiu Heath!' 'The Undying Demon Heath!' 'Demon Lord of Calamity!' 'Source of Chaos!' 'Did he really come back to life?!']" Hearing such cries, a very strange, subtle feeling welled up in Yaxiu and the others. Yet before they could discuss it, the footage underwent another dramatic change— "[Ghosts like white mist enveloped the entire wedding venue, sapping even the sunlight of its warmth. A mist spirit approached Yaxiu's side, transforming into a cloaked vagrant.]" "['Harvey, the Necromancer Sovereign!' The guests descended into utter chaos. 'Even he is here, which means—']" "[A well-dressed guest suddenly stepped up beside Yaxiu, taking off his hat and glasses to reveal smooth, shoulder-length blonde hair and a dazzlingly handsome face. The moment he revealed his face, a quarter of the guests abruptly drew their weapons and switched allegiances. Raising the crow feather gloves on their left hands, they placed the other guests under watch.]" "['Rust Crow!' The guests' voices trembled. 'Why... why are the Three Doomsday Giants here?!']" Fuck, what "Three Doomsday Giants"? Yaxiu completely lost his composure. I, Yaxiu, am an upstanding young man who hasn't done anything wrong! How on earth did I end up grouped in the same breath as Igola and Harvey?!