Chapter 766.2: The Sprouting Hope

The teacher from Dawn City patted his shoulder in reassurance. “Relax, and don’t always search for the cause within yourself. Perhaps, the girls in French Fry Harbor were simply colder toward you. After all, your people had previously shut them out.”

Sunir shook his head. “Fine, you’re from Dawn City, so perhaps it was different for you. But you have to admit that although they’re the same group of people, the ones over there really are more normal than those here. Damn it, I only want to teach properly! Wait, why the fuck do I suddenly only want to teach properly?”

He clearly remembered that he had come here intending to flirt with women. Yet after only one or two months, he discovered that he had become a completely different person, unexpectedly turning calm and almost free from desire.

Perhaps that saying was correct. Only people with self-respect would be respected, and only those who loved themselves could be loved.

The people walking through the settlement were hollow shells without souls. Until they found their souls, it would indeed be difficult for him to love the people here, or find the kind of love he longed for deep inside his heart. It was very different from merely sleeping with someone.

At that moment, Sunir suddenly noticed the newspaper lying on his colleague’s desk and curiously reached over to take it. “Hey, there’s a Survivor’s Daily here now too?”

He casually flipped through it and discovered that it differed completely from the newspaper published in French Fry Harbor. It mainly covered recent events in Port Gallon and published literary works submitted by local residents.

“It only appeared recently. I heard a few Moon Clan and Rat Clan people started it. I don’t know much about it, but the articles are pretty good,” the teacher from Dawn City said casually after taking a sip of coffee. “I brought it back to help the students learn to read. It works slightly better for literacy education than Dawn City’s textbooks. Several schools have recently proposed creating textbooks specifically for Port Gallon and asked us to select articles from the Survivor’s Daily for inclusion. So I’ve collected the last few issues.”

Interest appeared on Sunir’s face and he quickly asked, “Can I borrow them?”

“Go ahead.” The Dawn City teacher shrugged and smiled. “Just don’t lose them.”

“Thanks.”

There was still some time before his next class, so Sunir curiously opened the borrowed newspaper. His attention was quickly drawn to the first headline.

[Red Soil - Mr. Rat]

Was it an account of the origins of red soil?

That was what he initially assumed, but he soon discovered that it was not nearly so simple.

[Long ago, I wanted to write a biography of General Rowell.]

[That year, the world was covered in ice and snow, and neither sun nor moon could be seen. Yet he accomplished an achievement unmatched in history, finding for his descendants a shortcut to survival. They could live merely by eating soil. Ironically, the man who achieved such world-shaking merit did not meet a peaceful end. A group of ignorant people buried him in the earth and even spat upon his grave... Much like the martyr who gathered firewood for others, only to be buried beneath the wind and snow.]

[At first, I believed those people simply were not intelligent enough. It was only later, after meeting some descendants of the ‘Shovel-Wielders’, that I was shocked to discover that their ancestors had included scholars, experts, engineers, and even soldiers who had originally supported General Rowell during the great era. Those people were not stupid. Explaining their actions through intelligence was clearly impossible. Mocking them would only reveal my own self-satisfied foolishness. That left only one explanation... They had all gone mad together and buried the only sane man!]

[I could not understand why so many people went mad and chose to harm someone who protected, cherished, and even saved them merely because he had been somewhat autocratic... Until I later met L, a young Rat Clan man living in White Elephant City.]

[He wore ragged clothing, though it could not truly be called clothing, only scraps of cloth covering his body. A scar marked his head. Supposedly, while he was working temporarily on a farm, a young master strolling through the grounds burned him with a discarded cigarette. It should have been a cause for anger. Yet whenever he spoke of that glorious moment, he sounded rather proud. He boasted to everyone he met that the scar had been blessed and consecrated by a noble, guaranteeing that he would be reborn into a noble family in his next life. Fortunately, everyone else also considered those words treasonous and did not dare repeat them to the young master. Otherwise, the young master would certainly have cut off his head while he was still alive, denying him even the chance to enter the red soil.]

[The first time I saw him was on my master’s farm. He was speaking about how intelligent the young master was and how unmistakably he carried the master’s blood. Yet rather than receiving a reward, he earned a savage beating from the other servants. Hearing that he was also from the Rat Clan and seeing him covered in blood, I found the sight unbearably miserable and intended to step forward to argue on his behalf. Others stopped me, and only after speaking with them did I learn who L was.]

[I hated him for failing to resist, but then realized that I, who depended upon the master’s approval for a mouthful of food, had no right to criticize him. Had I not also praised the young master before? As time passed, I began comforting myself and eventually forgot the matter. Then a major case occurred in White Elephant City. They claimed that the Moon Clan had rebelled once again. The entire city fell into panic, and they prepared to arrest more Moon Clan people. Again, I reassured myself that it had nothing to do with the Rat Clan, much less the servants of my master’s household. Yet to my surprise, I saw him upon the execution ground.]

[How strikingly similar fate can be. The man who planted the red soil and the man who ate the red soil were both buried within it. Therefore, before praising the greatness of General Lowell, I wish to use the story of L as the‘preface. It too is a tale worthy of song and tears...]

Sunir had initially opened the newspaper merely to pass the time. He had never expected to become captivated after a single glance. For a while, he completely lost track of time and did not abruptly awaken until the class bell rang.

“Good grief.”

Is this something they wrote themselves?

The opening had been dry and dull, yet the further he read, the more he saw the blood beneath its skin and heard the silent wailing of ghosts. Sunir softly recited the words. Rolling thunder seemed to echo beside his ears, like a deafening cry capable of awakening the entire world.

He was not a survivor of the Poro Province, yet he could still hear the shout hidden between the lines.

The people here were not eating soil at all. They were eating generation after generation of people buried beneath the earth!

He rose from his chair, tightly clenched the newspaper in his hand, and rushed through the doorway. His expression was excited, his spirit invigorated, and his steps flew like the wind. He did not even bring the lesson plan that normally never left his side. Well, to him, there was no need for it anymore. His duty as a teacher told him that he had to read these words to those children!

They should not be sitting there clutching their books merely for the sake of obtaining a boat ticket, much less for a work visa promised by French Fry Harbor, or so they could travel somewhere in the wasteland and sell themselves to some random person.

They should study for their own sake!

They should learn genuine knowledge, understand the relationships that bound people together, discover the laws governing the natural world, and contemplate their own place among the mountains and rivers...

Yes. They needed to evolve, to develop their souls!

...

Inside a private room at the Triumph Grand Hotel.

The half-baked teacher passionately reading the story in a solemn classroom was not the only person who had read Red Soil in the Survivor’s Daily. A certain rather mature young man had read it as well. Or, more precisely, he had read the preface to the serialized novel, Red Soil.

The fellow calling himself “Mr. Rat” had practically stripped the Rat Clan naked and exposed everything beneath. Yet after listening to someone read the entire article, Axin, seated inside the private room, burst into loud laughter and slapped the armrest of his chair twice with his right hand. “Hahaha! Brilliant! Absolutely fucking brilliant!”

A group of formally dressed subordinates stood solemnly behind him, fierce determination filling their eyes. They were all core members of the Assassin Gang. They and their boss had previously lived on the street in front of the Governor’s Residence, and naturally, quite a few of them were Rat Clan members.

The young woman who had read the article aloud to him was visibly terrified. She looked uneasily at the man seated before the table.

She was from the Bull Clan and had once belonged to Port Gallon’s minor nobility. Only financial hardship had forced her to earn a living by teaching others to read.

Clearly, her identity no longer carried much weight. Whoever could feed everyone and fill their pockets was the true noble.

The Ratfolk before her, for instance, clearly paid no attention whatsoever to her bloodline. However, he did possess great respect for knowledge, so he treated her courteously and did not appear to blame her for the article she had just read.

Seeing that it was already late, Axin gestured to the side. Someone brought him a check, and he wrote several numbers upon it before handing it to his private tutor. “This is your salary for last month. I may be rather busy over the next few days, so I’m paying you in advance.”

The young woman quickly nodded and hurriedly accepted the check. The moment she looked at it, she instinctively held her breath.

100,000 Gallons?!

She stared at him in disbelief, but he merely waved his hand lightly. “The remainder is a tip... My guest is about to arrive and it’s already late. Go home.”

The young woman thanked him, lowered her head, and hurried away with reddened eyes.

Watching the former noblewoman depart, Kunal looked in confusion at his boss, who was pretending he could understand the newspaper, and asked in a muffled voice, “Boss... Don’t you feel offended?”

While trying to match the words and sentences before him with what he had just learned, Axin patiently replied, “Kunal, my friend, only a terminally ill patient would become angry with his doctor. If someone is already beyond saving, the truly compassionate thing is to let him eat and drink well before giving him a magnificent funeral. Persuading him to smoke two fewer cigarettes would only make him suffer and burden his family as well... You and I clearly haven’t reached that point yet. Do you eat soil?”

Kunal shook his head like a rattle drum. “Who still eats that stuff nowadays?”

“Exactly.” Axin smiled faintly. “At least the residents of Port Gallon no longer do. At most, the people who drift down the river eat some when they first arrive, but that only happens at the beginning... Sooner or later, that thing will be torn down without a single piece left, just like the thousand needles of Tassen.”

He was still young.

All the survivors of the Poro Province were young.

The ones approaching their sunset were the feudal lords and former nobles.

He was delighted that so many young people shared his righteous anger and walked along the same sunlit road, even if their ideas differed from his own.

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