Stumbling Block

People always overlooked things that seemed unimportant...

Things like insignificant ailments, non-urgent troubles, leaking faucets, tedious reports, broken tools, creaking tables and chairs...

There were too many reasons—for hope, for tomorrow, for family, for one's career... to earn a little more money, to keep one's job.

Or even simply to survive.

For all these years, so many people had been exerting full effort amid endless torment, too overwhelmed to care for anything else.

Until, after they were utterly exhausted, they realized they had been going in circles all along, while everything before their eyes had long since become unrecognizable.

The last match went out in the cold wind.

Once the lingering light had faded, all that remained in the darkness was devastation as far as the eye could see.

By the time they came back to their senses, even their tears had long run dry.

And so, one hunched figure after another staggered into the night, numb and docile, without even the strength left to resist.

This was not their fault.

They were simply too tired.

So tired that even breathing was about to consume every last bit of their strength.

"Have you ever shed even a single tear for them, Mr. Fernan?" Ji Jue glanced back, staring at everything burning around them, full of curiosity. "Have you ever truly cared whether they lived or died?"

"Sacrifice is necessary!"

Fernan gasped, his expression twitching. Blood seemed ready to stream from his clouded eyes. "Without struggle, there can be no progress.

"Even if change brings pain, it is suffering we must endure for the sake of tomorrow!"

He widened his eyes and demanded hoarsely, "People must face reality! We must strive for a better world!

"When the flames are lit, is it wrong to wake the people inside the iron house?"