Faith

"Oh, Mom, Dad, stop worrying about me. Look at this beautiful weather! You two should go out and enjoy it. The city park, the reservoir on the outskirts—it's bound to be crowded today. Go get some fresh air. I'm out running around every day; I've had my fill of fun. I'll watch the shop today and take a break. All that training at school has worn your son out!"

After lunch, Zhang Tie diligently tidied up the house and ushered his parents out the door. His father worked six days a week in a factory workshop where every breath was thick with dust. His mother had it even worse, stuck in their tiny rice brew shop where she couldn't even turn around without bumping into something. Every weekend, Zhang Tie would find ways to "chase them out" to get some air, just so they wouldn't feel like their lives were too bleak. As for him, he'd stay behind to mind the shop.

Seeing their son so sensible and considerate, his parents were naturally pleased. Before leaving, however, his mother couldn't help but nag him one last time, "Remember, don't raise the price of the rice brew yet. When regular customers come, tell them about the price hikes for rice and ingredients. Tell them if our wholesale costs don't drop by next week, we'll have to adjust the price of the brew. They're all regulars; we don't want them thinking we're greedy and offending them!"

"I know, Mom! You've said that over thirty times already. Do you think I'm that clueless?" Zhang Tie complained, feeling aggrieved. He was fifteen years old, yet every time there was a minor task, his mother would drone on as if he were a child or a simpleton. It was bad for his self-esteem.

"It hasn't been thirty times, five at most!" His mother glared at him in mock anger and reached out to pinch his ear. Zhang Tie nimbly slipped away, made a face at her, and ducked into the rice brew shop, shouting, "Freshly made rice brew from the Zhang Family! Fragrant, sweet, and delicious! Good for men's strength, good for women's beauty! Don't miss out—six coppers a bowl, generous portions!"

"This kid..." His father shook his head with a smile.

Watching his parents walk away hand-in-hand until they disappeared down the street, Zhang Tie rubbed the faint fuzz on his chin, his strange gaze lingering on them for a long time. He didn't know why, but even after decades of marriage, the way they naturally held hands whenever they went out always made them seem less like a long-married couple and more like young lovers. It gave him an indescribable, odd feeling.

Is this what deep affection is? Zhang Tie didn't know. To be honest, his life experience wasn't enough for him to fully grasp or understand it. But seeing his parents like that made a strange sense of happiness sprout in his heart.

Once they were gone, Zhang Tie sat listlessly in the shop, holding a feather duster and swatting at flies every now and then. Rice brew had a sweetness that attracted flies, especially in the heat. In a few months, when summer arrived, they would have to hang bamboo curtains over the storefront just to keep the buzzing pests away. But once the curtains were up, they blocked the carefully arranged display on the counter, and business would inevitably drop. It happened every year without fail.

It was mid-afternoon, the sun was high, and the birds that had been silent all winter in the plane trees seemed to have emerged from their nests, chirping merrily. The mottled leaves of the plane trees cast patches of light and shadow across the bustling street.

Outside the Zhang Family's shop hung a sign his father had written the night before: "Due to recent increases in grain and raw material costs, this shop expects to raise prices next week. We ask for the understanding of our new and old customers..."

His dear, sweet father. If it were that guy Tang De, he would have raised prices the very first day the rice costs went up, never dragging it out for a week.

After sitting in the shop for half an hour and making a few small sales—selling seven or eight bowls of rice brew—he dropped the scattered coppers into the drawer and soaked the used bowls and spoons in the washbasin. Watching the sun climb higher, his hand grew limp as he waved the duster. He felt bored. At his age, full of energy, sitting alone on a weekend swatting flies was unbearable. Yet, the more bored he felt, the more he admired his mother. He couldn't even sit for a little while, but she had been doing it for twenty years.

When people are bored, they always find something to do. Zhang Tie decided to practice his Abacus Mental Calculation. This skill had many levels. The lowest level, like what he practiced last night, involved closing his eyes and spending ages visualizing an abacus in his mind to perform calculations. The second level was to do it without closing his eyes, visualizing the abacus in a blink. After all, this was a practical mental math skill; if it took hours to visualize an abacus without opening your eyes, it would be useless. The third level was when the visualized abacus became ethereal—neither there nor not there—where the answer to any problem would naturally pop into his mind. That was the true essence of Abacus Mental Calculation. Beyond that, one could visualize abacuses with more digits, or even multitask, visualizing several abacuses or dividing one into sections to perform multiple calculations simultaneously. This was the highest level; once mastered, one would be a human supercomputer.

Zhang Tie was skeptical that anyone could actually reach the "human supercomputer" level, but whenever he thought of the faint words on the book cover—"Recommended Supplementary Reading for Elementary Students"—he felt deflated. It made him feel like he was being outclassed by children. He even started to wonder if the old man who sold him the book was telling the truth—that this book really did come from ruins predating the Great Cataclysm. The era before the Great Cataclysm was bizarre; the things recovered from those ruins were strange and varied. The expensive crystals used for cultivation in this era were just unremarkable decorations back then. Perhaps this strange book really was just a common elementary school textbook from that time?

Whatever, he'd practice anyway. It seemed that practicing Abacus Mental Calculation could "incidentally" restore his spiritual energy. Zhang Tie wanted to confirm if this effect was real, but the moment he thought of the word "incidentally," he felt a sense of chaos, and the two-digit abacus in his mind collapsed instantly...

Spiritual energy was so hard to cultivate, and yet there was an "incidental" benefit...

It was truly hard to accept.

Just as Zhang Tie sat in the shop, eyes half-closed, repeatedly compressing the time it took to visualize a three-digit abacus from ten minutes down to five or six, two unexpected people appeared before him.

The fat slob Barry and Doug. The two were riding a bicycle; the hulking, dim-witted Doug was pedaling hard, sweating profusely but grinning with pure happiness, while the cunning fat slob Barry sat on the back. When Zhang Tie spotted them, Barry, who had been scanning the street, saw him too.

"That's the place! Brake!" Barry shouted, jumping nimbly off the back of the bike.

Doug, who had been riding with a face full of joy, let out a terrified shriek, "Ah! The brake! Where's the brake? How do I stop? Ah... help me!"

Bang...

"You idiot! That's the new bike my late father just bought me!" Barry wailed in distress.

Zhang Tie covered his forehead with his hand and squeezed his eyes shut in agony...

Two minutes later, Doug and Barry stood in front of the shop, rubbing their backsides and grinning. Seeing Doug sniffing the air and swallowing hard, and seeing the punchable smile on Barry's face, Zhang Tie cursed under his breath. He pulled two bowls and spoons from under the counter, opened the ceramic jar, and ladled out two bowls of rice brew, slamming them down in front of the pair.

The two grinned, not even bothering with pleasantries, and slurped the bowls clean in seconds. Seeing Doug licking the inside of his bowl, Zhang Tie really wanted to smash the ladle against his head. Could you be any more disgusting? No, he'd definitely have to sterilize those bowls with boiling water.

Seeing the ingratiating smiles on their faces, Zhang Tie quickly snatched the bowls away and put on a stern face. "That was on me. Now it's six coppers a bowl. You want more?"

Doug immediately looked to Barry for help. The fat slob patted his waist and slapped a handful of coppers onto the table. "Delicious! One more bowl each!"

Zhang Tie didn't play coy. He swept the money into the drawer and served them another round. Once they finished, Zhang Tie collected the bowls while Doug looked at Barry with longing, but Barry ignored him and turned to talk to Zhang Tie.

"Ahem... what do you call this? Rice brew?"

"Yeah, rice brew! What do you want?"

"Heh, home visits are a fine tradition of our Airplane Brotherhood!" Barry laughed.

"Cut the crap. Get to the point. I'm a busy man, time is money."

"Ever heard of the Red Scarf Bandits?"

Hearing Barry mention the Red Scarf Bandits, Zhang Tie was genuinely surprised. "I have. Why?"

Barry looked left and right, lowered his voice, and repeated the news he'd heard from his brother. "I only found out last night, and I'm here to warn everyone today. Not many people know yet. Anyway, be careful lately. Don't wander around at night, and don't leave the city unless you have to. The Red Scarf Bandits are cold-blooded butchers. Doesn't your Hua Clan have a saying? Every time the city gate catches fire, the moat fish suffer. I don't want anyone in our Airplane Brotherhood to be one of those unlucky fish!"

"You came all the way here just for this?"

"Of course! You think Doug and I are out in this heat for fun? After you, I still have to go notify Shavin and Sista. Alright, I won't keep you from your busy business..."

Looking at the fat slob's face, Zhang Tie felt a flicker of warmth. "Thanks, brother."

"Then buy us another bowl!" Barry said, shamelessly.

Zhang Tie held out his hand and rubbed his fingers together in the universal gesture for money.

"Ha... ha... we're off! Got another house to visit!" Barry patted the back of the bike, urging Doug to get moving. Doug pushed the bike a few steps, then turned back to Zhang Tie, hesitating. "Barry says... learning to ride a bike helps with picking up girls!"

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Your riding skills are top-notch!" Zhang Tie gave him a thumbs up.

Satisfied, Doug nodded, pedaled hard, and rode off with Barry in tow...

Zhang Tie hadn't expected the news about the Red Scarf Bandits to spread so quickly. Within just two days, the entire Black Flame City was gripped by anxiety.

Why think about useless things? Better to just stick to practicing my Abacus Mental Calculation. What do the Red Scarf Bandits have to do with a nobody like me? Zhang Tie chuckled at himself.

By evening, his parents returned with news: the city gates of Black Flame City were tightening security, and identity checks were now required to enter or leave.

After dinner, Gregory, the local district officer, knocked on the Zhang family door carrying a lantern. He went house to house, issuing notices: no strangers were to be hosted, any suspicious activity was to be reported immediately, and starting at midnight, a curfew would be imposed on Black Flame City.

Less than half a day after that fat guy Barry left, news of the Red Scarf Bandits finally spread completely through Black Flame City, and an atmosphere of unease began to stir.

But none of this had anything to do with Zhang Tie. After dinner, once the sheriff had left and he had finished washing up, Zhang Tie returned to his small room and entered the Castle of Black Iron. After tossing a bag of trash left over from cleaning the house and cooking in the kitchen into the Pool of Chaos, Zhang Tie clapped his hands together and opened the basic attribute panel of the Castle of Black Iron, looking with satisfaction at the latest stats--

--Castle of Black Iron

--Length: 1 Krosha

--Width: 1 Krosha

--Spirit Qi Value: 1.8

--Merit Value: 43

--Basic Energy Reserve: 0.5

--Special Output: None

Letting his mom and dad go out to have fun while he watched the shop for a day earned him 5 Merit Value, and with the cleaning and cooking, he had managed to scrape together a total of 8 Merit Value today. The potato continued to sprout, the Spirit Qi Value increased by 1.1, and a bag of trash had been exchanged for 0.3 Basic Energy Reserve. This was his harvest for the entire day...

He looked again at that Manjusaka Karma Myriad Fruit Tree.

There were still 103 hours until the first Flawless Fruit matured...

With no sleepiness at all, Zhang Tie took out the crystal that had been sunning all day, sat cross-legged inside the Castle of Black Iron, and began to cultivate the Divine Palace Bright Point. Through his experience in the Castle of Black Iron over these past few days, he discovered that watching the movement trajectories of the colorful, palette-like mists within the castle could inexplicably calm his mind and make it extremely easy to enter a state of cultivation...

This was his first time cultivating the Bright Point inside the Castle of Black Iron, and Zhang Tie quickly entered the zone. Coordinating with his breathing, under the dual influence of the crystal and his mental power, the cyan radiance on Zhang Tie's Divine Palace Bright Point soon lit up...

Constantly improving his own strength was the greatest reliance for surviving in this era, and to improve that strength, aside from working hard, hard, and harder with his feet firmly on the ground, there were no shortcuts to take—this was the belief Zhang Tie had followed for the past 15 years.

Even with the Castle of Black Iron, it was the same...