The Virtue of Patience

Zhang Tie certainly did not know that those two terrifying fellows had returned, and by the time they were groping around on the ground, Zhang Tie had already returned home.

Because there was one more person in the house, and perhaps another one in ten months' time, Zhang Tie's parents had not gone out at night for the past two days but stayed home instead. The meals at Zhang Tie's house were also noticeably more sumptuous than before; from the flavor, Zhang Tie could tell that some of the dishes had been prepared by his future sister-in-law, and truth be told, her cooking skills were quite good.

When Zhang Tie arrived home, he found only his mother and his future sister-in-law there, while his father was absent. It was only after Zhang Tie finished his meal and saw his father return, drenched in sweat and carrying a ham on his back, that he understood what his father had been doing.

After helping his father process the twenty-plus kilograms of ham and hanging it up in the kitchen, Zhang Tie sniffed hard at the meaty aroma of the ham, which he hadn't smelled in a long time, and said to his father in a joking tone, "Dad, you and Mom are too biased. I've been craving this for so long and you never bought it, but as soon as the sister-in-law arrives, you buy it. Can it be that a son is really not as good as a grandson!"

"You brat!" His father laughed and gave Zhang Tie a rap on the head. "If you've got guts, don't eat it once your mother finishes cooking it!"

"Heh... heh..." Zhang Tie laughed on the outside, but muttered to himself that his son had done something very gutsy at school today. However, talking about school matters would only make his parents worry for nothing, so Zhang Tie would never say it. "By the way, Dad, how much did this ham cost?"

"58 silver and 60 copper coins, almost 60 silver!" his father said, looking a bit pained. "It wasn't even this expensive before!"

Zhang Tie was also taken aback; this amount was almost equivalent to his father's monthly salary. It seemed that for the sake of that future grandson, his parents were truly spending a fortune. Seeing his father still looking pained, Zhang Tie leaned over and whispered, "You should also remember to buy some fruit; that way the nutrition will be sufficient, and the future baby of the Zhang Family will be healthy enough!"

"That's right, your mother also said the same..." Realizing he had unwittingly fallen into Zhang Tie's verbal trap, Zhang Tie's father, in a fit of embarrassment and anger, gave Zhang Tie a few more knocks on the head, sending him scurrying around the house.

After his future sister-in-law arrived, Zhang Tie found that his plan to earn Merit Value at home had also fallen through. The house was cleaned and tidied up by someone everywhere he looked, and he couldn't even find an excuse to sweep the floor. Regarding this, Zhang Tie could only smile helplessly; it seemed he would have to find another inconspicuous way to earn Merit Value.

After dinner, his mother and sister-in-law sat together doing needlework—after all, what woman from a tailor's family wasn't skilled at sewing? Watching the nimble hands of his future sister-in-law, his mother's eyes crinkled with a smile. Zhang Tie helped them for a while, using scissors to cut up some fabric scraps for insoles, chatting casually with his mother and future sister-in-law.

The days he had left in this home were growing shorter and shorter. As Zhang Tie cut the fabric scraps, he thought about how, not to mention how many days he could spend with his parents in these last few months, even after he graduated, according to the Primogeniture Act and the Urban Residency Act of Black Flame City and the entire Andaman Alliance, everything in this home—including the urban residency rights for one household brought by this house that his parents had worked their whole lives to afford—would be inherited by his elder brother. As the second son, he would have to leave the city and his family to strike out on his own and strive for his future.

When a wolf cub grows up, it must leave its parents' den to face the loneliness of growth alone; when a fledgling eagle's wings are full, it must leave the nest on the cliff to spread its wings and battle the wind and rain. Even an ant, once it grows wings, must leave its anthill to go out into a wider world to propagate its family. In this era, for the sake of survival, human laws and rules of conduct have begun to learn from the ways of nature, learning from those animals and races with stronger survival capabilities. The Primogeniture Act and the Urban Residency Act are exactly such examples. If humanity wants to survive in this era, more and more people must bravely walk out of those high city walls, carrying ambition and sharp swords to constantly expand human territory, constantly fight against alien races, constantly eliminate those dangerous creatures, and constantly establish new cities and human settlements to accommodate more people. This is the survival law of humanity in this era; it has nothing to do with morality, but is merely a necessity for reality and everyone's survival. Cities are very safe, but the population a city can accommodate is limited; it is impossible for everyone to be squeezed into cities. For a family like Zhang Tie's that now has two sons, when the younger son completes his compulsory education and begins his service, that is when the Primogeniture Act and the Urban Residency Act begin to take effect automatically. Especially now that there is a future sister-in-law in the house and his elder brother is on the verge of marriage, there are more and more times when it is inconvenient for him, a young man about to enter society, to stay at home, and the time he can remain is becoming less and less.

These days, Zhang Tie had been intentionally avoiding this issue, trying his best to seize the time to be with his parents, often telling jokes or doing funny things to make them laugh out loud, hoping to dilute the sadness of the impending separation. His parents also seemed to be intentionally avoiding this topic, deliberately not wanting to bring it up. At school, with the Survival Trial in the wilderness approaching in the last two months of the semester, Zhang Tie knew that the families of classmates in the same situation as him were already packing their younger sons' luggage and making various preparations for their long journey away from home.

The time spent with his family felt like it was becoming faster and shorter. The basket of fabric scraps in his hands was finished before he knew it. It was getting late, and there was a hint of sleepiness in his mother's eyes. After chatting a bit more, Zhang Tie found an excuse, yawned, washed up, and returned to his small room in the attic.

Back in the small room, Zhang Tie first took out the triangular wooden plaque he had picked up, tapped and examined it repeatedly, and finally confirmed that this plaque was indeed made of Red Thunder Pine. There were no miracles or hidden mechanisms like secret doors; apart from the natural, lightning-strike-like patterns on the surface being a bit special, the plaque had no special features at all. If this plaque were placed in a pile of children's toys, and you said it was a building block for kids, no one would likely doubt it.

Thinking of the big foot raised by that fellow named Hark and the hands of that snake-like man that had groped all over his body, goosebumps rose all over Zhang Tie again.

"Damn it, two perverted freaks. Did you not have a proper childhood? You're at your age and still carrying this kind of thing around!" Zhang Tie cursed, then tossed the plaque directly into a cloth bag and threw it into the box where he kept his clutter, not bothering with it anymore.

After tossing the plaque aside, Zhang Tie took a deep breath, closed his eyes, found the magical archway at the center of his brow, locked onto it, and said in his heart—Enter!

--Welcome, noble and majestic Castle Lord, to the Castle of Black Iron!

This feeling was damn good. Zhang Tie took a deep breath of the air inside the Castle of Black Iron. Whether it was an illusion or psychological, although there were only a few small plants sprouting inside the Castle of Black Iron and the Spirit Qi Value wasn't high, Zhang Tie felt that every time he came here, the vitality seemed to be flourishing more and more, and even the air here seemed fresher than that of Black Flame City.

Following the old routine, Zhang Tie first checked the basic attributes of the Castle of Black Iron.

--Castle of Black Iron
--Length: 1 Krosha
--Width: 1 Krosha
--Spirit Qi Value: 23.5
--Merit Value: 56
--Basic Energy Reserve: 0.5
--Special Output: None

The basic data still had nothing new. The Spirit Qi Value brought by plant growth was still increasing, and there was a trend of it growing more every day, while the Merit Value gain for today was zero; he had gained nothing at home or at school.

Closing the basic attribute window, Zhang Tie went to his own plot of land to carefully check it. The Potato were growing vigorously, and the tender sprouts of the Corn had all poked their heads out of the soil. Now, the branches of the sprouting Potato had begun to fork, with the longest ones having grown nearly ten centimeters. As for the Potato in "Pit No. 1," into which he had invested three points of Merit Value for mutation and evolution, they had not shown any special characteristics so far. Zhang Tie guessed that the results of mutation and evolution might be related to the growth cycle of the species; it had only been a short week, so it should be normal for there to be no results.

After checking the situation in his plot, Zhang Tie went to the side of the small tree. Looking at the Flawless Fruit that was about to ripen—its color changing from pale green to dark red, its size growing from that of a grape to that of a chicken egg, and its shape also resembling an egg—Zhang Tie swallowed hard several times. He checked it and saw there were still four hours until it was fully ripe. Zhang Tie couldn't help but feel restless. He forced himself to squat by the small tree for a while, eyes fixed firmly on the Flawless Fruit, until his legs went numb. Only then did he stand up and pace around the small tree, unable to resist checking the ripening time of the fruit several more times, all of which still showed four hours remaining.

When Zhang Tie finally couldn't resist wanting to check the ripening time of the fruit again, he suddenly realized: Zhang Tie, oh Zhang Tie, are you really this impatient? A man who doesn't even have this bit of patience, a man who loses his composure at the slightest thing, how will he be worthy of Teacher Daina in the future? A stalk of wheat completes its cycle of withering and flourishing in one year, while a diamond takes hundreds of millions of years to be carved by nature. A bean sprout grows in two days when soaked in water, but it is said that when the Old Man God created the Olive tree, the king of all trees, it took ten thousand years! The fate of all wheat stalks is to eventually turn to ash, and the fate of all bean sprouts is to eventually become excrement for humans and animals, while diamonds become treasures and Olive trees become symbols of the sacred. This is the difference between having patience and not. In my life, do I want to be a wheat stalk, a bean sprout, or a diamond and an Olive tree?