"—Enter through the narrow gate. For many enter through the wide gate and the broad road, which lead to destruction; few find the narrow gate and the small path, which lead to eternal life."
The Yellow Calico Cat curled up in Zheng Qing's arms, murmuring lines from the Gospel of Matthew as though talking in its sleep, while adding its own commentary: "Now you hold David's Key, and your gate has opened a crack. It is real and true: when that gate is shut, no one can open it, but once it opens, no one can shut it..."
Zheng Qing sighed softly.
"The last time I heard that passage from the Gospel of Matthew was at Shangyuan Bookstore, when that manager, Xiao Yuan, was showing me a set of nineteenth-century Parisian Bound Book spellbooks."
There was a touch of nostalgia in his voice. "I remember it very clearly. Those spellbooks were ostentatiously styled, bound in split Romanian fire dragon hide, with maxims from the New Testament stamped onto their gilt edges... Looking back now, it almost feels like a previous lifetime."
The Yellow Calico Cat lifted its tail, wiped the tears from the corners of its eyes with the tip, and raised one eyelid with a yawn.
"Now is not the time to reminisce! You don't have that kind of time to spare!"
It looked at the young man, its tone stern. "The Danhaag hearing only recognized your qualifications from a legal standpoint. If the Relevant Departments won't accept you, then even if you manage to take office, you'll be nothing but a figurehead... It won't help you in the slightest."
That was beyond doubt.
No organization would welcome a "disruptor" who upset the existing distribution of benefits. Every piece of meat an outsider ate was taken from someone else's