[Covered in mud, you moved through the ruins and the shadows of alleyways like a dying beast, clutching a phone with a shattered screen tightly to your chest, a keepsake your father had paid for with his life.]
[The nodes of cause and effect, along with the stinging radar provided by your passive talent, "Cursed Energy Allergy," guided you as you stumbled along, finally bringing you to the outskirts of this vast, ancient estate, which exuded a nauseating air of decay.]
[The Zenin Clan, one of the Three Great Families.]
[You were not stupid enough to use the main entrance. You lurked in the shadow of the towering wall outside the side gate, like a ghost without warmth.]
[But just as you tried to find a route inside, the guards' idle conversation drifted through the rain and into your ears from the other side of the gate.]
["Those peripheral cannon fodder really are useful. They gather cursed tools for the clan and end up getting killed by cursed spirits. We even save on burial expenses."]
["That's a blessing the clan bestows on them, too. At least their deaths brought the clan cursed tools and cursed objects."]
[A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating your deathly pale face.]
[The truth plunged viciously into your heart like an icy, poisoned spike, utterly shredding your last sliver of hope.]
[Your parents had not died in some unavoidable "accident" at all.]
[In the eyes of these lofty sorcerers of the Zenin Clan, they were merely "expendables" to be used up and buried at any time, rags to be discarded once used, unworthy of even death benefits.]
[Utter fury burned wildly in your chest, but you bit your lip hard, making not a sound even when you tasted blood.]
[Because you knew full well that anger could neither kill nor save a life.]
[But the moment your breathing grew just half a beat heavier from your emotional turmoil, the patrolling guards keenly detected something amiss.]
["Who's there?! Where did this stray dog come from? Anyone who approaches the Zenin Clan dies!"]
[The blinding beam of a flashlight instantly locked onto you. Two guards lunged out like wolves and tigers, their cold, rough, solid wooden clubs whistling through the air, about to smash your skull.]
["Wait..."]
[Just as a club came within a few centimeters of your forehead, a languid, arrogant voice carrying unquestionable authority came from behind the slowly opening side gate.]
["What's that stench? Ruining my mood first thing in the morning."]
[The guards shuddered, immediately putting away their clubs and prostrating themselves on the ground in terror.]
[A boy with dyed blond hair, wearing an expensive kimono of exquisite tailoring, slowly emerged beneath an umbrella held by a servant. His narrow, upturned eyes held foxlike cunning and innate arrogance. He was Naoya Zenin, a future candidate for head of the Zenin Clan.]
["Young Master Naoya! Our deepest apologies!"]
[The guards trembled as they knocked their foreheads into the muddy water.]
["This trash with no cursed energy disturbed you. We'll dispose of him right away and won't let him sully your eyes!"]
[Naoya Zenin did not even look you in the eye. He merely swept an exceedingly contemptuous sidelong glance over you, as though looking at a pile of foul-smelling, undigested vomit.]
["Trash without even a trace of cursed energy? The stench really is unbearable."]
[He frowned in disgust and turned to leave, as though one more glance at you would dirty his eyes.]
[You stared fixedly at his retreating back.]
[You knew this was your only chance to enter the inner circle of the Zenin Clan, uncover the cause of your parents' deaths, and find an opportunity for revenge!]
[If he walked back through that gate now, the guards' clubs would beat you to a pulp the very next second.]
[To survive. For revenge. For that bloody truth.]
[What did dignity matter?!]
["Young Master Naoya!!"]
[You suddenly struggled forward, throwing yourself toward him and shouting recklessly, "I'm not just a monkey! I'm a dog who understands human speech, who can bite people for you and fetch your prey! As long as you let me through that gate, I'll do anything!"]
[Naoya stopped.]
[He turned his head, his lips curling into a cruel smile full of malicious amusement, like a sadistic child who had discovered a novel toy.]
["Oh? Anything?"]
[He walked up to you and extended his foot as he looked down on you, gesturing at the expensive wooden sandals on his feet, splashed with a little mud after he had accidentally stepped in a puddle.]
["Since you're just trash that can bark, do something trash ought to do. These shoes are dirty. If you can lick them clean... I'll let you through this gate."]
[The guards around you froze at first, then burst into undisguised laughter, their eyes full of mockery and contempt.]
[But your simulated self did not hesitate for even a millisecond.]
[You got down on all fours and crawled over like a real, lowly dog.]
[You cradled that expensive wooden sandal and, amid everyone's shrill mockery and the pouring rain, stuck out your tongue and licked away the mud mixed with rainwater, little by little.]
[The bitterness of grit and humiliation spread through your mouth, but deep within your lowered eyes, there was only a deathly still, cold flame.]
["Hahahaha! Interesting! What a good dog!"]
[Naoya Zenin rocked back and forth with laughter, his eyes filled with amusement and cruelty.]
["Useless trash though he is, that lowly display can at least relieve some boredom. Bring him in. I happen to need a 'chair.'"]
[And so, at the cost of utterly surrendering your dignity as a "human being," you stepped into one of the most rotten, darkest clans in Jujutsu Society.]
[Time passed in humiliation.]
[You became Naoya's personal "possession."]
[He was the master, and you were the dog. When he was in a bad mood, he would mercilessly kick you until you spat blood; when he grew sweaty and tired from training, you would immediately lie on the ground and let him use your back as a seat.]
[In this hellish existence, an ordinary person would long since have suffered a complete mental breakdown or become a true slave.]
[But you did not. Thanks to your resistance to mental contamination, you maintained absolute rationality amid this endless humiliation.]
[Like a dry sponge hidden in the shadows, you frantically absorbed and recorded everything about the Zenin Clan.]
[You worked out the guards' rotation patterns, observed the mechanics of Naoya's prized "Projection Sorcery" countless times with your own eyes, and even lurked beneath the floorboards like a ghost on countless late nights, eavesdropping on the dirty dealings of those higher-up elders who reeked of decay.]
[And in the process, you also truly saw just how twisted and deformed this enormous machine called the "Three Great Families," called "Zenin," really was.]
[Here, "Those who are not Zenin are not sorcerers, and those who are not sorcerers are not human" was not merely a slogan, but an iron law etched into their bones.]
[Here, you saw a sick society that took "misogyny" to its absolute extreme.]
[Apart from the few individuals with powerful talent for jujutsu, the only value of the vast majority of women in the clan was as "tools for producing outstanding jujutsu sorcerers." They had to walk three steps behind men and keep their heads lowered, without even the right to look men in the eye.]
[Even the spouses of the clan's most prominent senior figures, who appeared infinitely glamorous to outsiders, were in truth nothing more than slightly higher-ranking "servants" within the Zenin Clan's secluded compounds, forced to submit meekly to their husbands and even their gifted sons.]
[And the most wretched were those children born female into the Zenin Clan who had not inherited outstanding talent for jujutsu.]
[They were beneath even servants, disgraces utterly abandoned by the clan.]
[Here, you had witnessed countless times how Naoya led a group of followers to corner the twin girls named "Maki" and "Mai."]
[He cursed them with the most venomous language, threw stones at them, and tormented them with his cursed technique, treating it as perfectly natural entertainment.]
[The servants nearby hurried past with their heads lowered. Not one intended to step in and stop him, utterly indifferent, as though to them this was simply the natural order of things.]
[As a "dog" at Naoya's side, you could only lie silently in the mud a short distance away, watching it all.]
[You felt anger. Your nails dug deep into the flesh of your palms, blood mingling with dirt, but there was nothing you could do.]
[At this moment, you did not even have the strength to win justice for yourself and kill your enemies with your own hands, much less stand up for anyone else. If you stepped forward now, not only would you fail to save those two girls, but every arrangement you had endured in silence to make would come to nothing.]
[You could only close your eyes and carve these wails, this ugliness, and this blood into your soul, stroke by stroke.]
[This was the Zenin Clan. This was a microcosm of the entire jujutsu world.]
[It was precise, enormous, and cold. It used the flesh and blood of the weak as fuel and a rigid hierarchy as its gears, crushing every life that failed to meet their "standards."]
[And you swore that one day, you would smash this machine... to pieces with your own hands.]