Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The prison of the Great Iron Plants had a history of almost a hundred years. It was almost established on the very same day the Great Iron Plants was born. Over the past hundred years, too many workers had been imprisoned, tortured, and killed in the place to intimidate other workers and sustain the tyranny of the Immortal Cultivators.

The dark, iron interrogational devices were stained with dried blood and suspicious fluids. Although they were unrecognizably dim, the stink of blood was still haunting the place, as if the unrested souls that had been trapped for a hundred years were still moaning.

At this moment, the prison was crammed with a hundred people, like a deteriorated can. All of them were heavily wounded, bleeding, and foaming hard. Collapsed on the ground like mud, they were no different from dead people had it not been for the feeble breath from their chest.

They were the central forces in the riot of Nepenthe.

Holding a rusted shackle, Xu Zhicheng crouched in a corner, and his chest was almost frozen, as if it were pressed with a boulder weighing a thousand tons.

But there was still the last brilliance in his widened eyes, blossoming and unwilling to die out.

“Brother Zhicheng—”

A stout man next to him, who was less heavily wounded, said in a low voice while looking after him, “Old Meng and Shitou didn’t… didn’t make it. They were just carried away by the Immortal Cultivators. We have completely lost the battle!”

Xu Zhicheng stared at the cracks on the ceiling of the prison cell. When the cracks were reflected in his eyes, they bloomed like flowers. He seemed to have ignored what his companion said, and it was not until a long time later that he finally said, “Old Si, I took a nap just now. Can you guess who appeared in my dream just now?”

“Old Si”, the man who was as stout as a mount, was slightly stunned. “Little Bao and Little Qi?”

“No. The two boys of my family are before my eyes all the time when my eyes are open. Do I need to meet them in dreams?”

Xu Zhicheng grinned and struggled to smile. “I dreamt of your dad.”

“What?” The stout man was dazed.

“I dreamt of my dad and your dad. Weren’t they brothers by an oath?”

Xu Zhicheng said feebly, “Old Si, do you remember how naughty we were a long, long time ago, when we were still little and the old men were alive? We stole the leathers and the iron beads from the factory to make slingshots, and then we would use the slingshots to hit the b*ttocks of the girls who wore fancy clothes. There was one time when the victim went to our family. As it turned out, your father and my father worked together to catch us. We naturally tried to run away. We ran past quite a few factories and climbed on the tubes, but we were still blocked by them in the end. We were spanked so hard that we almost lost our own bottoms.

“After the two old men were tired of beating us, they sat together and drank happily, and the two of us just crouched on the ground, grimacing and rubbing our bottoms, not even able to sit or to cry. Do you still remember that?”

“Old Si”, the stout man, was stunned for a long time. Every wrinkle on his face was spreading as he smiled in amusement and said, “Of course I do. How can I forget that? Now that I think of it, my bottom still hurts!”

“Hahahaha!”

Xu Zhicheng laughed. “However, after the two old men beat us hard, they offered each of us a carefully-made slingshot, with rails and scopes and everything, the second day. They were a hundred times better than the slingshots of all the other kids in the factory. The old men also asked us not to hit people or windows with the slingshots. We were only allowed to shoot the lizards in the forsaken tunnels around the Great Iron Plants.”

“That’s right!”

“Old Si” smiled even more brilliantly. “When it came to shooting the bottoms of girls, I was not as good as you, but when it came to shooting the lizards, you were no match for me at all, Brother Zhicheng!”

“Yes. You got dozens of lizards every time. Then, we would stab them with a skewer and roast them on fire. How succulent they were! The tasteless cans could not be compared to them at all!”

Xu Zhicheng closed his eyes while tears were flowing out. “Old Si, do you still remember where your slingshot went to in the end?”

“Old Si” shook his head and said, “It’s been too many years. Who can remember that?”

“Yes, I’ve lost my slingshot, too.”

Xu Zhicheng licked his dry lips and said in reminiscences, “But I can’t forget the taste of the roasted lizards in my entire life. How greasy and enjoyable they were! I really would like to have a meal of them again, but it’s a shame that all the mines and tunnels have been cleaned up during the decades of expansion of the Great Iron Plants. It’s been a long time since any lizards were found, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Old Si” said, “The children today are truly unlucky. Living their entire life without having the privilege to enjoy a mouthful of roasted lizards, that’s really… Well, Brother Zhicheng…”

Old Si was not sure what Xu Zhicheng meant.

After talking about his father, his slingshot, and the roasted lizards, Xu Zhicheng, the Grand Guardian of Nepenthe, was silent for a long time. He then coughed lightly and said, “Old Si, tell me the truth. Do you regret following Brother Zhicheng on this path?”

“Old Si” shook his head quickly without any hesitation. “I don’t! I never have! We couldn’t have survived the goddamn Immortal Cultivators after all, and we would die whether we fought or not. Right now, we have at least killed a lot of Immortal Cultivators before we die!

“Never in my life did I think that I would have a chance to fight the Immortal Cultivators to my heart’s content before I die. It’s certainly worth it even if I have to die a hundred times!

“Brother Zhicheng, I know what you are thinking. Just rest assured. Everybody knew that this was coming. None of the brothers here blame you. Even if everything were to restart from the beginning, we would’ve done the same and killed the Immortal Cultivators with you!”

Xu Zhicheng laughed. “Well said, kill all of the damn Immortal Cultivators! I know that nobody regrets doing that. I never have, either. But what I’m asking is something else—about Nepenthe. Do you regret establishing Nepenthe with me?”

The carefree smile of “Old Si” was frozen. He hesitated for a long time but managed to reply, “There… There’s nothing to regret. What’s done is done. Under the circumstances at that time, we didn’t have a second choice at all. When an opportunity knocks on the door, you have to grasp it. If we hadn’t done it, we would still be the mud under their feet in the next five hundred years!

“I don’t regret it! I don’t regret it!”

“But I am more or less regretful. No, I’m rather scared.”

The cracks in Xu Zhicheng’s eyes turned into glistening ripples as he mumbled, “I feel that I had a long, long sleep, but I did not have any dream, not even a nightmare. I was never scared until I woke up from the sleep.

“It’s been… a very, very long time since I recalled my father and my mother.

“It’s also been a long time since I remembered the things in my childhood. It’s odd that, although our childhood was so insufferable, with barely any food and entertainment, and we had to help the adults with their work in the factories every day, I can’t remember any of the exhaustion and sufferings now. All I remember are the happy things.

“There are also my two boys, the chaps who were as excellent as when we were little. I thought that the ‘Serenity Arts’ could help me completely forget the pain of losing them. But as it turned out, before I forgot the pain of losing them, I had almost forgotten all the happy times we spent together.

“Thankfully, the moment before I completely forgot them, somebody woke me and everybody up in time. It was really dangerous. So close. We were so close to forgetting everything. How to make slingshots, how to shoot the lizards… You haven’t forgotten them yet, Old Si, have you?”

“No, even though I haven’t done them for decades, I still remember it clearly.”

“Old Si” said with great delight, “Brother Zhicheng, you might not know this, but shooting lizards is not just about watching and listening. There is a trick that I haven’t passed on to anybody else yet. Let… Let me tell you about it today!”

Old Si leaned to Xu Zhicheng’s ears and whispered for a moment. The more Xu Zhicheng listened, the wider his eyes became. He exclaimed in an epiphany, “Old Si, that’s really something! You are really an evil boy!”

The two old men who were both more than fifty years old burst into laughter, confusing the other prisoners in the cell.

“Old Si—”

Xu Zhicheng laughed for such a long time that his dirty tears were running out on his face. He asked again, “Your daughter and grandson escaped, didn’t they? Do you have their news?”

“Yes, they both did. There’s no news about them. They must’ve evaded the Immortal Cultivators.”

“Old Si” replied, “Nowadays, no news is the best news. We’ve stalled the enemy long enough here for them to escape to the places deeper where the Immortal Cultivators are unwilling to go. As for the future, it… it will all depend on their own luck!”

“That’s good, that’s good. Just rest assured. While it is not easy for a human to live, it won’t be easy for them to die as long as they can grit their teeth. Our ancestors persisted below the ground for ten thousand years. Maybe our offspring can persist for another ten thousand years. Who knows?”

Xu Zhicheng sighed and said, “Old Si, neither of us has forgotten our fathers and the good old days, and your children have successfully escaped, too. So, who says that we have lost the battle? In my opinion, we have won. At the very least, our children will no longer suffer the slavery and torment of the Great Iron Plants, will they?”

“Old Si” was stunned for a moment. Then he slapped his thigh and grinned. “Yes, you’re right, Brother Zhicheng. We have won. Our children will never be enslaved and tortured by the Great Iron Plants and the Immortal Cultivators again!”

Hearing the answer that he wanted to hear, Xu Zhicheng closed his eyes in satisfaction and began to whistle something fuzzily.

His younger workmates did not know what exactly he was singing. Only the older generation, including “Old Si”, after listening for a long time, finally recalled that the rhythm sounded like a song that their fathers used to sing to them a long, long time ago when they were still kids.

The lyrics had been lost in the river of time, but the familiar rhythm was still deeply buried in everyone’s heart.

Huala!

The door of the dark cell was opened violently, and a cold voice barged in. “Everybody, out!”

What responded to the demand was the old lullaby that everybody was echoing together.