"Yang Bairao, today's batch of test blocks is fully formed, so you can finish work now. Hurry up and get on with it, because the site inspector comes on duty early tomorrow morning to check the counts."
Beneath an orange lantern-like night light, a foreman wearing a red hard hat spoke softly. Clamping a cigarette in his left hand, he used his right hand to take photos with his phone, capturing the test molds covering the ground before sending the pictures to the work chat group.
Group name: Capitalists Who Eat People (Prefabricated Test Block Team, Scattered Construction Group).
Though not very tall, the man in the red hard hat was broad-shouldered and thick-necked. Clearly, long-term labor out on the construction site had baked his skin as dark as charcoal under the blazing sun.
"Alright, alright, Engineer Wang, don't worry. Making test blocks and hauling bricks are my specialties. Besides, my name is Yang Bairao, not some Yang Bailao."
Crouching down as he inserted and tamped concrete into the test molds, a thin young man spoke without looking up. Though his face was etched with fatigue, his hands never stopped moving, working with a speed and rhythm that would have made him look entirely professional to an outsider.
"Heh, the inspector's surname is Huang, and everyone behind his back calls him Huang Shiren. Who told your crew to let him squeeze you dry? If the test blocks aren't done right, not only do you get fined, but work gets shut down too."
After finishing the photos, Engineer Wang straightened up, slipped his phone into his pocket, and offered a cigarette to Yang Bairao. Yang Bairao waved his hand and didn't take it.
Engineer Wang didn't mind. Exhaling a heavy sigh of the smoke he had just drawn to relieve the exhaustion of the day, he said, "Well, I'm heading back. Our rebar crew has finished tying everything down."
"Alright, alright, mind your step on the way back. Don't fall into any pits—you're not worth as much as a drill bit, so nobody's going to fish you out."
Yang Bairao's tongue was as sharp as ever, his hands never pausing in their tamping. His oversized, loose-fitting reflective vest was practically dragging on the ground.
Engineer Wang smiled without a word. He wanted to stride forward, but with the construction site riddled with pits and scattered debris, he had no choice but to proceed cautiously, shouting to other workers as they gradually receded into the dim, yellow light.
After tamping a few more molds and deciding he had done enough, Yang Bairao prepared to load the completed test molds onto a flatbed cart beside him to wheel them indoors for vibration.
The moment he stood up and pulled out his phone, his already frail body staggered slightly. Dizziness hit him, a rush of blood surged straight to his head, and his vision went black.
"Oh no, am I having a cerebral hemorrhage?"
Yang Bairao's eyes widened in horror. He wanted to cry out for help, but it was already too late. Scenes flashed before his eyes like drifting smoke—his children, his wife, his parents—as two tears slipped from the corners of his eyes.
"I'm sorry. Let me support you in our next life!"
His left hand gripped his phone tightly, but the call would never go through.
...
"Heh, Yang, you didn't expect this, did you? So what if you're the chosen son of the Yang family? Today you've walked right into the Huang family's trap. No matter how high your talent is, a genius who hasn't grown up is nothing more than a fool. Hahahaha."
A burly man held a heavy club in one hand, its head forged from an unknown metal that gleamed in the light. His heavily scarred face gave the unmistakable impression that he was not someone to be trifled with.
The wilderness stretched out in desolate hues, bathed in the yellow glow of the sunset that cast a golden sheen over the man-high weeds, lending the scene an eerie sense of stillness.
In this golden-lit wilderness, five men and one woman had two people surrounded. One of the surrounded figures had blood at the corner of his mouth, a pale face, and a chest that heaved violently as he fought for breath. The other had his left arm hanging limply, using his sword to prop up his body against the earth, ready to collapse at any second.
Across the silent land, only heavy panting and cruel laughter echoed. A breeze swept through, setting the wild grass rustling and carrying the sound far across the open plains.
"Brother, I told you to leave. Why did you come back?"
The young man propping himself up with his sword let his arm dangle limply. His voice was weak, but the tenacity on his face could not entirely mask the faint trace of fear in his eyes.
"What's there to be afraid of? If I hadn't come, they would have eventually schemed to trick me here anyway. If we die, we die."
The young man surnamed Yang wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his pale face showing no fear of death whatsoever.
He clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails dug deep into his flesh, yet his hands refused to stop shaking—a clear sign of utter exhaustion.
"Uncle, stop wasting breath on them. Kill Yang Li, and the Yang family will have no more geniuses left. Once this generation of elders passes away, the future of Feng City will belong to the Huang and Zhang Families."
A young man holding a Steel Pitchfork, the tines still stained with blood, spoke up. Looking closer, one could see that the sword-wielding youth was kneeling on his left knee, his lower left leg a bloody, mangled mess.
The scarred, burly man nodded and glanced at the others, signaling them to finish it quickly.
As the figures closed in, Yang Li prepared to shove his younger brother away, but the younger brother's face suddenly shifted, fear momentarily flashing in his eyes before being replaced by a look of grim resolve.
"Brother, the Yang family cannot survive without you. If they want this sword, let them take it. Run! Go seek a master elsewhere. Even if the Yang family is destroyed, as long as you are still alive, you can always settle the score. I'm going!"
Gritting his teeth, the younger brother—whose shoulders had been slumped—poured every ounce of his remaining strength into a charge toward the pitchfork-wielding youth. Lame-legged though he was, he charged forward without a shred of fear. "Huang He, if you kill me now, you'll never know where this sword came from. Figure it out yourselves!"
The moment the roar tore from his throat, Yang Li let out a cry born of grief and injustice, matching his brother's shout.
While Huang He and the others hesitated, Yang Li jerked backward in a desperate retreat.
A middle-aged woman among those surrounding Yang Li raised her saber to hack downward. Suddenly, Yang Li opened his palms, releasing a handful of black ash from his tightly clenched fist. Carried by the breeze, the black ash blew straight toward the middle-aged woman's face.
"Bairao, I'll use the poison you got to kill at least one of them. At least we brothers won't lose out!"
Without a moment's hesitation, the middle-aged woman scrambled to avoid the drifting black ash, terrified of even the slightest contact. She whipped her skirt up to cover her face while wildly slashing her wood-chopping knife toward the gap where Yang Li was trying to break through.
With a soft *thud*, she could clearly feel her blade strike something, but she had no time to drop her skirt and check. Yang Li had already burst through her encirclement, charging away with all his might. "Bairao, Brother will avenge you! I will wipe out the Huang family!"
His voice was shrill, choked with sobs, and trembling heavily.
"Madam Huang, ignore him! He's already crippled. Surround Yang Bairao first, don't let him escape! The sword is the priority."
A rough voice boomed out. The middle-aged woman known as Madam Huang hopped a step to the side, dropped her skirt, and snatched a glance in the direction Yang Li had fled. Finding that Yang Li had already vanished somewhere into the tall grass and was impossible to pursue, she turned instead to close in on the young man, Yang Bairao, who was attempting to break away.
Taking advantage of the moment Yang Li broke through, Yang Bairao slashed wildly with his sharp blade. The sword in his hand was incomparably keen, and the group dared only surround him rather than close in for a desperate melee.
Huang He, holding the Steel Pitchfork, merely hovered at the edges, darting in to strike whenever an opening appeared. Though none of his thrusts hit Yang Bairao's vital organs, each strike inflicted painful wounds.
Watching his brother escape, the breath that Yang Bairao had been holding finally left him. His body suddenly went limp, and feeling his life force rapidly draining away, his vision darkened as he fell straight back to the ground.
At that exact moment, Huang He lunged forward to thrust his pitchfork toward Yang Bairao's legs. As Yang Bairao collapsed, the pitchfork struck true, driving straight through his left chest without deviation.
"Damn you!"
A rough roar echoed. Huang He was forced to release his grip on the pitchfork as someone violently kicked him, sending him tumbling head over heels several times.
"Is he dead? He can't die! Yang Li can die, but he absolutely cannot!"
The burly, rough man roared at the top of his lungs, his eyes bloodshot and filled with a terrifying viciousness, clearly driven to the absolute peak of fury.
Huang He scrambled up from his tumbles, spat out a mouthful of grass leaves he had accidentally swallowed during the roll, and crept forward trembling. "Uncle, I didn't mean to. He... he threw himself right onto it."
Trembling, Huang He tried to explain, though he had no idea how.
"Third Brother, he's dead. How are we going to answer to the Yang family now? He's the only direct-line descendant of the Yang family and their next patriarch. Killing the next patriarch of the Yang family is the same as directly declaring war on them."
A middle-aged man walked closer. He had a lean face, and his height closely matched that of the scarred, burly man.
"We were supposed to surround him without killing him. Killing Yang Li is fine—that's just a feud of minor talents from the collateral branches; if they die, they die. But a direct-line heir cannot lose his life. That's the ironclad rule of the three families. Otherwise, if you kill my family's direct heir today, I'll kill yours tomorrow, and the three families of Feng City will plunge into chaos."
Madam Huang stood nearby, her face fraught with worry.
"Find him. Find Yang Li, kill him, and bury them both somewhere. Who's going to know we did it?"
Huang He volunteered, his trembling body suddenly finding a spark of energy.
...
A breeze swept across the plains as night began to fall.
The group exchanged glances. The scarred, burly man picked up the longsword Yang Bairao had dropped. Staring at the gleaming blade reflecting the moonlight, his bloodshot eyes twitched as he sank into thought.
"In grass this deep, and with night falling, can you guarantee your own safety? The grassland at night belongs to the Grassland Wolf. Yang Li is bound to die anyway!"
The man muttered in a low voice. As soon as he finished speaking, the expressions of the others shifted slightly, and Huang He's face turned pale with fear.
"Uncle, then what should we do?"
Huang He stammered the question; being younger and inexperienced, many things remained unclear to him.
"We leave. Just leave Yang Bairao's body right here. If the Grassland Wolves eat him, when the Yang family comes looking and finds only gnawed bones, it won't have anything to do with us."
The burly man said in a deep voice. Just then, a series of eerie, bone-chilling howls echoed across the grassland.
The expressions of the burly man and his companions turned pale. Though clearly terrified, they forced themselves to hold their ground.
Madam Huang crouched down and patted Yang Bairao's body, finding nothing. She then pulled a pouch of black, powder-like substance from her personal belongings. Staring at the powder, a surge of bitter resentment welled up inside her—she suddenly realized that the black stuff Yang Li had scattered while fleeing might have been this very thing. Yet she dared not speak of it now, lest Third Brother blame her for her incompetence.
"Third Brother, let's divide this beast-repelling powder among ourselves and carry it. Then the Grassland Wolves won't dare come near."
With that, Madam Huang portioned out some of the beast-repelling powder.
"What a waste of this sword's origins."
One of them sighed, and the group quickly vanished into the tall grass.
*Awooo...*
Chilling wolf howls resounded across the wilderness. The wolves were unseen, yet they were already close.
On the nighttime grassland, the Grassland Wolves reigned supreme.
...
"I'm sorry. Let me support you in our next life!"
The kaleidoscopic scenes drifted past like smoke, coming and going in an instant.
Clutching his phone tightly, Yang Bairao felt an abnormal tightness in his chest. His left hand lacked an ounce of strength, and his left calf felt completely dead.
"Sigh, making test blocks and hauling them every day has practically worked me to death. Good thing I only passed out... Time to find a new job!"