DTTM 35

Chapter 35: Moral Awakening

Due to the difficult transportation and numerous risks along the way in the early years, spices were once as precious as gold and were regarded as a symbol of wealth and status by the nobles of Penglai. They even felt that it was undignified and impolite to have a natural body odor.

In the past, when I was delivering letters to the princess, I would often have to attend banquets and spend ten minutes in the fragrant crowd. It made me feel like my very bones and flesh were being marinated.

While at the Zong family residence, Wuxi Li and Zong Shen’an always exuded a pleasant fragrance, using perfumes exclusively blended for them by the top perfumers in Penglai. Sometimes, without even seeing them, one could tell they had recently passed through simply by smelling their distinctive perfume.

However, Zong Yanlei never used perfume due to his health condition. His body was always covered in various bitter medicinal smells, a scent that accompanied him until he was nineteen years old, becoming his unique mark.

He hated the smell and would ask me from time to time if it smelled bad. When I told him the truth, “no,” he thought I was lying to him and often got angry about it.

After being separated from him for six years, when I returned to his side, the bitter taste of medicine had long been dispelled and replaced by a new scent.

Zong Yanlei’s perfume was indeed very special and had a strong impact, but I couldn’t be sure that he was the only one using it… Besides, why would he be in this kind of situation?

“I’m not interested in people like you. Stop your flattery and stop saying things that disgust me.” The hand covering my mouth and nose loosened, and the cold electronic voice moved a little further away. “My prey is not the Wo people. If you want to live, stick close behind me.”

I was started and looked back.

The other party seemed to completely disregard me, carrying a gun, with his back to me, and walked straight to the wall to turn on all the kitchen lights.

Light once again dispelled the darkness, exposing all that was bloody, filthy, and chaotic.

“You shut up too.”

At first I thought he was talking to himself, but upon closer inspection I noticed that he was wearing a silver ear clip, which seemed to be some kind of covert communication device.

“I know Wuxi Chen is the key point. If you think I’m too slow, you can do it yourself…”

He turned around and there I was, aiming my gun at him.

He tilted his head and slowly spread his hands under the muzzle of my gun, to demonstrate his harmlessness. However, his white suit, splattered with blood in an artistic way, was hardly convincing.

“Who exactly are you, esteemed sir?” I hooked my index finger on the trigger and aimed the gun at his head.

“I am not your enemy.”

“Then… take off the mask?”

I pressed on relentlessly, not planning to let him evade the issue. But he remained motionless as if he hadn’t heard me, and the atmosphere became somewhat tense.

I silently counted down in my head, planning to fire in ten seconds. Time was the essence; and I didn’t have time to waste with him.

“Smack!”

With five seconds left in the countdown, he loosened his grip and threw the gun to the ground, seemingly trying to further demonstrate the truthfulness of his words.

“I’m a member of WRA. Whether you kill me here or see my face, it won’t be a good thing for you.” He tapped the silver ear clip on his ear: “You’re in the open, we’re in the shadows. You’d better not be foolish, Jiang Man.”

WRA… Wo Republic Army, the terrorist organization that plotted to assassinate Zong Yanlei half a month ago.

I narrowed my eyes: “But you’re from Penglai.” As I spoke, I glanced at his beautiful, aristocratic silver hair, remaining absolutely wary.

“Ha! If my eyes can change color, why not my hair?”

That pure white electronic mask concealed his face and emotions, making it difficult for me to tell whether he was telling the truth or lying. And if I couldn’t tell, the best course of action was simply to stay away and not try to figure it out.

I kicked his gun away, then steadily held the gun in my hand and retreated towards the door.

“We have different paths, so we can’t work together. What you do is your business, don’t drag me into it. I just want to live.” With that, I turned and left the kitchen.

As I ran, I kept an eye on what was behind me. When I didn’t see the other person chasing after me, I breathed a sigh of relief.

As I ran along the corridor toward the central axis, my pace suddenly slowed when I saw the central staircase in the distance.

The gilded railings gleamed warmly under the crystal chandelier, and the marble staircase stretched out along the central axis, winding down like a snow-white spine. At the very end, in the open space before the stairs, lay two corpses.

One was an emaciated, pale-faced Wo little girl, who looked to be about ten years old. Her body was almost completely riddled with bullets from a hunting rifle, her shoulders, calves, and hands, all non-lethal areas. The first few gunshots I heard must have been the marks left by the hunter as they tortured and killed her.

My gaze shifted from the little girl’s half-closed eyes to another corpse clutching her hair.

The corpse was still holding a knife in its right hand, lying face down in a pool of blood with a large hole in the back of its head. It must had been shot at close range from behind without any warning and died a quick and easy death.

The hunter, having thoroughly slaughtered his prey with each shot, intended to decapitate it as a trophy, but was unexpectedly killed by a wild beast lurking in the shadows. I quickly deduced what had happened.

Judging from the timing and the route taken, the only person who could have killed the hunter was the man who claimed to be a member of WRA.

It seemed he really wasn’t after Wo people.

I unbuckled the shotgun belt from the hunter and fastened it around my own waist, then hid the dagger I had found inside my calf. After doing all this, I didn’t linger and quickly ran up the stairs.

Inside the opulent building, the walls and ceilings were covered with magnificent paintings depicting heroes and deities. Looking down from above, the two corpses, lying askew in blood against a white marble background, seem to become part of this mythological scroll, telling the story of the absurdity and suffering of this era.

Two hunters have died. Excluding the WRA member, there should be three hunters left in this building. Instead of searching for the “flock” and burdening the operation, it was better to take the initiative and go find the hunters.

With the hunters all dead, the “flock” would naturally be safe.

With that thought, I gripped the handguard on the gun and pushed it forward. The moment the metal structure engaged, the gun made a crisp “click” sound, indicating that the shot had been pushed into the chamber.

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In the past, when Zong Yanlei was still able to walk, Zong Shen’an tried to teach him to enjoy the pleasure of “hunting”.

“Big fish eat little fish, wild beasts eat rabbits. This world is made up of a series of killings, and the law of the jungle is the basic rule. You need to get used to it in advance.” As he spoke, Zong Shen’an raised Zong Yanlei’s hunting rifle and made him aim it at a gray rabbit that was foraging for food in the bushes in the distance.

Zong Yanlei stared at the rabbit for a long time, until a gentle breeze stirred and the nimble rabbit darted into its burrow, but he still couldn’t pull the trigger.

For Zong Shen’an, kindness and benevolence were not good qualities. He berated Zong Yanlei as a useless piece of trash who couldn’t even fire a gun and ordered him not to return until he had hunted a single prey.

I had no choice but to accompany Zong Yanlei, wandering aimlessly through the forest with two servants.

“Young master, are you not killing that rabbit because you pity it?” I asked, carrying my gun, thinking that if he couldn’t bring himself to do it out of sympathy, I might be able to do it for him.

However, Zong Yanlei gave me an unexpected answer. He stopped, stepped on a piece of dead wood, picked an unknown small white flower, and twirled it between his fingers.

“I don’t pity it, I just feel… this kind of killing that isn’t for survival is meaningless.”

“I know my father wanted to tell me that in a dog-eat-dog world, if you don’t eat others, you’ll only be a rabbit to be eaten. But why should I prove my strength by killing rabbits?”

He looked at me, and his question stumped me. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to need my answer.

“Whether the rabbit lives or dies, I am the strong one. Whoever wants to eat me, I will kill him, is that not allowed?” Although it was a question, judging from his expression, he did not expect to get anyone’s approval.

“This is my prey for today. Go back now.” With that, he handed me the little flower, turned around, and walked away first.

I took the flower and, held it above my head, as if I had been enlightened in an instant.

Sunlight filtered through the dense branches and into the spot where I stood, making the delicate white petals almost transparent. It was just an ordinary wildflower.

Before this, everything in the wild was simply categorized as either “edible” or “inedible” in my eyes. Rabbits, mice, snakes, and the like were all on my prey list; they were delicacies I couldn’t miss in my impoverished days.

I certainly didn’t kill them to prove my “strength.” But just as Zong Shen’an felt that rabbits were born to be hunted, even though I no longer needed to worry about food, the ironclad rule that “rabbits are prey” was already deeply ingrained in my mind.

Their deaths did not evoke any pity in me; Zong Shen’an’s killings were not for survival, and in my opinion, they were quite reasonable.

If it weren’t for Zong Yanlei’s words, I might have already accepted that the rabbit truly deserved to die.

But actually, the rabbit didn’t have to die.

I suddenly understood what the books meant when they said that “the foundation of morality does not lie in nature, custom or history, but only in the self-legislation inherent in reason.”

Breaking free from the harsh rules of life, I realized that I was also a subject capable of enacting my world.

Zong Yanlei might never know how much his flower and a few words impacted my heart.

That day became a “moral awakening” day that overturned my values.

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The second floor was the main activity area for the nobles, with many “ceremonial rooms,” such as the “Mirror Hall,” which was specially used to hold balls.

The Mirror Hall, as its name suggested, was a hall decorated with many mirrors. The mirrors reflect the light, stretch the space, and display jewels, fine clothes, and beautiful women to the public in a magnified manner. It was the main stage for nobles to flaunt their power.

So when I heard the gunshot and the sound of a mirror shattering at the same time, I immediately knew that a hunter was in the Mirror Hall.

The Mirror Hall had many mirrors but few other obstructions, making it unsuitable for an overly conspicuous entrance.

As I approached the entrance, I heard faint voices inside. I held my breath, gripped my hunting rifle tightly, and waited quietly for the right moment.

“I don’t really like boys, but it’ll do.” The monotonous electronic voice rudely ordered, “Hey, hurry up and take your pants off.”

“Please, don’t kill me…please, don’t kill me…”

I immediately recognized the voice as A-Qi’s.

“Fuck, I told you to take your pants off, didn’t you hear me?”

Gunshots rang out again in the Mirror Hall, and mirrors shattered on the floor. The hunter, impatient, fired another shot at the wall.

The hunters were equipped with pump-action shotguns, which required manual reloading after each shot. As a result, there was a “fire period” after each shot, which varied from person to person.

This was exactly the perfect opportunity I’d been waiting for.

I slipped into the Mirror Hall. The hunter in the black suit had his back to me. He was unaware of the danger that was approaching and kicked A-Qi, who was curled up on the ground.

I whistled, aiming at the back of his head.

The other person turned around, and a close-range shotgun blast, like a terrifying storm of metal, struck him squarely in the face. Blood mist exploded, and before he could even let out a complete scream, the force of the impact slammed him backward, causing him to fall to the ground.

Two left.

“Ah…” A-Qi raised his head tremblingly, and when he saw it was me, his pale and blank face showed a look of disbelief as if he had seen a miracle.

Before he could snap out of his daze, I grabbed his arm and pulled him up from the ground.

“I’ll find a place for you to hide. As long as I don’t come looking for you, you absolutely must not come out.”

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Author’s Note

The foundation of morality lies not in nature, custom, or history, but only in the self-legislation inherent in reason. (From *Yale University Open Course: Political Philosophy*). This is Kant’s theory; he believed that true morality must be an unconditional imperative, possessing universality and necessity, not driven by desires, interests, or any external factors. It originates from the self-legislation and self-restraint of reason. In short, the moral imperative.

“Moral awakening” refers to a sudden shift in the internal values ​​of a person who was previously apathetic, passive, or indifferent to morality, becoming aware that certain behaviors are “wrong” under the impact of a particular event. It is often used in philosophy and psychology.