Chapter 856: Stress is a universal truth
‘What in the Abyssal Depths is going on today?,’ Patarich Zhen Shi grumbled while reading over the report of the day’s events.
Just a short few moments ago, his children and grandchildren had delivered their own reports of today’s massive chain of events. More specifically, they shared their version of the events that everyone in Stone Claw City was talking about.
‘A part of me misses the days when we were one of three major powers in the area…then again, fuck the Wolfes…,’ Zhen Shi mused as his mind wandered to a not-so distant past of about half a year ago.
When Zhen Shi and his clan returned from Roaring Tide to their new station in the frontier, he assumed he’d have a couple of quiet days that would allow him to mentally digest everything…but nope!
“I know I shouldn’t drink…but good lord, no wonder my grandaunt opts to delegate everything to her successor…,” Zhen Shi grumbled after reading about the damages done by the latest visitors to Stone Claw City.
Instead, after one quiet day, he had to read about how an explosion rocked his local arena, much to his ironic enjoyment; how his sons got into a fight with the Calamity Sisters and an inquisitor from some foreign church and somehow fought them to a stalemate despite the obvious power gap; and how his beloved children suddenly disappeared for several hours…only to come back with enough aether art scrolls and literature to arm at least three medium sized organizations.
Those first two incidents might’ve been bad but that last point wasn’t…until his grandchildren mentioned how they got their hands on those aforementioned pieces of literature…and how those other two incidents were somehow connected to them.
“The Sect of Nowhere…is that really the organization that’s been pulling these strings? If so, why?”
Zhen Shi knew that ever since his Fourth grandson came back, he brought with him a whole mess of weirdness and benefits with him.
First, came those crazy puppets.
Next came all of those aether arts back when they were gearing up for war.
Then came the new secretaries and muscle that came in the form of Aranea and Lucille.
And now, for reasons beyond his understanding, this same weird organization had deemed the rest of his grandchildren fit of being able to access some secret library full of aether arts that most members of the clan could only dream of reading.
It was all honestly too good to be true…which was why he was getting a little suspicious.
On top of all of this though, there was one other thing that’s been bothering him, a more recent thing that may or may not be connected to all of these unexpected boons.
Deep in thought, Zhen Shi sifted through the reports until he saw one that was related to the battle that happened between the Calamity Sisters and his Fourth and Fifth sons. More specifically, he focused on this one strange line of dialogue.
“We aren’t here for you, you old fogeys! We’re here for the [Kaijin Lord]!”
[Kaijin Lord…]
Zhen Shi was fairly certain he had never heard of this word, nor the language that was used to pronounce it, and yet…it sounded incredibly familiar.
Almost as familiar as the name of an old friend.
‘I swear I heard this…wait a minute…’
Inspiration struck the old clan patriarch as he realized where might’ve heard it before.
He heard it once when he was cultivating alongside his [Beast Spirit]!
‘No time like the present then, right?,’ Zhen Shi told himself as he got up from his desk chair.
With this thought fresh in his mind, Zhen Shi proceeded to make his way down several halls until he reached a peculiar door that led to a cave that had just been refreshed with an absolute ton of ice-attributed aether treasures.
‘Alright you mutant snake of mine, time to tell me what you know.’
Little did Zhen Shi know, all the answers he would’ve wanted we’re actually very close to him. Granted, that aforementioned source was a little busy at the moment.
Dealing with their mother.
_____In the private courtyard of a particularly peculiar young master…________
“Really? Is this what you have planned for your interrogation session? That’s it?,” Daria Nerissa-Zhen asked with genuine concern over her son’s drafted plans for interrogation. This was technically the first she had ever been part of these moments, so she wanted to make it count.
Much to the chagrin of Zhen Liu.
“Y-yeah? I mean, I’m trying to get information out of them, not turn them into literal bleeding pincushions,” Zhen Liu admitted. “Wait, shouldn’t you be sleeping with father or taking care of the twins by now?”
Unlike his previous interrogations where he essentially winged it like a college student on the day of a test he never studied for, Zhen Liu actually decided to be a filial son and inform his mother about exactly how he was going to “extract” information from his captured prisoners.
The weirdness of this moment would not dawn on him until a couple moments later.
“It’s your father’s turn to watch over the babies,” Daria smoothly replied. “But that’s besides the point. Right now, there’s a severe lack of torture tool usage in your plans…”
“That’s by design,” Zhen Liu said while thinking back on his girlfriend’s “make-up” case.
“And blackmail material…”
“I am fairly certain I don’t need something like that since these guys have barely a copper coin to their name…ooh wait, maybe I can use that…”
“I don’t even see any plans to use hostages or any of them as an example to the others for compliance purposes! How do you expect to break someone’s spirit without hurting their loved ones?,” Daria asked with an expression on her face that indicated that she was incredibly serious about this question.
“I am actually technically using their-ya know, it just dawned on me that it’s incredibly weird that my own mother is encouraging me to be a stone cold killer/torturer,” Zhen Liu trailed off as he began to rub his temples out of a mix of stress and shock. “Shouldn’t you be wanting me to be a prim and proper gentleman warrior-poet or something like that?”
“Well, you won’t let little Jin Fang do it despite all my years of training her.”
“To be fair, milady,” Jin Fang interjected, “it is actually interesting to watch Xiao Liu put on his torture shows.”
“You see? My methods-hold up. Jin Fang, what did you just say?”
“Nor do you seem to allow your literal squad of murderous kaijin warriors do the torture for you,” Daria continued in order to bring the focus back on to the main conversation topic, as well as cover for Jin Fang. “Meaning I have to direct my thoughts and opinion towards you, the head interrogator for this moment. On the note of your…puppets…though, I’ve seen what you did with the Razor Maiden and I know what ‘Aranea’ has been teaching the children. You can easily just let one of them do the interrogations for you since they’re kind of walking talking nightmare incarnates.”
…
[Is…is she insulting us, or praising us?]
[I think both? I’m gonna go with both.]
[Damn…I mean, she’s not wrong, but still…]
…
“I mean…I would, but they have threatened to eat someone more times than what can be considered healthy or a joke,” Zhen Liu informed his mother as a reason as to why he doesn’t let the kaijin do interrogations by themselves. “I am honestly convinced that if I did actually leave them alone for an extended period of time, they would probably try to eat someone.”
…
[Hey!]
[Our maestro ain’t wrong though.]
[I know, but still!]
[Am I the only one who doesn’t want to eat anybody?!]
[Yes.]
[No…]
[Kinda?]
[I’ll get back to you on that one.]
[I’m made of the remains of people, so…]
[Is it always this noisy in here? Damn.]
…
“Either way, mother. Please just let me do it my way before intervening. I’ve done this before to great effect.”
Daria gave her son a strange look before finally sighing in resignation.
“Oh alright…but if none of them say anything useful, I-”
“I know, I know,” Zhen Liu interjected. “You’ll bust out your own personalized set of torture tools and go to town. Honestly, I would love to know at what point during your soul searching journey you ended up becoming a torture master of all things.”
“Would you believe that it happened around the same time I met your father?”
“That…explains a lot of things…and leads to a lot of questions I don’t want the answer to until much later,” Zhen Liu replied. “Anyways, I’m going to bed now, so I can start the interrogation bright eyed and bushy tailed. Good night, mother. Good night, Jin Fang.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, dear. I’ll be sure to wake you early for the ride to the library.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“Well…”
