Chosen: Beyond Fate

On a late-autumn afternoon, the sun over Haizhou was still blazing, and the air was scorching hot.

Outside Spring City, the white mist drifted and swirled. A line of exhausted figures wearing gas masks slowly walked out of it. Their specially made protective suits were covered in bloodstains.

The trailblazer at the front walked with his back perfectly straightened. In his hands, he held a rolled-up flag, using it to break through every obstacle in their path. Behind him, almost everyone was injured. They looked as if they had just gone through a fierce battle, and some were even lying on stretchers.

At the very back, a burly giant dragged along a cargo bed that had been torn off a truck. It was piled high with a mess of enormous corpses, several altars that had been dismantled into pieces, and a few bodies so mangled they were no longer recognizable.

The person behind the captain looked up at the sky, which was nearing dusk, then took off her mask. Her long hair spilled down her back like flowing water.

“It’s already this late? Everything was so hazy there, and the sense of time was completely messed up.” Ji Xue[1] sighed. “I thought we’d make it back in time for lunch. I’m starving.”

Her twin brother, Ji Liu[2], yawned behind her. “Hey, dinner’s not bad either. That huge thing exploded and sprayed all over me. It’s so sticky I feel like my limbs are glued together. Can’t wait to shower. What about you, Mr. Tong? Want to join us for dinner?”

Tong Shan, who was walking at the very front with the flag, took off his mask and said calmly, “You guys go ahead. Everyone, make the most of your time and get some proper rest. Once our supplies and equipment are replenished, we’ll try to finish exploring all the areas we missed before.”

Ji Liu was shocked. “We’re going back into the underground cavern? Bro, we’ve been in this damn place for half a month, and you’ve already gone down into the underground cavern four times. Don’t you ever rest?”

The moment he asked that, he regretted it. Just as he had expected, Tong Shan calmly replied, “I do rest.”

The ordinary team members could still relax a little between trips into the underground cavern, but the captain, Tong Shan, had less than five hours of sleep on average per day, plus a dozen or so minutes of free time between tasks.

At work, people usually call this kind of person a try-hard workaholic. Yet everyone who had ever worked with Tong Shan found it very hard to say anything bad about the captain, who took care of his team in every little detail, always charged into battle headfirst, and even took menstrual cycles and emotional fluctuations into account. He would make brown sugar ginger tea[3] for his co-workers and set aside time just to listen to them curse out their exes.

Honestly, no one could bring themselves to badmouth him. And if they did, others would probably throw a sack over their head and beat them with a club. This man was the ultimate male mom[4]!

“You really talk too damn much.” Ji Xue kicked her brother in the butt, sending him stumbling. She moved closer to Tong Shan with a sweet smile. “Mr. Tong, are you free tonight? A friend brought me a set of cookware. How about I make some slow-simmered soup for you?”

The half-dead injured man on the stretcher grinned. “Xue, I want some soup too! I’m short on nutrition. How about giving me some first?”

The answer he got was an utterly unapologetic middle finger. “Get lost, you bastard!”

For a moment, the whole team burst into laughter, but very soon, the atmosphere grew serious again. At the entrance of the outpost, there was someone who had been waiting for them for quite some time.

Tong Shan stopped in his tracks. “Ma’am? Why did you come all the way here?”

“I’ve pretty much finished sorting out the work on my end. I was worried about you guys, so I came over to wait and see if any distress signals came in. Though I’m sure the others will say I’m slacking off.”

Under the parasol, Lü Yingyue[5] smiled faintly. She did not look old. Her appearance was closer to middle-aged, and her smile was warm and gentle. Only a few streaks of white hair could be seen faintly beneath her hair clip.

Now, seeing that everyone had returned safely, her smile grew even brighter. “How did it go?”

“Hard to say.” Tong Shan sighed and pointed at the truck bed the burly man was dragging behind them. “We did get a few big ones that can probably be recycled for parts. We followed the leads and wiped out a few hideouts, but all we caught were four or five idiots brainwashed by the Heretic Cult. Completely useless. So I guess the whole trip was kind of a waste.”

“What matters is that you came back safely.” Lü Yingyue patted him on the shoulder, then looked at Ji Xue, who was watching expectantly from the side. She reached out and patted her shoulder as well, as a gesture of encouragement. The cheerful young woman immediately ran off whistling. She had no sense of seniority or occasion, but Lü Yingyue did not mind.

“The Heretic Cult’s infiltration of Spring City didn’t happen overnight. Once Haizhou has pulled in enough manpower from across the province and fully broken through the blockade, we’ll be able to sweep them out properly. At this stage, all you need to do is scout things out as thoroughly as you can. Don’t push yourself too hard. And don’t let personal feelings get mixed up in your work,” Lü Yingyue told Tong Shan.

Tong Shan nodded. “I know, Ma’am. Don’t worry. I’m just trying to finish exploring the area as soon as possible. There isn’t much left this time. Next time, we should be able to clear the rest in one go.”

Lü Yingyue shook her head. “That’s the bad news I came to tell you. The Taiyi Ring has already come up with a new plan, but we’re still short on quite a lot. Right now, every craftsman’s time and resources are booked solid. Repairs and restocking consumables will probably have to wait a while.

“You’re not planning to run into the underground cavern barehanded, are you? Or were you thinking of paying out of your own pocket to get someone to rush the job? With the prices those craftsmen charge, they’d bleed you dry.”

Tong Shan was stunned. But soon, a rare smile appeared on his face, as if he were pleased. “That’s all right. I happen to know a pretty good craftsman.”

He took out his phone and looked at the messages that had piled up over the past several days. “I heard he caused quite a big mess. Hope nothing bad happened to him.”

Tong Shan sighed.

***

Something had happened.

For several days now, the poor labourers who had been banished to the Recycling and Processing Department had sensed that something was off. To put it more accurately, it felt like they had seen a freaking ghost.

At first, when they heard that some young master from a major workshop had been kicked into this miserable dump for picking fights and causing trouble, everyone’s heart sank and their assholes clenched.

Spending day and night picking through trash and doing hard labor was already bad enough. If some spoiled young master came along on top of that, doing jack shit while riding on their backs and throwing his weight around, who the hell could stand it?

But whether they could stand it or not, they still had to. They had no choice but to endure it. These days, apprentices with no power, no influence, and no one to rely on, who could only sell their labor, rarely had the luxury of keeping their dignity intact[6].

Money was hard to earn, and shit was hard to swallow[7]. If this job had even the slightest appeal, it would have never fallen to disposable tools like them, mass-produced through Fate Summoning. Real merits and contributions like this were things they could not normally get even if they begged for them. They could not possibly turn them down just because the working conditions were a little rough.

Everyone had braced themselves for some young master who would lounge around in a chair, act all high and mighty, and make their lives harder than they already were. The one thing they had not expected was for the bastard to be an even crazier overachieving maniac than they were.

The moment he walked through the door, he threw his head back and laughed like he couldn’t stop. When he saw lowly manual laborers like them, he did not try to boss them around or act high and mighty. After enquiring about the key points of the job, he threw himself into the workshop like he had a death wish. He worked from morning until night, then continued until morning came again. He didn’t even bring a change of coveralls.

The supervisor was nearly scared to tears. If you’re trying to die, please do it somewhere else, bro. If you fucking drop dead here, they’re going to skin me alive.

Only after wearing out six full sets of tools did the new guy finally yawn and go to sleep, but after only a few hours, he reappeared in the workshop. Once more, with speed and efficiency no one else could hope to match, he devoured every piece of scrapped equipment like a storm.

In just four or five short days, he alone had nearly gone through two whole batches, the equivalent of hundreds of recyclable items. And even then, he still wasn’t satisfied. He even took over everyone else’s work.

His actions moved the whole crowd of labourers to tears. They were practically ready to set up a shrine for him.

With this heaven-sent powerhouse, this living saint, up front taking all the pressure for everyone, the laborers in the Recycling and Processing Department managed to enjoy a few rare good days. At the very least, they had a little more time to clear out the contamination that the corrupted aura had caused in their spirit matter.

The noble young masters and young ladies called Ji Jue a psycho, a lunatic, a monster, and all sorts of other infamous names, but what the labourers at the very bottom thought of Mr. Ji could be summed up in just one phrase—he was their savior.

As for the lackey who came after him, he seemed to be from some workshop too. No one knew for sure. Judging by the way he looked, he was probably there to help out.

“We’re the stars of the village tonight,

Lost our hearts, now nothing feels right.

You keep saying love’s gotta read the signs,

Got to ask fate if our stars align.♪[ref]This is from the song 佤写不来情歌. You can check it out here.[ref]”

Afternoon was the perfect time to work. Right now, Ji Jue had an entire processing workshop to himself. He was suspended in midair without even a face shield on, directly exposing himself to a spirit matter environment thick with aberration contamination as he skillfully took apart the massive metal pillar in front of him that was more than two meters tall.

The giant pillar looked like one solid piece, but under his Flawless Craft, parts that had been fitted together so tightly that the seams were almost invisible came falling away like rain. They were then thrown into the furnace for purification.

As for the core structures that contained spirit circuits and many Supreme Benevolence emblems, they were destroyed one by one under the power of the Dissociation Technique. They scattered into dust, leaving only drifting metal dust behind.

The dust came sprinkling down like snow, landing on Lou Feng’s numb face. It was just like shovelfuls of dirt being tossed onto a coffin.

“But the snow drifts into my eyes...♪”

“Stop singing!” Lou Feng wailed. He shook his head, desperately trying to fling the contaminated dust off his body, as well as the mental contamination out of his brain. “Master Ji, I’m begging you, please stop singing!”

If Ji Jue’s taste in music were even a little less awful, Lou Feng would not be this mentally and physically exhausted. And if Ji Jue had even the slightest idea how to sing, Lou Feng would not be missing his therapist this much.

There was no skill involved. Just fucking pure, unfiltered emotion.

Lou Feng had no idea what was wrong with Lu Feng. All he knew was that every song Ji Jue had copied from him was either some loud, tacky DJ track or an over-the-top mountain folk remix.

Now, whenever Ji Jue sang, Lou Feng could practically hear the whole thing in his sleep.

It had only been a few days! At this rate, he felt that by the time he went home, he would have turned into some blond delinquent. When he tossed the car keys to the butler, he might even add a couple of instructions that sounded like, “Be careful. Don’t scratch the flashy new scooter I just bought.”

Just imagining that tragic future made him want to ram his head into the wall and die right there. He had lost all will to live.

“Probe, probe!” Ji Jue shouted, waving from midair without even lowering his head. “Mr. Lou, don’t just stand there. Give me probe number eight!”

“Oh.”

Guided by muscle memory, Lou Feng had handed the tool over before he realized what he was doing. When he came back to his senses, he found that he was actually holding a thermos and refilling Ji Jue’s water bottle.

Tears welled in his eyes. It was over. He was about to completely turn into Ji Jue’s henchman! How was he supposed to keep living like this?!

Several days ago, having personally lived through the “Association Apprentice Massacre,” Lou Feng had not even had time to go back, get some sleep, and soothe his wounded soul before his teacher kicked him straight into this hellhole.

At the time, Lou Feng was shocked. “Why?! Aren’t we on bad terms with Tidesound Workshop? Why bother with him?”

Kong Qingyan did not even lift her eyelids. “I’ve never gotten along with that woman, but during this meeting, did you hear me object to a single thing she said? If you’re seeking a challenge, then you have to challenge the strong, of course. Hang around with trash, and sooner or later, you become trash too. The same goes for choosing teammates.

“Your talent can certainly be called first-rate. Given enough time, it’s not impossible that you might one day earn the title of master. But if you keep playing around with a bunch of idiots, I doubt I’ll be able to count on you to support me in my old age. I’d be lucky if I don’t end up sending you to your grave first. So just treat this as a chance to broaden your horizons. Go see how other people live.

“Even if you can never escape the influence of your family name, you cannot spend your whole life living only for the Lou family. Once you can finally look past the pedestal others have put you on, then maybe, as your teacher, I’ll finally have a reason to expect great things from you.

“The strong?” Lou Feng was shocked at first, then furious. “In what way does Ji Jue count as—”

“You lost. Twice.”

Perhaps more than twice. But Lou Feng...

Kong Qingyan looked at her student and asked the question that kept Lou Feng up at night even now. “Do you want to keep losing?”

And so, left with no other choice, Young Master Lou clenched his jaw, stomped his foot, shouldered his bag, and followed Ji Jue, miserable and unwilling to the very end.

Thus began his brand-new journey down the path of backbreaking labor.

1. The surname Ji (pronounced “Jī”) is one of the oldest Chinese surnames and one of the “Eight Great Ancient Surnames” of early China. It can also read as feminine because 姬 can mean “lady,” “beauty,” or “female performer/concubine” in older contexts. Note that the Ji 姬 here is not the same as the Ji 季 in Ji Jue’s name.

雪 means “snow,” which gives the name a clean, cool, graceful feeling. To me, Ji Xue sounds elegant and slightly aloof. ☜

2. 柳 means “willow,” which suggests flexibility, grace, and softness rather than brute strength. To me, that makes the name feel refined and slightly poetic.

Paired with 雪 (snow) in his sister’s name, 柳 (willow) creates a nice contrast. Ji Xue feels cool, pale, and composed, while Ji Liu feels gentler, warmer, and more easygoing. ☜

3. Brown sugar ginger tea is a traditional Chinese home remedy widely used to soothe menstrual cramps, relieve bloating, and warm the body. It is particularly effective for "cold" or "deficiency-type" cramps, helping to improve circulation and reduce pain during your period. Personally, I take it too when I’m having menstrual cramps! ☜

4. ‘Male mom’ is a popular internet slang term that originated in the esports community. It originally referred to a man who speaks in the tone of a ‘mom fan’ (a fan who dotes on someone like a mother). It has since come to describe a man who is motherly in personality or behavior. When used as a compliment to describe a male character with nurturing or maternal qualities, it is also considered a moe character trait in ACG subculture. ☜

5. 吕/呂 Lü is the 47th most common surname in China, shared by 5.6 million people, or 0.47% of the Chinese population as of 2002. 盈月 literally suggests a “full moon” or a moon that is growing full. 盈 carries meanings like fullness, abundance, and gentle overflowing, while 月 means moon, which often gives a soft, refined, luminous vibe in names. To me, 盈月 suits someone who feels composed and steady rather than young and cute. She sounds like someone mature who gives off a gentle but capable presence. ☜

6. Here, the author writes “没几个能保持沟子的紧致Q弹一样” which means “hardly any of them still had the luxury of keeping their asses tight and springy.” which obviously sounds quite weird in English, so I changed it to “keeping their dignity intact.” ☜

7. “Money is hard to earn, and shit is hard to swallow” is a parallel folk saying in China. Its core meaning comes from the way the second half intensifies the first, driving home the lived experience that making a living is never easy.

The saying can be traced back to peasant communities in the old society. The original version, “food is hard to swallow,” reflected the double hardship people faced at the time: they were burdened by harsh taxes and levies while still struggling to get enough to eat.

As the saying spread, it was exaggerated into “shit is hard to swallow.” The extreme image makes the point even more forceful, emphasizing just how difficult it is to make money. ☜