When Jardon explained why a deceased family member was buried in the front yard, the ers immediately began thinking about how to write the news story, even coming up with possible headlines.
“Father’s Love Is a Lamp”
“Father Is a Door”
“The Man Buried in the Front Yard”
Never Gone
Touching stories like these are always favored by ers. They love uncovering the sparks of humanity within tragic tales because those moments resonate deeply with readers.
Only when readers feel moved and gain new insights will they write to the newspaper, promote the article voluntarily, spark public discussion, and attract advertisers to place ads in their columns.
However, some ers felt this wasn’t painful enough—it was just a story of a father dying protecting his wife and children.
Truthfully, it met the standards for publicity, but such stories happen more than once every year in every country. These ers wanted to find deeper pain points in the story.
They knew risking danger to from a riot zone wasn’t to cover ordinary news—they needed more valuable, impactful material.
One asked Jardon, “Were you by his side when he died?”
Jardon hesitated. Nearly everyone momentarily went blank, including Lynch.
He knew these ers were ruthless but didn’t expect them to be this cruel. He quickly recovered.
He recalled a grim story about a er who, to get first-hand information, stopped medics from saving a victim, pulled off their oxygen mask, and asked,
Do you know your whole family died? How do you feel? Want to cry?
The survivor’s only thought might have been,
I want to scream for three days and nights
.
Jardon’s painful memories resurfaced—Simon’s coldness and cruelty, the disdain in his eyes when looking at Jardon—all fueling his urge to pull the trigger.
His eyelid twitched—not a sign of sadness. Lynch grew curious.
“Yes, I was close by. I didn’t want to…” Out of politeness and with so many watching, he answered but intended to refuse further questions.
The er didn’t give him a chance. “Did you hold his body when he fell? Did you see the blood flowing from him onto you? Were you afraid? Did you call out to wake him? How did you fight those thugs, or did you kneel by your father’s side and beg them?”
Jardon clenched his fists. The ers admired the sharpness of these questions, as if thrusting burning cigarettes into his wounds.
When asked about the er’s background, people learned he was from the Federal Times in Baylor Federation, and their expressions shifted knowingly.
They specialized in boundary-pushing s, but even the eager crowd found this compelling.
The er was prepared for backlash, knowing it would increase his fame and the story’s impact.
Yet, Jardon was still a
Nagaryll.
Though of mixed blood, he was born and raised there, fundamentally a native.
This gave him a natural respect and fear of foreigners, even if he himself was partly foreign.
He did not retaliate, only looked at the er a few times and shook his head. “I refuse to answer. These questions cause me pain.”
“Because you helplessly watched your father die before you?” the er pressed.
Seeing the tension, Lynch intervened. “We seek truthful ing, but we shouldn’t salt others’ wounds. Can we avoid questions like these?”
The ers who wanted Jardon to lash out quickly became docile. They knew Jardon might hit them, but someone like Lynch—a local elite—could cost them their lives.
For their safety and bank accounts, the er smiled apologetically and bowed slightly. “Of course, Mr. Lynch. I apologize for my reckless behavior. I was so eager to share the tragedy caused by this unrest that I overlooked Mr. Jardon’s feelings. Sorry, Mr. Jardon.”
He apologized to Jardon, who could only nod in acceptance.
This was Jardon’s nature—years of suppressing himself had made some behaviors habitual, like politeness.
The group entered the house and saw the hostess, a local woman.
She knelt by the tea table, preparing for the guests. When Lynch and others entered, she immediately stood, bowing her head.
Women in Nagaryll held very low status. Before Simon’s death, she was little more than a servant in the family; now, she was barely above housekeeper level.
This was not because Jardon treated his mother poorly—he had been good to her—but local traditions saw women as having no status.
Even between husband and wife, husbands rarely treated their wives as
family,
more like unpaid servants.
This social understanding meant Simon’s death didn’t raise her status unless she had a very prominent background.
After Lynch sat, others did too. They had to discuss what had happened, was happening, and what might happen.
Jardon’s mother, the hostess, knelt by Lynch, who was the most respected in the room. By tradition, she needed to make him feel welcome.
Jardon focused on the upcoming talk. “I inherited everything here and feel the destruction this chaos caused. I hope more than anyone that disorder stays away.”
“To do that, we must first strengthen ourselves. This is the shared wish of my people and others. Only when we are all prosperous can we avoid these problems.”
Jardon still held a traditional view shared by many of his people and the Youth Party members.
They believed that once his people were wealthy and educated, conditions would naturally improve.
To achieve this meant economic development and industrialization. So Jardon spoke of
prosperity.
Some pondered this, others smiled silently.
It was neither right nor wrong—after all, he was still young.
More importantly, Jardon declared that from now on, everything here was for him and under his control, stating his position clearly.
“Next, I will restart work. I noticed…” He glanced at Lynch and smiled slightly, “Mr. Lynch’s factory is recruiting more workers. That’s a good sign.”
“I believe in Mr. Lynch’s abilities. If he has confidence in Nagaryll, it means we truly have potential for development. So why think about leaving or escaping? Why not stay here and continue building our homeland?”
Jardon focused mainly on future development. After listening for a while, Lynch stopped paying close attention. When he first met the young man, he was somewhat surprised.
He seemed smart and patient, but now it was clear he lacked something special—a certain spark. What he showed was all he tried hard to present, not his true nature.
This might sound puzzling, but it’s precisely the key difference between a great merchant and a small trader.
When Lynch was about six or seven years old, during certain seasons, silkworm farmers would come to the school gate to sell silkworms.
After selling, the farmers left, which was hard on many students—they had silkworms but no mulberry leaves, so they just watched the silkworms die one by one.
At that time, Lynch’s business sense emerged. During holidays, he collected mulberry leaves from the sericulture research institute and sold them at school, making over twenty Sol in a day.
Back then, an adult’s monthly wage was just around a hundred Sol.
But the good times didn’t last. The school soon confiscated his money and publicly reprimanded him. Later, others gathered mulberry leaves to sell too, but they were imitators.
The difference was Lynch saw wealth, while they only picked up what others left behind.
It’s like this young man now—he’s trying to show the results of his
learning.
He and those around him think he’s smart and reasonable, but Lynch knows it’s all a façade.
Some things can’t be learned or copied.
What people once guarded fiercely is now exactly what we ask our children to pursue. Times are advancing, and the future will only get better—just like a song says, we are walking on the bright road of national revival and soaring progress.
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