Malfunction (2)

Even if the heavens collapse, practice chivalry.
-British Proverb-

11:58.

Ulrich Zuckerberg was staring at a pocket watch with the other engineering Kung-Fuists from atop a building overlooking the estates lined along Serpentine Avenue.

The formation installed around Irene Adler’s estate used Natural Qi rather than a Kung-Fuist’s internal energy, so there was no need to cling to the mediums and strain as usual.

But among the group, selected from only the best of Zuckerberg & Co.’s Kung-Fuists, a suffocating tension hung in the air.

The Kung-Fuists, who had already heard the rough situation from Ulrich, the family’s First Young Master, knew about the living calamity approaching London.

The Eight Trigrams Formation installed in the city and the Red Cliff Kalpa Frame unfolded here were both meant to buy time and create an opening.

If the Little Heavenly Demon failed to steal the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg from the Mistress of Green Willow, London would be swallowed by flames once more.

Though only a few among the formation experts gathered here were British, everyone here completed the complex formation in a short time and verified its efficacy with a single shared desire, that they did not want to lose this city.

London was their new ground for life, and the foundation of their business.

If this place burned, Zuckerberg & Co.’s England branch would lose everything.

The First Young Master had sworn he would obtain the Patriarch’s seat and raise those who had shared hardship with him to high positions, showing them his vision.

They could not let his dream end in a place like this.

“…About two minutes left. Great Hero Holmes has to place the bouquet in the correct position in time.”

The young master, staring at the moving second hand with narrowed eyes, began counting.

Behind his glasses, a sharpness unique to the Zuckerburg direct line gleamed in his eyes, but the anxiety he forced down still cast its shadow.

“Young Master Ulrich. It’s not too late even now. The formations are already complete, so take the fast boat to the sea…”
“Absurd. Now that I’ve already placed my stake on Great Hero Holmes, I can’t call it chivalry to leave London alone.”
“You can speak of chivalry only after you preserve your life! If the one to inherit the Patriarch’s seat dies by indulging in private recklessness, how could we show our faces before Marquis Wu¹ in the underworld—”
“Gaal!!”

-Chwareuk!

Opening a folding White-Feather Fan and covering his mouth, the young master asked his retainer again in a calm voice.

“Executive Director Anderson. I trust your loyalty, so I’ll ask you one thing. Do you know what the world calls the Zuckerburg Family.”
“They call the Zuckerburg Family ‘Zuckerberg the Genius,’ unrivaled in strategy, craft, and formations.”
“That’s not what I asked, so you could rattle off glossy praise.”
“…”

Executive Director Anderson couldn’t answer.

Everyone knew how the Zuckerburg Family was treated among the many Kung-Fu Noblesse, but saying it before the First Young Master was the same as spitting in his face.

“…I apologize.”

When the executive director bowed his head, the lined-up department head, deputy department head, section chief, and assistant manager knelt one after another before Ulrich.

“You take me for a fool. I’ve already learned, through countless brand-preference surveys, how our family is treated in the martial world.”
“Young Master—”
“A weak-bloodline not worth even the lowest rung of the Five Great Kung-Fu Noblesse. A trash family that hasn’t produced a single Transcendent master in centuries. And a merchant family that pursues profit before chivalry and great cause.”

The shameful slurs the elders had tried to ignore poured from the First Young Master’s mouth one by one.

The Zuckerburg Family was known as the wealthiest among the Kung-Fu Noblesse, yet they were respected only when mixed among lay disciples, who were treated below common Kung-Fuists or core disciples.

Among those who stood at the pinnacle of European Murim, including great disciples of famed orthodox clans and direct bloodlines of the Kung-Fu Noblesse, almost no one treated the Zuckerburg Family as their equal.

The reason was simple.

The martial world was a world ruled by the strong.

It was only natural that many looked poorly on the Zuckerburg Family, who held a pillar’s place among the Kung-Fu Noblesse not through personal might, but through assorted craft.

However, among the reasons they were treated this way, there was also fault of their own.

“…Shameful as it is, I think the world’s assessment is all true. In the path our family has shown until now, there’s been nothing you could call chivalry.”

With great power comes great responsibility.

It was the prevailing view in the martial world that anyone inheriting the blood of a Kung-Fu Noblesse must live to oblige.

Whether it was face-saving for the world’s eyes, or the expression of a chivalrous heart, the Kung-Fu Noblesse did not forget to practice chivalry from time to time, even as they checked each other and expanded their power.

But the Zuckerburg Family was different.

Since a collateral-line Kung-Fu chemist discovered a new method of refining sugar, they devoted themselves solely to business expansion.

After crossing to Europe, that new frontier, the Kung-Fu Noblesse had to walk the road of each surviving by their own strength.

For those who had to forget the grudges and favors built in Midfield and carve out new land relying only on their own strength, the means they chose was to wield overwhelming force, as crushing as their history and tradition.

But the Zuckerburg Family was weak.

In a ruthless martial world, what the weak need to survive is money.

Only after building overwhelming wealth that no one could ignore did the Zuckerburg Family become able to protect themselves.

However, those are all excuses.

Kung-Fu is made so the weak can topple the strong.

Chivalry is the reason Kung-Fu exists.

If chivalrous deeds were delayed because of lacking strength, the stories of gentlemen passed down in Midfield would have been reduced to a tenth.

Ulrich faced his family’s shameful history head-on, and he never wanted to turn away again.

“Listen well. Even if people under heaven insult the Zuckerberg name, calling us faithless merchants, I don’t care.”

Ulrich continued, still covering his mouth with the White-Feather Fan.

“I believe the world doesn’t contain only problems that can be solved by smashing with fists and cutting with blades. And the reason the Zuckerburg line is born with divine craft rather than brute might is precisely to clear away troubles like those.”

Ulrich’s subordinates, including Executive Director Anderson, did not dare open their mouths.

The First Young Master was also a gentleman.

They could not bear the shame of having spoken of fleeing before him.

“Even if the Zuckerburg Family is mocked now, there was always chivalry at its root. In Marquis Wu’s era, of course, and the same after we settled in Germany.”

The First Young Master’s sincerity, from a man who had lived more hungry for money than anyone, moved the hearts of those under him.

“Wasn’t the beginning of Zuckerberg standing against the injustice and absurdity of soldiers and merchants who made the price of sugar, everyone’s indulgence, soar through the roof.”

No matter how much they were called shameless merchants, the glory the Zuckerburg Family enjoyed had always begun with chivalrous deeds.

Marquis Wu was drawn by Liu Bei’s great cause, to save the pitiful commoners sacrificed in a chaotic world, became his strategist, and in the end carved three characters of his name into history.

“So, no matter what people say, we, the ones concerned, must not move according to their evaluation.”

The Zuckerburg Family’s chivalry was not made with swords and spears.

But as the elders of the family have done until now, they must not use that as an excuse to turn their backs on chivalry.

“Great Hero Holmes wasn’t born to a noble bloodline, nor did he inherit the Kung-Fu lineage of a famed orthodox clan, yet isn’t he running everywhere to save London.”

Even if the world didn’t recognize that devotion, Ulrich wanted to fulfill his chivalry in the right way.

“Marquis Wu never once betrayed his Former Lord’s trust, so I intend to do the same. In this age there is no lord in which the Zuckerberg serves, but isn’t Great Hero Holmes the benefactor of our Zuckerberg & Co. England branch.”

-Clack.

A smile rested at the corner of Ulrich’s mouth as he folded the fan.

“I have no intention of stepping even one foot outside London until this matter is resolved, so know that.”

The air, strangely heated, foretold the doom about to arrive, yet his face was as calm as Marquis Wu plucking a zither atop the ramparts before Sima Yi.

“…Only thirty seconds left now. We can only pray the formation doesn’t go awry.”

Perhaps to lighten the heaviness.

Ulrich closed the pocket watch’s lid, rubbed his palms, and cast his gaze toward Green Willow Manor in the distance.

“Isn’t it all Marquis Wu’s arrangement from the underworld, that in such a crisis we’ve come to use the Red Cliff Kalpa Frame that rotted in the archives for decades. He couldn’t stand watching the descendants forget chivalry, so he gave us a chance to return to our first heart. Wait… then the fact I’ve unfolded this formation means Marquis Wu has chosen me as the next Patriarch—”

Ulrich couldn’t finish.

-Tick!
-Pung!

Because the instant the second hand pointed to twelve, a massive pillar of fire surged up centered on Green Willow Manor.

Green Willow Manor’s glass ceiling was blasted upward, soaring high into the sky under the force of the fire pillar.

“…Huh?”

Ulrich watched the scene with a blank face.

By his calculations, the Red Cliff Kalpa Frame constructed this time was a degraded version, deliberately reproducing only part of the original’s efficacy.

So even if the smoke the formation produced was real, the flames should have been vivid phantoms that could burn nothing, only radiating heat.

But for some reason, the fire pillar rising from Green Willow Manor sent the ceiling’s glass dome flying high into the sky.

Meaning a tremendous explosion had occurred, exerting physical force on the surrounding objects.

“What the—”
“Young Master…?”
“Just a moment. Stay still.”

Watching flames bursting out across Serpentine Avenue, Ulrich scanned in all directions, wondering if the Vermilion Phoenix had already come close, but there was no clear sign.

“No way…”

After analyzing for a long while, Ulrich remembered.

That the medium placed at a formation’s center, if its orientation was off by even a hair, could have a massive effect on the entire formation’s efficacy.

“…Great Hero Holmes?”

He didn’t know what had happened inside Green Willow Manor, but one thing was certain.

Sherlock Holmes, the Little Heavenly Demon, had placed all the roses he brought into the estate facing south, driving the formation’s firepower to its maximum.

If the egg was caught in an explosion of Yang Qi like that, the Vermilion Phoenix’s hatching time would be pushed forward far earlier than expected.

“Then… is it better after all to flee to the sea for a bit?”

From the executive director to the assistant manager, every Kung-Fuist there nodded in unison.