The younger generation snapped out of their daze and hurriedly lit a new bundle of incense.
The elders took them. In the time it took to turn around, the incense in their hands snapped in half again, every last stick falling to the ground.
Everyone: "!!!"
"Again!"
The head of the third branch—Silas Rhodes's useless father, Felix Unger—refused to give up and had someone light the incense for a third time.
Unsurprisingly, this third batch of incense met the same fate, breaking in the middle.
"This…" An older clan elder, leaning on his cane with a deathly pale face, stammered. "For all the incense to break during the ancestral rites… this is a terrible omen! A terrible omen indeed!"
"Exactly. For something like this to happen three times in a row… it can't be a coincidence. Someone in the family must have done something shameful to anger the ancestors. That's the only explanation."
