# Chapter 11: After the Wedding
After bidding farewell to the last of his village friends who had been celebrating the union late into the night, Karan finally entered his room. The air inside was heavy and sweet, carrying the lingering traces of sandalwood incense, crushed rose petals, and the faint, acrid ghost of wood smoke from the wedding fire. The house had finally dimmed under sleeping lamps, and the old brick walls held only the sound of crickets in the courtyard.
The room, set apart from the main house by a short corridor, offered a rare sanctuary of seclusion. Karan reached back and discreetly locked the door, the iron latch sliding into its groove with a soft, final clink. He knew the thick masonry of the ancestral home well; no whispers from within would travel to the ears of the relatives sleeping in the halls beyond.
Inside, Sakshi sat on the bed, nervously clasping her hands in her lap. She wore her elegant red bridal sari, her face still partially lowered beneath the embroidered veil. Karan approached, sat beside her, and lifted the veil gently away.
When their eyes finally met, the silence that followed was heavy and sweet—the unspoken understanding between two people who, though strangers until now, were now tethered by tradition and sacred vows. In that quiet room, the Architect and the Soldier faded away, leaving only a man looking at his wife. Time, for that night, belonged only to them.
By morning, the first pale rays of sunlight crept through the slits in the wooden windows. The village of Gola was beginning its slow stir—the distant lowing of cattle and the scent of dung-cakes being lit for the morning tea.
Inside the room, the couple still slept, entwined in the warmth of their shared space. Sakshi lay peacefully atop Karan's chest, her breathing slow and rhythmic. His arms rested protectively across her back, his presence calm and still after a night of intimacy.
But while Karan slept, the world outside was being remade.
His creation—Mr. Bharat—had begun executing his mission across the country. Within less than a week, 600 individuals had been eliminated. Among them were parliamentarians, judges, senior police officials, and influential bureaucrats. The operations were conducted with surgical precision; no security had been breached, no alarms touched.
The only constant was a crisp letter left at every scene, listing the crimes of the target in painstaking detail—dates, victims, and hidden accounts. Signed, always, by Mr. Bharat.
Fear, for once, visited not the innocent but the guilty. In tea shops and on train platforms, people spoke in low voices of an avenger who seemed to be everywhere. Meanwhile, the government was engulfed in chaos. Intelligence agencies found themselves helpless, yielding no fingerprints and no patterns.
Monitoring the data through the System, Karan adjusted the parameters. He increased the monthly limit of high-profile terminations from five to thirty. He also approved the elimination of one Member of Parliament per month. Fear, layered from the top down, would become a self-cleaning system.
As the targets fell, their hoarded wealth was collected. The robot teleported black money, bullion, and luxury vehicles into Karan's secured inventory. By mid-September, the haul was staggering: ₹120 crore in unreported cash and a massive catalogue of gold. He even sold the seized luxury vehicles back to the System for 2,200 Gamer Points.
The morning of September 13th, 1970, broke with a heavy stillness. Karan packed his travel bag in silence. Sakshi stood beside him, her movements slow as she organized steel containers filled with snacks prepared by his mother.
"I have to go, Sakshi," he said, taking her hands. "I have to handle the foundation for our future. The industrial permits and the business setups for Shergill Industries are moving faster than expected. I need to handle the paperwork and the clearances in the city. If I don't go now, we lose the window to start the factory this year."
He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, a quiet moment carved against farewell. He touched his parents' feet, receiving their blessings, and walked toward the village edge with his younger brother, Aditya Shergill
Under the shade of the old neem tree, Karan stopped. The bus station was visible in the distance, a small speck against the vast, flat horizon. He turned to Aditya, his gaze intense.
"Aditya, you've finished your BBA. It's time to stop being a student and start being a professional," Karan said. He reached into his bag and pulled out a heavy pouch containing ₹500,000 in cash and the keys to the industrial sites.
"I am going to handle the high-level clearances. While I am away, I am putting you in charge of the groundwork. I want the Shergill Precision Engineering* and Shergill Agro-Chemicals sites cleaned, restored, and secured. I want every inch of rust scrubbed off and the boundaries fenced. Start the recruitment at the base level—workers who are hungry and local."
Karan then pulled out two journals. One contained the Thums Up formula. The second was a weathered leather-bound book.
"The drink is for the city boys, Aditya. But if we want to rule the soil, we start with what the farmer puts into it." He tapped the second book. "This is the Shergill-V1 Fertilizer Protocol. It uses a low-temperature synthesis process that we can run using the existing boilers at the plant. It requires 40% less electricity, and the raw materials are sitting in the waste piles of every coal mine in this region."
"The nitrogen release is timed," Karan explained. "It won't wash away in the monsoon; it stays in the roots. I want you to start a pilot batch. Call it 'Dharti Ratna'—the Jewel of the Earth. Give every farmer in the surrounding villages a free five-kilo bag. Tell them it's a gift from the Shergill family."
Aditya flipped through the pages, his mind already calculating. "They'll be lining up at our gates by the next sowing season, Bhaiya."
"They won't just be lining up," Karan corrected him. "They will be our eyes and ears. The factories are the body, Aditya, but the people are the shield. Clean the vats, prep the mixers, and find me the chemistry graduates who aren't afraid to get their boots muddy."
Aditya stood straighter, clutching the journals to his chest. He finally understood that Karan was planting a forest that would eventually overshadow the entire nation.
"By the time you're back, Bhaiya," Aditya promised, his voice cracking with adult resolve, "the fields of Gola will be greener than they've ever been."
Karan nodded once, stepped back, and began his walk toward the bus station. He didn't look back. He had given Aditya the tools to build the foundation; now, he had to go and ensure the world was ready for the earthquake that would follow.