Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1082
"The parents lost a stupid son, but they will receive financial compensation that they couldn't earn in ten lives. Also, their son will be living… well, in a different way.
"Surely, they will not feel very comfortable, but there is no need for them to insist on killing their son's body again.
"The key is whether or not they can think the whole thing through. If they do, this is actually a win-win for everyone, their son, the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect, and the entire federation!"
Chapter 1672: Law Is Supreme! |
Everybody pondered for a moment and had to admit that Qi Changsheng was right.
"Brother Qi, what is the truth of the case?" Ba Xiaoyu the Beggar asked. "Was there a ruling today?"
Qi Zhongdao smiled and said, "Things like body-borrowing and reincarnation indeed consist of a lot of special cases as my fellow Cultivators said just now and therefore must not be treated with a blanket rule.
"Possessing a living person by force is one matter, and possessing someone who has recently died is a whole different matter. It is one thing to successfully possess a body and reincarnate one's soul in it, but sometimes the possession is not entirely successful, and only part of the soul and the memory are transmitted, which meld with the consciousness of the original owner of the body into a whole. In some cases, the soul is not transmitted at all, and those who are possessed are merely added with countless memory pieces.
"If I may ask, in such cases, are the victims really possessed or not? Should they be plaintiffs or defendants? How should the court convict them?
"It is exactly because of the complexity of possession that, although cases that involve body-borrowing and reincarnation are rare, they catch the attention of the whole nation whenever they happen. The accusers and the defendants often have to debate fiercely for years and run a lot of psychological tests on the soul to determine whether the person still alive is the possessor or the possessed.
"But as I said earlier, specifically regarding this case, it does not seem very complicated.
"First of all, the deceased was killed in a traffic accident. Secondly, the medical staff, and even the parents of the deceased, could testify that the deceased's breathing, heartbeat, and brain activity had stopped for more than three minutes. Clinically speaking, it is the most standard 'death'.
"Thirdly, the defendant, the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect, is a renowned philanthropist who made a lot of contributions to the construction of the Uranian Ring Sector in the past thirty years. He's definitely a righteous man.
"Also, with the case coming to this point, the Dragon Chasing Sect got in touch with the defendant many times and proposed many rather tempting terms. The victim's family gradually thought it through and were considering accepting the fact."
Ba Xiaoyu, Qi Changsheng, Wan Mingzhu, and the rest of them smiled together. "That is not bad."
Qi Zhongdao smiled and shook his head. "Before court started today, almost everyone believed that it would be ruled today that the possessor would be found not guilty and released. However, during the fierce debate in court, abrupt changes took place. One of the… what did they call him? Right. One of the 'golden prosecutors' raised a new exhibit that proved the deep connections between the driver in the traffic accident and someone among the leadership of the Dragon Chasing Sect!"
"What!" All the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators boasted amazing computational ability. After Qi Zhongdao explained it to them, they quickly thought everything through. "It was not a traffic accident but intentionally done in order to make a fresh, perfect body!"
"Yes. That's what the prosecution believed with the support of the new evidence." Qi Zhongdao spoke faster. "Not only did the golden prosecutor locate the connections between the driver in the traffic accident and the leadership of the Dragon Chasing Sect, he also found several well-respected Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators from the Heaven's Origin Sector who proved that the secret arts through which the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect tried to break into the Nascent Soul Stage had a rather high success rate but were dangerous enough to cause death if one unfortunately failed.
"The prosecutor even retrieved certain key ingredients from the residue of the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures that the Dragon Chasing Sect discharged, which proved that the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect was already practicing another Cultivation art to consolidate his soul and prepare himself for possession before he tried to break into the Nascent Soul Stage!
"Through the evidence chain made by the series of proof, the prosecution proved that the leader of the Dragon Chasing Sect had prepared remedies should he unfortunately be killed during the attempt to break into the Nascent Soul Stage! The young man's death was not an accident but intentional homicide! He was picked because he was a mentally-retarded person whose brain had never been fully utilized, which made the possession easier. The new soul and the body would be more harmonious, too!"
Everybody was captivated. Ba Xiaoyu pursued, "What happened? Was there a ruling?"
"The ruling was not announced in court, but the defendant was already crushed and unable to argue," Qi Zhongdao said. "When I left, the experts of the media and the law circle all estimated that, if the chain of evidence that the prosecution proposed was true, it would be a textbook 'crime of illegal possession', not to mention the plots that were used to cover the crime. Therefore, the criminal would probably be sentenced to death immediately with his soul eradicated. There would be no room for negotiation at all!
"Not only would he be executed himself, the entire Dragon Chasing Sect would also be involved in this. If the case is deeper investigated, too many more people that are related to the plot will certainly be dug out. This is really…"
Everybody sighed with mixed feelings for a while. All of them had trained all the way to the Nascent Soul Stage from the Refinement State. Naturally, they understood the difficulties of training best.
Such an expert at the peak of the Core Formation Stage, who was only one step away from the Nascent Soul Stage, was going to be executed immediately because of one mistake. They did not know how they should comment on the decision.
"After attending the trial of the case and reading the relevant files, including the felonies concerning 'illegal possession' in the past few decades, I couldn't help but have a lot of thoughts!" Qi Zhongdao exclaimed. "The Constitution of Cultivators is the fundamental law of the Star Glory Federation, which has been established to restrain the power of the Cultivators.
"I believe that you must've learned a thing or two about the law before and can't feel particularly delighted about certain clauses in it. How can the renowned, strong, and omnipotent Cultivators be saddled and humiliated in such a way and bow their heads to the insignificant ordinary people because of the boundary of a few words on a piece of paper?
"I don't think I'm qualified to determine whether the law is good or bad, but from what I've seen today, all the ordinary people and Cultivators in the Star Glory Federation indeed treat the law as a supreme, inviolable existence.
"A top-500 expert of the Uranian Ring Sector has lost all his reputation just because he possessed a worthless moron. Even his sect is about to crumble apart!
"The Secret Sword Bureau went after him. Fellow Cultivators despise him. The ordinary people point at him and curse him. Even he could only argue with excuses but did not have the courage to say that he did the right thing!
"Such a 'Constitution of Cultivators' are the 'rules' that I always talk about. However, back in the Ancient Sages Sector, there was nothing I could do except talk about them. Never did I ever dream that such a country where rules outweigh feelings, fists, and everything else does exist!
"Even a few officers in the Refinement Stage were bold enough to confront the experts in the Core Formation Stage or in the Nascent Soul Stage when they had the Constitution of Cultivators in their favor. How could I not be greatly shocked now that such a world has been unfolded in front of me for real?"
Qi Zhongdao's rigid face that seemed to be made of black ice and had not changed for a hundred years beamed with excitement.
He shared the news, case files, and relevant information about the trial with his fellow Cultivators, raising another round of suspicion, sighs, and exclamations.
After Qi Zhongdao, the rest of the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector shared the details of their trip.
'Mother White Lotus' Wan Mingzhu had gone to inspect a base of hybrid rice, where a program to cross-fertilize the special rice for the Cultivators with the regular rice was being carried out.
The 'Riot of White Lotus' that Wan Mingzhu had raised in the southeastern region of the Great Qian Dynasty was caused because of the starvation of the ordinary people when 'Jade Pellets', a type of special rice for the Cultivators, occupied the farmland of the ordinary people. In the end, the ordinary people rose up and fed on the Jade Pellets, only to turn into aggressive ghosts after they died of indigestion to fight against the major sects and even the court of the Great Qian Dynasty.
Therefore, Wan Mingzhu was quite interested in how the food problem was addressed in the modern Cultivation civilization. She had requested to inspect the field.
In the end, the federal government had arranged for her to visit a hybrid rice breeding base established in the vacuum outside the Uranian Ring.
"Specialists of the Star Glory Federation have developed more than a thousand kinds of hybrid rice, wheat, and other cash crops in the past hundred years. They boast feeble spiritual energy, which means that they can help build up the body and accelerate the growth of the spiritual root after they are consumed. Also, they are generally mild and edible for ordinary people and even children. There are no side effects at all."
Even Mother White Lotus, who had always been mean and sarcastic, could do nothing except comment with conflicted feelings. "Right now, the 'balanced lunch' in schools, subsidized by the federal government, has all adopted such hybrid rice, which has significantly improved the bodies and training level of the new generation of the federation, allowing strong warriors that are as good as soldiers in the prosperous worlds to be raised in relatively barren worlds.
"Even though those warriors cannot all become top experts, the federation now at least boasts a great number of middle- and low-level Cultivators, as well as ordinary soldiers who are agile, energetic, and vigorous!
"When I saw the middle school students who are tall and muscular because of the hybrid rice they take, I couldn't help but recall the Ancient Sages Sector. Of course, Cultivators of the Ancient Sages Sector are unbelievably strong, but the ordinary soldiers, except for those who serve in large households, are often emaciated and weak-minded. They are truly a devastating contrast to what I have seen today!
"What astonished me most, however, was not the middle school students who appeared almost as strong as the best soldiers of the Ancient Sages Sector but some specialists I met in the hybrid rice base.
"Some of the specialists are even in the Nascent Soul Stage. If it were in the Ancient Sages Sector, they would be working for the major sects as elders or counselors to raise all kinds of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures for the sects or the court. They should be wealthy and revered!
"However, in the Star Glory Federation, those specialists in the Nascent Soul Stage have dedicated themselves to the tiny hybrid rice for decades, which is not of any use to the high-level Cultivators and can only improve the capabilities of the ordinary people!
"What benefits can they possibly get? How can they withstand such boredom and loneliness? Baffling. It's truly baffling!"
Chapter 1673: Two Apples |
Mother White Lotus's confusion was also what puzzled the other Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. All the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector commented with mixed feelings again before Ba Xiaoyu the Beggar and Master Bitter Cicada began to tell their story.
Back in the Ancient Sages Sector, Ba Xiaoyu had always hung around with ordinary people and helped those in need, and Master Bitter Cicada had tried his best to save as many people as possible, too.
Therefore, the field that they had requested to inspect was the charity and public welfare of the federation. They wanted to see how the underprivileged people at the bottom level of society were treated.
Thus, they had visited a few orphanages and relief stations. They had also gone deep into the underground mines of the Uranian Ring Planet to check on the treatment of miners and their families, especially the children.
"We've seen quite a few schools with rather thorough facilities on the ground. The students are all the offspring of the ordinary miners, but quite a few of their teachers are Cultivators. Some of them are even experts who have volunteered to come here from the core worlds to teach!"
Ba Xiaoyu still felt amazed when he recalled what he had seen during the day. "Of all the Cultivators who have volunteered to teach here, some were summoned to make contributions to the poor and remote areas by certain spirits. For example, those from the Patriots Front. However, most of them are actually hired by various funds. Even the schools, hospitals, orphanages, and water purification factories are subsidized by those funds!"
"Fellow Cultivator Ba is quite right. The 'funds' seem to be the main force in the federation in offering help to the poor and the ordinary people," Master Bitter Cicada said. "The Star Glory Federation is a country with high taxes. The tax rate for the Cultivators is particularly high. According to the speed of money-earning of some high-level Cultivators who are like cash-absorbing beasts, they have to pay astronomical taxes every year.
"However, the tax law in the federation is very interesting. If you invest your income into the funds that are established for public welfare, you will legally be able to avoid tax.
"Therefore, in order to pay less tax, the Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators have established all kinds of charity funds. Almost every one of them has several funds under their name.
"The establishment and operation of the charity funds have certain requirements. Those funds are audited every year, too, to make sure that they have indeed completed a certain number of charity projects.
"After a hundred years of development, the charity funds in the federation have already formed a virtuous cycle.
"The experts in the Core Formation Stage and the Nascent Soul Stage provide resources and connections to establish all kinds of funds, partly to improve their reputation and partly to avoid tax.
"New Cultivators, especially those born in the lower-class who do not have many resources and connections, often choose to join a fund after their spiritual root is awakened and offer their service in a remote, underdeveloped area for a while. Through the fund, they can expand their social circle and make new friends. If their performance is distinguished, they may even catch the attention of the owners of the funds and thereby have a chance to work in the corporations under the name of the Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators. In a few years, they might even be able to enter the core circle of the organization.
"Right now, most Core Formation Stage Cultivators and the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators require that the candidates have a lot of work experience in charity funds when they recruit disciples, especially true disciples. It is a common understanding among the Cultivators that only such disciples are determined and pure enough to pass on their knowledge to."
Ba Xiaoyu the Beggar and Master Bitter Cicada spoke with great enthusiasm. The two of them were both straightforward people who did not care about manners. When he reached the exciting parts, Ba Xiaoyu even slapped his own thigh hard.
All the experts of the Ancient Sages Sector were attracted and deep in thought.
The modern flying swords, shuttles, crystal trains, crystal suits, and starships, however sophisticated and extraordinary, were still comprehensible for them after they considered it more carefully.
However, it would take them a fairly long time to fully digest and accept the system, or rather, the logic of life, functioning in the Star Glory Federation that was entirely different from the one in the Ancient Sages Sector.
After Ba Xiaoyu and Master Bitter Cicada were done, the other experts spoke of their experience in turns. Li Yao took the opportunity to boast about 'Civilization' greatly, highly recommending that the experts experience it whether they had time or not.
He believed that those experts would certainly fall in love with such a new world after they enjoyed the charm of 'Civilization' and would not bear to leave anymore.
Soon, all eleven experts had finished sharing, and Long Yangjun was the only one who had not said anything yet. With a fake smile, she looked at everybody mysteriously.
Wu Suiyun, one of the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators, said, "Fellow Cultivator Wang, you seem rather hesitant. Was there something wrong with your inspection today?"
"Not exactly. It went on very well, but I'm afraid that there's nothing I care to say."
Leaning against Li Yao's bed, Long Yangjun put her feet on the bed and her hands below her head to make herself more comfortable. Then she said, "You all know what I did for a living in the past. I was the leader of Ghost Character, a dog that everybody was scared of and an executioner. My counterparts in the Star Glory Federation are probably the 'Secret Sword Bureau' and the 'Dim Moon Fund'.
"Therefore, I didn't inspect any other place today, only requesting to know more about the 'Secret Sword Bureau', especially the major cases that the agency has cracked in the past hundred years. Naturally, most of the cases were crimes committed by Cultivators."
"Oh?" Wu Suiyun looked at the other experts and asked, "What have you found?"
"Nothing special. Of course, they wouldn't have shown me the files if there were anything special in them," Long Yangjun said lazily. "I only want to offer a reminder to you, fellow Cultivators, and probably to cool your heads. We all know too much about the stories where the emperor put on the clothes of ordinary people, walked on the streets, and saw how he is viewed by his subjects. Did such things happen less in the Great Qian Dynasty before?
