Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1267
"Don't be hasty. Let's wait a while longer." Li Yao's soul vibrated and sent the message into Han Te's brain. "Your master is still capable of fighting."
The center of the tanks had become an ocean of bloody claws and bright fists.
In the middle of the overwhelming dust, it could only be vaguely seen that a streak of redness and one of gold were raging, and deafening noises as if skyscrapers were falling could be heard, too. But nobody could see the process of the fight however much they craned their neck.
Out of everybody's expectations, an enormous bloody claw extended out of the dust. Everybody thought that it was Zhao Lie's attack that had missed the target again, but the bloody claw seemed to boast its own will. It snatched a tank that was serving as the fence, ripped off an iron plate from it in a crack, and smashed it into the dust!
Gu Zhengyang's grunt could be heard. The bronze brilliance immediately dimmed, and bloody shadows appeared everywhere in the dust!
"Ah!"
Han Te, Liu Li, and the villagers who supported Gu Zhengyang all exclaimed in shock.
"Great!"
The villagers who supported Zhao Lie naturally cheered.
Li Yao, however, said very confidently, "The battle is over. The village leader has won!"
"What!" Han Te and Liu Li were slightly dazed. They were about to ask why he said that when an ear-splitting shriek suddenly came from the dust. The overwhelming bloody claws suddenly vanished, and a cluster of brightness made of hundreds of electric arcs was blown out of a fist and knocked a tank over, which rolled more than ten times in midair before it finally crashed into garbage!
Nothing could be heard from the dust anymore except heavy breath.
The dust gradually settled.
Everybody held their breath and bulged their eyes, looking at the dust carefully.
The first one to walk out of the dust was Gu Zhengyang.
His entire body was bleeding, and barely any part of his skin was still intact. The six interconnected bloody marks on his chest were almost cut deep into his bones.
His right arm was black and wrinkled, like a withered vine. It dangled from his shoulder, shaking. He could not have looked more devastated.
Opposite him…
Zhao Lie's eyes were wide open. His mouth was opened to the maximum, with blood red smoke popping out nonstop. His chest with the eagle tattoo collapsed deeply and did not come back to normal after a long time. Countless metal scraps were stabbed into his body, too, which were the 'bullets' after the iron plate was broken.
After Gu Zhengyang tore the iron plate apart with his fist and shot them out like bullets, the pieces stabbed into Zhao Lie's body so deeply that he could no longer hold on. He fell to one knee before Gu Zhengyang, his arms shaking. The red smoke popping out of his mouth gradually turned into thick blood.
He tried several times but could not stand. It was already the best he could do to kneel on one knee.
He did not seem to expect that he would ever lose. There was still disbelief and agony inside his eyes. He rested for a long time before he finally said, "Your strength… has recovered?"
After a brief silence, Gu Zhengyang said, "You must treat your wounds immediately."
Zhao Lie grinned in the most miserable way. He crawled on his hands and knees to the saber that he stabbed into the ground at the beginning. Plucking the saber, he tossed it at Gu Zhengyang, and the weapon dropped to Gu Zhengyang's feet. "I've lost. Do it."
"Dad!" Zhao Chong was greatly shocked. The Iron Blood Youths and the young villagers who supported Zhao Lie were all overwhelmed, their faces pale.
Chapter 1972: Hypocrite! |
Nothing but silence could be heard. Everybody held their breath and waited for Gu Zhengyang's decision.
Gu Zhengyang did not look at the saber next to his feet at all. "I will not kill you."
Zhao Lie coughed violently again and vomited blood that was almost solid. He finally got back to his feet, shaking. After staring at Gu Zhengyang with complicated feelings for a while, he turned back and walked outside without looking back.
"Zhao Lie, you can stay in the Village of Peace as the captain of the exploration team!" Gu Zhengyang shouted. "Nobody is kicking you away. You are truly a very distinguished captain of the exploration team!"
Zhao Lie heard none of it. He staggered forward, and when he was out of the circle of iron tanks, he looked at the wounded soldiers around and suddenly said, "Leader, after the fierce battle last night, a lot of wounded enemy soldiers were left behind. Other than our own people, there are still the captives that the other villages did not take away. How do you prepare to deal with those people? Kill them all?"
Gu Zhengyang was slightly dazed. He shook his head and said, "You know that I will not kill them. Throwing them to the other side of the red line will be enough."
Zhao Lie smiled and continued. "The weak, the old, the sick, and the disabled from other villages, you won't kill them, will you?"
Gu Zhengyang continued shaking his head. "Of course I will not kill them."
Zhao Lie's eyes turned sharp again. "Even if those women and children were involved in the battle last night and killed our own warriors?"
Gu Zhengyang hesitated for a long time. He then sighed and said, "Like I said just now, a reckless assault is too risky. I only want to take our brothers and assets back to the Village of Peace as soon as possible."
"Hahaha!" Zhao Lie suddenly raised his head and laughed, both miserably and devastatingly. He turned around and pointed at Gu Zhengyang, shouting, "Leader, you think it is an action of mercy when you do not kill the lost soldiers and captives, don't you?
"But you do not know that those heavily wounded people will die all the same when they do not have enough medicine and food to recover!
"Without the protection of the young warriors, how will the non-combatants, including the women and the children, survive in the Land of Sins? They will either starve or be enslaved by gangs and other big villages as soldiers and prostitutes. Their outcome will be even more miserable than death!
"Hehe. By killing them now, you are actually granting them a quick, clean death. But your act of 'mercy' will bring torture and agony that is a hundred times more insufferable than death!
"Have you really never thought of that? Or maybe you are merely persisting in some boring morals because you do not want your own hands to be stained by blood…
"It is useless. In the Land of Sins, your hands have been stained with as much blood of the weak and old as mine have. You will never be able to make them clean again!"
Gu Zhengyang had not been knocked down by Zhao Lie's bloody claws just now, but his internal organs seemed to have been seriously wounded by his words. He grunted, and his face turned pale.
"From my own perspective, I should naturally thank you for letting me go today," Zhao Lie said gloomily. "However, from the perspective of the Village of Peace, it is only more proof that you are an indecisive, wavering coward. A man like you does not deserve to be the leader of the Village of Peace or have the capability to keep the safety of so many people, no matter how strong you are!
"Let me ask you one last time. The saber is right below your feet, and my neck is right here. Will you kill me or not?"
Gu Zhengyang ground his teeth, and his veins jumped crazily on the forehead. Struggling for a long time, he finally declared as rough as iron, "Get lost!"
"You will regret it."
After saying that, Zhao Lie walked out step by step, like an eagle whose wings were broken.
Zhao Chong watched in a daze for a long time. Finally, he looked at Gu Zhengyang and Han Te with obvious hatred and rushed forward to catch up to his father.
The father and the son supported each other and disappeared into the ruins and the undying dust.
A lot of the villagers seemed to have something they wanted to say, but Gu Zhengyang simply stopped them and said, "There's no need to say anything. Treat the wounded and collect our assets. Let's return to the Village of Peace as quickly as possible!"
…
Despite the heavy casualties in the Bliss Ceremony that year, there were far more trophies than usual. It took them an entire day to move all the assets back to the iron-shelled boats of the Village of Peace. Then, they activated the power rune arrays on the bottom of the ships, sailing them back to the center of the lank to be anchored again.
Gu Zhengyang, however, seemed to have been heavily wounded. His previous sickness had returned after the fierce battle. He entrusted all the organizational work to other people, and he simply locked himself in the greenhouse where the Gold Barley was grown.
When Han Te and Liu Li went to check on him with Li Yao, he was holding some Gold Barley and smelling the fragrance of the plant, not moving at all.
"Dad, are you alright?"
Liu Li jumped forward and grabbed Gu Zhengyang's heavily wounded hands worriedly.
"Rest assured. I'm fine."
Seeing his daughter, Gu Zhengyang finally put on a rigid smile. He opened his fingers and rubbed his daughter's hair. He then looked at Han Te and said, "Thanks to the amazing electric currents that ran randomly inside Han Te's body caused by the mutation half a month ago, I was able to have an epiphany when I studied the trajectories of the electric currents. That's why I could temporarily recover my past level and defeat Zhao Lie."
"Master, you're the best!" Looking at Li Yao, Han Te grinned. "What 'Blood Eagle'? He is nothing more than an old hen. Of course he is not a match for you!"
"However…" Gu Zhengyang's smile vanished, replaced by gloom on his face. His eyes were somewhat hollowed as he said in a low voice, "Although I defeated Zhao Lie, I couldn't convince him. I cannot even convince myself.
"Am I really right? Is Zhao Lie really wrong? Should we really not attack the camps of other villages at dawn today? At the last moment, should I really have let Zhao Lie go?"
"Dad!" Liu Li grew anxious. "What—what are you talking about? Of course you are right. Didn't you always say that we are good people—or people, at least? We cannot do the same as the insane, atrocious guys!"
"But the result is all the same," Gu Zhengyang said in depression. "Zhao Lie was quite right. Even though we did not kill the wounded soldiers and their families, they—they will not survive long. They will either brutalize each other for the scarce assets or be enslaved by the gangs and the large villages, with an outcome even more miserable than death. Eventually… everybody will be killed. Even the strongest person is still destined to be swallowed by the Land of Sins!
"If Zhao Lie is a real scoundrel, I am a hypocrite. I knew that they would certainly die but did nothing about it. I just did not want to kill them with my own hands, which would make my hands dirty."
In front of his daughter and his disciple, Gu Zhengyang's seemingly solid armor finally collapsed, and his voice shook violently.
"That is not our fault!" Han Te waved his arms hard anxiously. "There are limited resources and too many starving people in the Land of Sins. We can barely save ourselves. Are we really capable of saving other people? There's nothing we can do!"
"Yes. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing any of us can do…" Gu Zhengyang coughed in pain again. He coughed so hard that he almost vomited his internal organs.
In the middle of his coughs, he seemed to make a decision. Pushing away his daughter and his disciple's hands that were extended to him, he said, "I'm fine. Liu Li, there… there's something that I need to tell you. Han Te, you should listen to it, too."
Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other, both surprised at the unprecedented solemnity in Gu Zhengyang's voice.
"Or rather, it is a story that your mother told me before her death, about a group of very special people," Gu Zhengyang said. "A story about the Cultivators."
Li Yao's soul shook so hard that it almost spread out of his steel shell.
He did not expect that he would find the Cultivators hiding in the Martial Meritocrats Sector, or the Land of Sins, so quickly!
He increased the sensitivity of his soul to the highest level without letting go of Gu Zhengyang's every heartbeat to make sure that the guy was telling the truth.
Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other. Obviously, they did not know the first thing about the history of Cultivators. "What are Cultivators?"
"A groundless legend, a bizarre story, or maybe a bunch of indecisive and imprudent cowards."
Leaning against the wall, Gu Zhengyang kept his eyes half shut and mumbled, "Before, I was hesitating whether or not to tell you about the Cultivators because they and their story are too different and incompatible with the Land of Sins and the entire world that we are living in. They are almost entirely contradictory! I almost feel like the story of the Cultivators will not bring you any good. Instead, it will more likely bring a destructive catastrophe to the Village of Peace and even the entire Land of Sins.
"However…"
After a miserable smile, he said, "I have already thought it through. The Land of Sins is already as bad as can be. How can any disaster make it any worse?
"Besides, according to Zhao Lie, the gangs of Double Dragons Valley are making preparations to deal with the Village of Peace. If I don't tell you right now, I will probably never have the chance to in the future.
"Liu Li, do you know how your mother came up with the idea of growing Gold Barley to save everybody in the Land of Sins? It was because of a story that she accidentally heard when she was very little. The story said that a long, long, long time ago when the Land of Sins was still known as the Martial Meritocrats Sector, there were a bunch of people named 'Cultivators'."
With the most solemn expression, Gu Zhengyang took out a vintage metal box from a bag on his waist. He opened the box carefully, and there was a very delicate piece of velvet with a chip the size of a fingernail inside.
After scanning with his soul, Li Yao concluded from the structure and the hundred rune arrays on the surface of the jade chip that it should be some sort of storage chip the size of a mini jade chip.
Judging from the scratches on the edge of the chip, it must have been made a long time ago. Perhaps it had been passed on for hundreds of years.
There was also a shallow crack on the surface of the chip, which caused irreversible damage to the structure.
Chapter 1973: Little Cultivators |
Gu Zhengyang then unveiled the velvet inside the metal box, revealing the delicate mechanical structure below.
Countless gears smaller than fingernails were embedded together, with an interface in the middle that was made of metal and exposed to the air.
He inserted the chip into the interface and held the metal box with both hands, inputting a stream of spiritual energy to both sides.
It could be seen that the technology to craft the storage chip came from a different age from the technology to build the metal box. The latter seemed much more underdeveloped and even produced specifically for the purpose of parsing the chip.
Also, the item had been crafted in the sturdiest way. It did not require additional power. As long as anyone inputted feeble spiritual energy into it, the gears inside that were as dense as the parts of a clock would function automatically. From a hole in the middle of the gears, a dim and twisted ray of light was projected, forming a 3D light beam.
Noises echoed from the metal box, like a broadcast that was seriously jammed.
The two little fellows and Li Yao all watched attentively. Finally, a picture was displayed on the twisted light beam.
Perhaps because of the serious damage to the chip, the quality of the picture was rather unstable. Occasionally, mottled spots would burst out. But the enormous title was still legible—Little Cultivators.
Han Te and Liu Li looked at each other in bewilderment. They had never seen such weird things before.
Li Yao, however, thought of something. The title reminded him of the plays in the Star Glory Federation that were performed by real people.
It seemed to be a play, and one that was designed for the children of a very young age. The main plot of the play was that five kids who were the students of 'School of Cultivation' were given mysterious and powerful abilities from meteorites from the sky, which allowed them to change into 'Cultivators' instantly. Therefore, they established a combat squad to resist the evil forces that invaded the Martial Meritocrats Sector.
In Li Yao's eyes, the props, setting, and plot of the children's play were barely satisfactory. Not too much thought was given to the aftereffects. It was indeed only good enough to trick the little children.
However, the children's play must have been shot far earlier than Judgment Day, which destroyed the entire Martial Meritocrats civilization. It could even be earlier than the outbreak of conflict between the Cultivators and the ordinary people in the Martial Meritocrats Sector and the eventual corruption of the believers of Chiyou from the 'Sand Primitive Sector'.
It was probably the years when the civilization founded by the Martial Meritocrats Sector had reached the peak and was about to explore the sea of stars, full of ambition.
At the very least, there were a lot of modern cities in the background of the children's play. The dense but well-organized skyscrapers and the transportation tubes that hovered among the higher towers made the best use of space, which was as impressive as what the Star Glory Federation had today.
The children and the 'teachers' of the 'School of Cultivation' who took part in the play were also sunny and spirited, filled with the confidence to conquer everything in the golden years. They looked entirely different from the sinners who struggled to survive in the Land of Sins.
What touched Li Yao most was their slogans and ideals.
The five young people in the children's play received their power from the meteorites that came from nowhere but not through hard training. It was inevitable that their minds and beliefs lost balance, which led to a series of conflicts and contradictions. Eventually, all the problems were perfectly resolved in battles under the guidance of their teachers.
