“That will be unnecessary,” Li Yao said. “I remember everything now.”
“That sounds more like it,” the mental devil said. “You thought that everything was under your control, and the Immortal Cultivator Su Changfa was nothing more than a turtle caged in a tank, unable to cause any trouble again. Therefore, you wanted to turn him into a ‘living textbook’ and use his insignificance and ugliness to highlight your own magnificence and brightness. But little did you know that you would screw everything up in the end, and the freak ‘Lu Qingchen’ was raised. You almost did not have a chance to rectify the horrible mistakes that you made, right?”
“Thank you for your reminder,” Li Yao said. “I have completely recalled everything. But our focus this time seems to be the sordid, shameless tricks of the Immortal Cultivators. I don’t think we need to mention the past. Let’s try to concentrate on the game here and now!”
“The key is still on the little monster, Li Jialing,” the mental devil said. “Just like you absolutely couldn’t have seen the arrival of the little monster ‘Lu Qingchen’, who smacked your face hard. In the end, if you were not lucky enough to have a large batch of experts including myself wiping your ass for you, you would’ve been kicked to your hometown selling salty eggs. Li Jialing today is exactly the same. He can certainly grow into a person like Lu Qingchen as a key to crack the trap!
“Also, Wuying Lan and Li Lingfeng look rather weaselly and unblessed. I don’t think that they will have your luck, and not so many unexpected experts will jump out to wipe their asses for them. But I do believe that many will come to take advantage of their trouble!”
“…Can we stop talking about Lu Qingchen?”
…
On a floating disc, Li Jialing followed three managers of the beehive prison and moved slowly down the metal pathway that led to the prison.
He was wearing a mustard-seed combat suit that was as thin as paper but extremely tensile, which highlighted his every muscle. The combat suit also had glittering strengthening systems of crystals and rune arrays on his chest, abdomen, and joints, which covered him in a warm halo and further added to his mysteries.
His athletic clothing and the ambitions and desires in his eyes that could barely be disguised made him look like a standard young Immortal Cultivator who had just begun his career and could not wait to control the entire world in his hands.
Li Yao sent a wave inside the young man’s stomach, which rose all the way to his brain along the nerves in the spine. “Hey, what’s on your mind? Why are you not talking? You aren’t having cold feet and thinking that you would rather stay here, right?”
Li Jialing smiled. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because I think that Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan’s words sounded rather reasonable,” Li Yao said. “The conditions that they proposed were rather enticing. Turning you into a superhero that everybody in the entire Imperium knows. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I think that at least ninety-nine of a hundred hotblooded young men have dreamed of being a superhero. Are you an exception?
“Even if they are only making use of you, they would certainly not kill the egg that lays golden eggs at the very beginning. Whatever schemes they may have for you will definitely not take place until you have already been made into a superhero. So, are you really not tempted by the idea?”
“If you are worried that I will go back on our deal, you are simply overthinking it,” Li Jialing said casually. “Firstly, as I told you before, I wanted to live a free, lawless life where nobody gives me any commands. I have no interest in becoming the heir of the Li family, the spokesperson of the slaughter stream platform, or a superhero.
“Secondly, even if I am truly going to be a superhero or I want anything for myself, I will earn it with my own hands. The schemes of other people are highly unnecessary.
“A fabricated hero, however awesome and popular they may appear, is simply a poor fly locked in a transparent glass jar if we get to the bottom of it. They must carry out Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan’s orders all the time, accept the styles that they set, and live in their shadows for the rest of their lives. Hehe. What kind of ‘hero’ is that?
“Thirdly, I can tell that their plan to make a hero is not as simple as it appears to be. Did you hear it just now? Li Lingfeng mentioned the name of his sister again. It was the second time in only half a day.
“For some reason, I vaguely feel that Li Lingfeng is trying to inculcate an idea into my head without me knowing it, which is that Li Linghai, the queen of the Imperium, poses a grave threat to my existence. He wants me to believe that Li Linghai tried to destroy me when I was still a fetus and that I will be sliced for studies if she catches me right now. Is it my imagination?”
“No, it is not,” Li Yao said. “That is exactly what Li Lingfeng meant. He wants you to develop this misunderstanding, wariness, and even enmity toward Li Linghai.”
“Enmity? Yes. That seems like it.” Li Jialing curled his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Interesting. Why does Li Lingfeng want me to grow strong enmity toward Li Linghai? Besides, what does it matter even if someone as insignificant as me grows hostile to the almighty queen of the Imperium, and what blow can it possibly be for Li Linghai? It is really worth studying.
“In any case, however meticulous Li Lingfeng’s plan is, he has made a fatal mistake—he has underestimated me too much!”
“He did not underestimate you; he underestimated the abilities of himself and Wuying Lan. Or rather, they tried too hard in your project,” Li Yao said. “I’m afraid that he hasn’t realized to this moment what a terrifying monster he has raised after all the refinement!
“As it happens, the little monster that is already terribly tricky to deal with by himself now has the selfless help of a Cultivator with profound wisdom, strength, and integrity! I’m afraid that his life will end before he has the opportunity to challenge Li Linghai!”
“…May I ask you a question?” Li Jialing asked.
“As I said, all the formalities are highly unnecessary. You can ask me whatever you want to know,” said Li Yao frankly.
“Some descriptions of the Cultivators are involved in the education of the Li family,” Li Jialing said solemnly. “The textbooks and the pamphlets all depict Cultivators as hypocritical, shameless people who always talk big but waver at the critical moment, which leads to infinite disasters and encumbers the entire civilization.
“Also, the last years of the Star Ocean Republic controlled by the Cultivators were an age of corruption and decadence. That’s why it suffered the intrusion of the Covenant Alliance and was crushed. As a result, the Imperium was forced to clean up the mess left by the Cultivators the moment it was established, and the job hasn’t been done yet after a thousand years.
“Before, I always acknowledged such a theory. No, it seems very reasonable to me even to this moment. However, I am now getting very curious after seeing how serious Li Lingfeng and Wuying Lan were just now and how ‘Starlight’ emerged again after it was destroyed forty-one times.
“What are the real Cultivators, and what is their real path?”
The floating disc slightly shivered, and the three gates up ahead that looked like lotus flowers opened slowly. Greeted by overwhelming screams and roars, they had reached the beehive prison.
…
“The real Cultivators…”
In a sunless tunnel below the surface of the Land of Sins, under the dim lights in the earthly dragon, Zuo Jingyun, the one-armed female warrior of the resistance organization, was thinking the same question.
Han Te and Liu Li sat cross-legged next to her, looking at her with a thirst for knowledge.
The Fist King was sitting nearby. He was staring at a delicate little furnace. On the plate of the furnace was the synthetic meat that he was broiling for the two little fellows.
It was a hard-earned moment to catch their breath, or the last tranquility before a great war.
All the exhausted warriors had fallen asleep. The two little fellows were the only ones who were energetic enough to harass the female conduction of Cloud Penetrator, hoping to learn more about the Cultivators.
“In fact, I don’t know what real Cultivators are, either. I never even thought of becoming a real Cultivator at the beginning. At first, my parents were Cultivators, so I was naturally a Cultivator. Later, I only wanted to avenge my parents. It’s as simple as that. If you want to listen to great philosophies, you will have to invite Wei Longtao to teach you. He can talk about them for three days and three nights without repeating anything!”
Zuo Jingyun scratched her bald head, somewhat embarrassed. Then, as if she suddenly recalled something, she put on a sincere smile. “In fact, leaving aside my parents’ identity or their revenge, I perhaps would have never thought of being a Cultivator.
“To this moment, I cannot forget the feeling when I dug out of the ground for the first time and saw the high sky and the vast land. At that time, I had a very ‘great’ or hilarious dream. I wanted to do nothing for the rest of my life except find a village and build a house on such a boundless land beneath the high sky, instead of being chased every day below the ground and using weapons for pillows at night. I would simply sit on the threshold of my house and stare at the sky every day. That would be my greatest gratification.
“If I could ever live such a peaceful and carefree life, only an idiot would ever think of becoming a Cultivator!”
“Ah…”
Looking at each other in bewilderment, Han Te and Liu Li sighed in mixed feelings. “That is more or less what we thought in the past. We hoped that the Village of Peace would forever be peaceful, and we could just live on the boats without worries. Swimming, fishing, and watching the sky while floating on the surface of the water. Nothing could be more enjoyable than that.”
With a bitter smile, Zuo Jingyun agreed. “Yes. It is a pity that such a life will never be reality in the Land of Sins. Even the experts as strong as the Fist King and Leader Xiahou can never really be free and untroubled, can they?
“Not only is it impossible for us to live such a life, we can never even live a worried and insecure life. We are nothing more than the mice in their laboratory. We live if they want us to live, and we die when they want us to die.
“So, is there another option other than to revolt against this world?
“If you ask me what constitutes the real Cultivators, I believe that it should be ‘resistance’. This world is wrong. A normal world and a normal life shouldn’t be like this. Although I do not know what a ‘correct’ world should be like, I absolutely cannot endure the world we are living in right now. I would rather die with it than be part of its filth!”
