Anxiously, Li Yao waved his hands in the darkness. “Don’t leave just yet, Long Yangjun!”
“Why? You haven’t been beaten enough?”
Long Yangjun’s laughter was unpredictable. “That’s alright. We may continue next time!”
“It’s about something else.”
Li Yao did not know how he should express himself. “You know that I’ve been against countless people on my journey from the Heaven’s Origin Sector to the Flying Star Sector, to the Blood Demon Sector, to the Ancient Sages Sector, and then to the center of the cosmos, and I have killed many experts in person. While some of them were truly atrocious and deserved their deaths, some other people would not have to die if they had not been so obstinate.
“If they were still alive, and their minds were slightly changed, the world might’ve been changed into a better and not a worse place. We could’ve even become friends. Even if we did nothing except having a dinner or chitchat over a cup of tea, it would still be much better than a life-and-death battle.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’ve killed enough enemies, and they are certainly not pleasant memories. Even if you are truly not a human being but a hybrid of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, as long as you are not determined to commit the unforgivable, monstrous things, I still prefer to be a friend to you, not just a cooperator, and certainly not an enemy. I meant everything I said!”
Long Yangjun seemed to be caught unprepared by Li Yao’s expression of emotions. After a daze, she said, “What do you mean by ‘unforgivable, monstrous things’ exactly?”
Li Yao said, “You know, the kind of stuff that the supervillains always do, like… destroying mankind.”
“Hahahaha!”
Long Yangjun burst into great laughter, which echoed longer than usual in the dark tunnel. “Aren’t you a little bit too imaginative? Does mankind need to be destroyed by me? You have done an excellent job of ‘destroying mankind’. All I need to do is to hold my chin, squat nearby, and appreciate it slowly. Why do I need to do any extra things in person?”
Li Yao said carefully, “Alright. Then, I’ll just assume that you are not too malicious to mankind. In that case, why don’t you tell me what you want exactly? Perhaps I can help you as a ‘friend’ without asking anything in return.”
Long Yangjun was dazed again. “Why?”
Li Yao said, “Do you need a reason to make friends? Brotherhood and camaraderie are what matters for all Cultivators! If I have to say a reason, it is because I feel that you are not a bad person. When we explored the underground laboratory of the Pangu Clan deep inside the Nuwa warship, you could’ve caused greater damage to the exploration squad with your advantage that you were familiar with the terrain, but you did not hurt any of them and simply slipped away on an escape capsule. It made me feel that however mean you talk, you still have feelings, or maybe expectations, for mankind, don’t you?”
Long Yangjun sneered and said, “Since when have you become such a romantic?”
Li Yao said, “I meant everything that I said. If you are willing to trust me as a human being, I will trust you too, and I’ll give you a hand whatever you are going to do!”
Long Yangjun fell silent again. It was not until Li Yao thought that she had left again in secret that she finally said slowly, “I told you what I wanted to do before I left the Star Glory Federation. I was not lying back then.
“Born in ‘a world of ancient Cultivators’, grew up as a human being, and even lived in a human society for a hundred years, I had completely regarded myself as a real human being. Except for those uncanny dreams, I never had second thoughts.
“But one day, new bloodlines and new identities awakened in me, not one, but two. I realized that I was no longer a member of the world that I was familiar with in the past, but a traveler from a more distant time and space. My compatriots were all gone hundreds of thousands of years ago, and I was the only one who was forgotten… until the present day.
“The dual bloodlines of Pangu and Nuwa entangled and fought inside my body, considering my cells and my soul as their battleground. I was faced with the tough choices between absolute order and absolute chaos, and I could barely decide who I was.
“Who am I? Where do I come from? And where am I going? Every person, or perhaps every intelligent life, has been seeking the answers to those questions ever since they were born, don’t they?
“From the edge of the cosmos to the center, from the Ancient Sages Sector to the Star Glory Federation and to the Imperium of True Human Beings, everything I’ve been doing is for a single purpose, which is to find the ‘ultimate answers’ to the three questions.
“I am now standing on an intersection of my fate. Lying before me are three roads leading to the future. I can choose to be a member of the Pangu Clan, I can also choose to be a member of the Nuwa Clan, or… if possible, I can continue to walk on as a human being.
“What should I choose? I haven’t found an answer yet. I guess I’ll just wait and see. Is this some sort of procrastination? Haha!”
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao tried to ask as calmly as possible, “You can continue to evolve into a member of the Pangu Clan—a god for the Covenant Alliance?”
“Is there a problem?”
Long Yangjun giggled. “I’ve discovered that both the federation and the Imperium are strongly biased against the Pangu Clan and the Covenant Alliance. As the ancient moral had it, if you are not a fish, you can never know whether or not a fish is happy when it is swimming in a pond. You always claim that you will liberate all the people of the Covenant Alliance and help them ‘awaken’ themselves. How do you know that the people of the Covenant Alliance need your liberation, or that they want to be awakened?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Li Yao declared angrily, “Those people of the Covenant Alliance are deprived of their feelings and free will. They are incomplete, miserable machines!”
“Wrong.”
Long Yangjun said, “Like I told you before I left the federation, human beings never had feelings in the beginning. It was just because their brains were invaded by the extraterrestrial devils, like crystal processors that contracted viruses, that they grew feelings and self-will.
“It is certainly not bad to have feelings and self-will, but even if one does not have such things, it will be just another regular form. Nobody needs to be saved by anybody.
“Variability is a norm of life after all. If all lives are identical, they will not be far away from destruction. Human beings with feelings and self-will are like birds in the sky, and those without feelings and self-will are like fish in the water. Perhaps the birds consider water a cage that confines and suffocates the fish, but if they snatch the fish out of the water, it will only lead to a greater tragedy.
“Besides, the life of the ‘birds’ like you is a mess too. Just go down along this tunnel for several thousand meters, you will see countless murky underground towns where millions of people live years without seeing any sunlight. What a miserable and painful life they have. You must’ve heard a thing or two about it too, haven’t you? Why, you want to liberate the people of the Covenant Alliance and make them live like the underclass of the Imperium?”
Li Yao was rendered speechless for a moment.
He found it impossible to lie to himself that the “hominoids” living at the bottom class of the Imperium, who were exploited and even butchered blatantly, certainly had a more comfortable life than the “demi-humans” of the Covenant Alliance who did not have feelings and self-will.
The more Long Yangjun talked, the more excited she became, as if the deepest anger and dissatisfaction in her heart had been triggered by Li Yao. “The more I get to know human beings, the more scared I become of such a smart and brutal creature. I thought that everything around me was corrupted because I lived in the ancient, undeveloped Ancient Sages Sector, but when I came to the federation and the Imperium that were far more advanced, civilized, and modernized, I discovered that nothing changed at all. In fact, they even changed for the worse.
“Under the excuse to conquer the universe, you invented all kinds of powerful, terrifying weapons that were a hundred times more destructive than the magical equipment of the Ancient Sages Sector. But the next second after they were produced, you projected those weapons to your own kind without any hesitation.
“Your elites and leaders fooled the innocent and the ignorant into fighting each other under the awesome banners using inspiring speeches, but despite all their rhetoric, you could always find the stealthy, selfish desires in their motivations.
“Compared to the Ancient Sages Sector, the modern society has copious materials, and those with wealth, power, and strength boast resources that are enough for their use for ten lives. Even a business leader, or a random senior worker, lives a more entertaining life than the emperor of the Ancient Sages Sector. However, in the corners deep below the ground, some people are still starved to death after crying all night. Why is that exactly?
“From the ancient times to the modern day, from the federation to the Imperium, I have seen so many… incomprehensible and unimaginable things. What reasons do you want me to convince myself to become a member of such mankind again? Assuming that I do not want to join the corruption but go to the Covenant Alliance, where I evolve into a real member of the Pangu Clan, leading the people there who do not have selfish desires because they do not have feelings and who cannot be evil because they do not have self-will, in search for a new lifestyle and a new form of civilization… Is that really an unforgivable and monstrous thing?”
Li Yao was deeply astounded by Long Yangjun’s words.
He felt that what she said was even more aggressive than the invisible wind blades that she launched a moment ago.
He did not have any answer to the questions either. So, he could only clench his fists and said, “If you also want to change the world, you don’t have to go to the Covenant Alliance. You can do it right here in the Imperium! Stand by my side and fight with me to help the reformists! As two travelers from the edge of the cosmos, we can look after each other. Whatever training resources, magical equipment, or weapons you need, the reformists will have more for you if the Dongfang family can’t provide them for you!”
Long Yangjun burst into laughter. “Hey, hey, hey. Have you sunk too deep in your role, or are you really brainwashed by Queen Li Linghai and transformed from a Cultivator into an Immortal Cultivator? You are persuading me to surrender on her behalf?”
“Of course, I remember that I’m a Cultivator, and I know what I am doing clearly.”
Li Yao said solemnly, “However, a world-changing revolution that involves hundreds of Sectors at the center of the cosmos cannot be achieved overnight. We can only choose the lesser of two evils. At the very least, the reformists are more advanced than the four Kurfürst families. So, I’ll side with the reformists for now. When the four Kurfürst families are all crushed one way or another, I’ll try to transform the reformists and carry out my will one step after another!”
