Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

2273 All the Crows Are Black!

Glittering stars congregated into a shiny torrent, expanding to every corner of the dark universe together with the unstoppable conquests, until the territory of the Imperium of True Human Beings today was stabilized.

It was exactly the scene that was played and replayed on the dome of the lobby of the national museum on the west side of the Emperor’s Mausoleum.

His hands in his back, Li Yao stood at the center of the national museum and moved his attention from the map of the Imperium to the front.

Right in the front was a black throne embedded with gold stripes of dragons. Nobody was sitting on the throne, but a black crystal suit had occupied it majestically. The horns protruding from the crystal suit made it look like an iron jungle.

It was said that the crystal suit was the gear with which Blackstar the Great dominated the universe and shattered the stars.

Appreciating the black crystal suit at a close distance, Li Yao couldn’t help but feel that “Blackstar the Great is about to be pissed back to life and crawl out of his coffin” again.

Queen Li Linghai returned to the capital at great risks. Naturally, she had whole plans and would not go back to the royal palace to be killed.

A million Imperial Guards, surplus generals, and disabled veterans were inside and outside of the Emperor’s Mausoleum right now, accompanied by countless people in fury. It was the safest place in the entire capital right now.

Therefore, she stayed here under the excuse that she was consoling the wronged soldiers and generals.

Perhaps for irony, she even transformed the national museum as her temporary base and changed the office area on the top two floors into her secret meeting room and her command center.

Li Yao was Li Linghai’s personal bodyguard in name, but he was well aware that Li Linghai’s combat ability was far higher than his own because of the Supreme Emperor’s legacies, and she did not need his protection at all.

Except for the occasional plays in front of other people, Li Yao quite enjoyed his leisure time and appreciated the national museum of the Imperium of True Human Beings for a few days, which gave him a deeper understanding about the history of the Imperium and even allowed him to observe Blackstar the Great’s many relics from the closest distance.

It was certainly not something that he had expected before he snuck into the Imperium of True Human Beings on his own.

Li Yao almost couldn’t wait to send his dreamy experiences back to the Star Glory Federation as a great surprise for Ding Lingdang and Jin Xinyue.

It was a pity that he had been in the company of Li Linghai, Lei Chenghu, and hundreds of Immortal Cultivators ever since “Manjusaka, the City in the Sky” was blown up by him. He had no time to find a secret place to set up his super-remote communication base, and therefore had no chance to contact his hometown.

Therefore, he could only hold back his laughter and set them free later.

Walking along the stairs, he arrived at the third floor of the national museum, only to discover that Li Jialing was looking afar through the window at the crowds who were paying tributes to Blackstar the Great.

“You have been observing those people all the time over the last days.”

Li Yao walked over and asked, “And you seemed deep in thought. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing.”

Li Jialing shook his head. After a brief silence, he said, “I only feel that those people are both pitiful and pathetic. They will be manipulated no matter what they do, just like I have been manipulated since I was born.”

Li Yao was slightly dazed. “I don’t know if the queen is manipulating those people, but for me, I am sincerely helping those people to get what they deserve, no matter if it is their military credits, their dignity, or just the rights of survival.

“Such an approach may be too extreme and carry too many risks, but they already cannot live on anymore. This is their only and last chance.”

Li Jialing looked at Li Yao, somewhat in surprise. “They are Immortal Cultivators.”

“Yes, they are.”

Li Yao sighed and said, “Immortal Cultivators are naturally the greatest enemy of the Cultivators. Also, those ‘surplus generals’ are definitely not the kindest people in the world. Many of them were ferocious bullies, if not bloody butchers, when they were in their hometowns.

“But things should be considered separately. No matter what atrocious crimes they committed, they should at least be credited for resisting the invasion of the Covenant Alliance and defending humanity.

“Whatever their motives to participate in the Imperium’s counterattack were, and even if they were just seeking fame and fortune, objectively speaking, without the fighting and sacrifices of those Immortal Cultivators, it is possible that the universe would’ve been occupied by the puppets of the Covenant Alliance. They might even have gathered enough resources and energy to revive the Pangu Clan, which would be an irreversible catastrophe for the civilization of mankind.

“Accomplishments cannot offset crimes, but crimes should not cover accomplishments either. Those people are both criminals and contributors. I want those Immortal Cultivators to be tried for their crimes in the past, and I even want to perform the punishments in person, but I am unwilling to see them kicked away like dogs after they devoted their everything for the civilization of mankind.

“Do you understand the difference between the two concepts?”

Li Jialing thought carefully for a moment and nodded his head.

“Besides—”

Li Yao said, “Those ‘surplus generals’ may have committed unpardonable crimes in the past, but those disabled veterans—the low-level Immortal Cultivators in the Refinement Stage and the Building Foundation Stage—are different… How should I put it? I’m not saying that they are innocent, but if they grow up on a different land under a different system in a different way of education, they might become Cultivators too.

“I cannot kill all the Immortal Cultivators at the center of the cosmos, but I truly want to find a way to destroy the soil from which the Immortal Cultivators are grown.”

Li Yao’s gaze went past Li Jialing’s shoulders as he watched the common veterans of the Imperium who strode forward in lines and pay tributes to Blackstar the Great’s statue. He had a lot of mixed feelings.

Li Yao was himself a “veteran” of the Star Glory Federation. When he took part in the College Entrance Examination in his younger years, and when he was smeared to be the Blood Devil after he returned to the federation, it was all thanks to the selfless help of the veterans that he lived through the difficulties.

He had deep feelings for the army and the veterans.

Although the Imperium of True Human Beings was a hostile country, he found it impossible to hate the veterans who had devoted everything to the war against the Covenant Alliance.

“The four Kurfürst families are too idiotic and greedy. Prime Minister Dongfang Wang is the same too.”

Li Jialing found it hard to believe. “Do they not know that they are shaking the foundation of the country? Why didn’t they address it earlier? This is outrageous!”

“I can only say that reality is not a game. It is impossible that everybody will follow the orders 100% without any discount like machines after the authorities press a button.”

Li Yao said, “Strong as Blackstar the Great might’ve been, weren’t there still people who pretended to obey him but in fact did not? How could one Dongfang Wang control so many people down below?

“I believe that Dongfang Wang must’ve foreseen the consequences of reducing the generals and ignoring the disabled veterans with his vision and wisdom, but everybody has only limited abilities. If his subordinates each have their own plans or even embezzle the subsidies for the veterans, what can he do?”

Li Jialing frowned. “Dongfang Wang is known as a prime minister of iron and blood. Is he unable to settle such a minor issue? If anybody dares to embezzle the subsidies, just behead them!”

“What if the criminal is an experienced expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage with deeply-rooted forces? Can he be killed too?”

Li Yao asked, “If the criminal is a Divinity Transformation Stage expert from the Li family, but other Divinity Transformation Stage experts of the Li family are defending him, can you kill all of them? If the criminal is a Divinity Transformation Stage expert from the Dongfang family, can Dongfang Wang execute a member of his own family? If all the experts of the four Kurfürst families, regardless of their origins, already have unspoken rules and all of them embezzle, what can Dongfang Wang do?”

After a long daze, Li Jialing asked, “They are all unparalleled experts with high computational abilities. Can’t they think of the consequences? Why are they so greedy and shortsighted?”

“It has nothing to do with greed, idiocy, and shortsightedness. Getting to the bottom of it, it is a systematical issue. Their ideals and beliefs have grown awry since the root.”

Li Yao said, “It is exactly because the prevailing idea of ‘survival of fittest’ among the Immortal Cultivators that every rational Immortal Cultivator has strong motives to loot resources and benefits through whatever means possible to strengthen themselves.

“As to if the looting was reasonable and legal and what kind of catastrophic consequences it will bring in the long term, such things are beyond their concerns.

“If they do not loot crazily right now, they will become weaklings and losers in the short term, and they will lose everything in the cruel internal competitions. How can they care about the long-term and the overall interests?

“The majority of the rational Immortal Cultivators with normal thinking abilities will not hesitate to embezzle if it can increase their odds of survival. The resources that have already fallen into their pockets can barely be given away too. Why would anybody do such a thing that would lower their odds of survival?

“Perhaps when the Imperium of True Human Beings was just born a thousand years ago, there were still some Immortal Cultivators that had dreams and integrity. They were the ‘pure Immortal Cultivators’ such as Lei Chenghu. However, in the prolonged race of survival, those Immortal Cultivators are destined to be eliminated, just like the devoted surplus generals and disabled veterans would’ve been eliminated if we hadn’t appeared in time.

“The valiant Immortal Cultivators who fought bravely were all eliminated. Only the most selfish, shameless, blatant, and greedy Immortal Cultivators were able to survive. After generations of ‘adverse selection’, do I need to describe to you what the Immortal Cultivators who have survived to this day look like?

“The Imperium of True Human Beings today is made of millions of such Immortal Cultivators. Below the seemingly glamorous appearance, the stinky mucus is flowing everywhere, and the bizarre, crazy phenomena of corruption are happening without any stop. Even if the persons at the top intend to stop the trend, they have nowhere to get started at all. Any reforms from top to down will only become excuses for the interest groups to further exploit the underprivileged, making the situation at the bottom level of the society worse and worse. Is it strange at all that this is happening right now?”

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