Xu Zhicheng's words truly made Li Yao think a lot. He said in embarrassment, "I'm sorry, Grand Guardian Xu, but my thoughts were indeed too … high and mighty."
"Please don't say that. There are few good guys among the 'supermen' who sincerely consider the ordinary people as compatriots and fight side by side with us wholeheartedly like you do. However, certain excruciating pains are something that you will never understand."
Looking at the busy spiritual puppets not far away, Xu Zhicheng grinned and said, "We are thanking you from the bottom of our hearts. Of course, we are also grateful to the two lovely little guys. Your names are Xiaoming and Wenwen, right? Thank you very much for everything that you have done for the workers and their families of the Great Iron Plants.
"We are all shortsighted men who are incapable and do not want to consider what will happen hundreds of years later. I only know that you have been a great help to us. If you hadn't hacked the Spiritual Nexus and seized so many spiritual puppets, we wouldn't have been able to occupy the Great Iron Plants at all, nor would we have been able to collect so many assets to support tens of thousands of people.
"Whoever is good to us, we will be good to them. Whoever treats us like ants and weeds, we will fight with our lives when we can't stand it anymore. I think this should be the simplest truth that can be applied everywhere, right? What … be it strong artificial intelligence or information life forms? We really don't know what they are, but we will never forget your kindness in saving our lives.
"Favors must be repaid with favors. If you need help one day, as long as you do not despise our insignificance, please believe that the underground hominoids will definitely be on your side!"
"… Thank you, Uncle Xu."
The two little guys craned their heads from Li Yao's back. Their faces were confused at first, as if they were shy to admit their identity in front of human beings. But after hearing what Xu Zhicheng said, four shallow dimples appeared on their chubby, red cheeks, and they smiled from the bottom of their heart.
"Fellow Cultivator Li, do you know how synthetic food is made?"
Not fully satisfied, Xu Zhicheng went on, "To support so many workers and their families, the Great Iron Plants has its own affiliated synthetic food factory. So, I know a thing or two about the production process of synthetic food.
"This kind of thing is really not a healthy delicacy. It is usually minced with the most worthless fat meat, bones, and offal, mixed with all kinds of strange fibers and drugs, and condensed into shape under high temperature and pressure.
"In order to save costs, they will even use rotten raw materials. In order to kill the germs in the raw materials and prolong the storage time, they will also inject a lot of fungicides and preservatives. In the end, the synthetic food produced can be stored for years, decades, or even centuries.
"It's not hard to imagine how much preservatives are contained in a synthetic food that can be preserved for a hundred years! If this kind of thing was eaten over the years, it would definitely not be good for the body. It would greatly increase the incidence of obesity, chronic diseases, and even malignant tumors.
"In the long run, synthetic food is not a good thing. This is a truth that even the underground hominoids know.
"But — —
"If you're faced with a bunch of disaster victims who have been hungry for five days and five nights, and you're about to starve to death at any moment, you have tremendous synthetic food that you can distribute, but you refuse to distribute it to them on the grounds that 'synthetic food is too unhealthy', and you even destroy all the synthetic food right in front of the disaster victims, what kind of behavior is that?
"In the Imperium of True Human Beings today, there are still a lot of ordinary people who are as miserable and precarious as the underground hominoids. Below the ground of the capital, in the mines on the resource planets, in the bottom-level cabins on the starships that are filled with exhaust gas and radiation … Aren't all the ordinary people who are suffering and torment starving, dying victims of hunger?
"Since you said it yourself, Fellow Cultivator Li, that those … information lives may change the Imperium and even raise a world-changing storm among the stars, they are essentially the synthetic food that can help all the disaster victims survive the famine. Let's save everybody first. What kind of civilization is there if everybody is dead?"
Li Yao felt that his cheeks were burning. Five words popped up in his head for some reason — why not minced meat?
He said in embarrassment, "As it turns out, Grand Guardian Xu has long understood everything that I said just now."
"In many cases, it doesn't matter whether or not we understand," Xu Zhicheng said.
"When the disaster victims are desperate and starving, they can even roll the soil into balls and swallow them to fill their stomachs. When the underground hominoids can't take it anymore and decide to rebel, we can even join the Holy League and the extraterrestrial devils. Soil cannot be eaten, and neither the Holy League nor the extraterrestrial devils are anything good. Do we really not understand such a simple logic? But even if we understand the logic, so what? Can it change anything? Can it save our lives? "
"I understand it now."
Li Yao's eyes were sharper than ever at first, before they gradually became deep and dim. In the end, they were as deep as an ocean. "Grand Guardian Xu, you said just now that the civilization of mankind is not an inseparable whole but is divided into 'the civilization of mankind of the Immortal Cultivators' and 'the civilization of mankind of the ordinary people'. It is quite reasonable. If we can strike precisely and only destroy 'the civilization of mankind of the Immortal Cultivators', it will certainly be the best.
"But you must know that if the ultimate storm of destruction does arrive one day, it may not be so precise. What if certain … irreversible changes happen to all the civilizations of mankind?"
"I don't know about other people, but I can answer you with a saying that has been passed on below the ground for ten thousand years."
Xu Zhicheng smiled and said, "Our 'civilization' has thrived below the ground for ten thousand years without being cut off. We have preserved more ancient stories than the people on the ground and in space. One of the stories says that in ancient times a long, long time ago, there was a tyrant who considered himself 'Sun King' and treated the people under his rule in the most brutal and horrible ways. The people couldn't take it anymore and often gnashed their teeth while pointing at the sun. When will the hateful sun die out? If there is a chance, we are willing to perish together with you!
"This is my answer. I don't represent other people but only myself. As long as the civilization of the Immortal Cultivators can be destroyed, I can believe in and join anybody. The Holy League, the extraterrestrial devils, the gods, and the information lives. It doesn't matter who comes, as long as there is a tiny change. Change, change, change! In any case, it can't be any worse, can it? "
Li Yao mumbled, "I didn't know that you were even more radical and extreme than I was."
"You couldn't have become the Grand Guardian of Nepenthe if you weren't radical and extreme!"
Xu Zhicheng burst into laughter, with every wrinkle on his face glittering. "In the eyes of the Immortal Cultivators, those who do not know their place and are unwilling to serve the 'great civilization of mankind' and seek change and subversion at any cost are naturally the most extreme, radical, dangerous, and evil ones. They are even the most heinous traitors and fiends!
"But it doesn't matter to me. A hero in the eyes of some people is bound to be a fiend in the eyes of others. As long as I figure out whose hero and whose fiend I am, it will be fine.
"On many occasions, being called a fiend by some people is not a bad thing but the greatest glory. The roars and curses of the Immortal Cultivators are the best compliments for our cause. Perhaps, it is the same for you, Fellow Cultivator Li, right?"
"I completely understand it now."
Indescribable brilliance beamed out of Li Yao's eyes as he said frankly, "It seems that I really should've come to talk to Grand Guardian Xu sooner. There was no need for me to dwell on the unimportant matters for so long!"
"Although ants are small, they can see a lot of things that elephants and dinosaurs cannot."
Xu Zhicheng said, "The Immortal Cultivators will never lower themselves and ask for the opinions of the 'ants' sincerely like you did, Fellow Cultivator Li. It is perhaps one of the reasons why the Cultivators are bound to defeat the Immortal Cultivators."
"I hope so."
Li Yao said, "No, it must be so!"
"Uncle Xu."
The two little fellows who had been listening in silence for a long time also interjected and looked at Xu Zhicheng expectantly. It was Li Xiaoming who asked, "Can we ask you a question, too? In your opinion, are information lives real human beings?"
Looking at the two little fellows like a friendly old man, Xu Zhicheng grinned and said, "I'm sorry, kids, but I'm afraid that I can't answer your question because in the eyes of the Immortal Cultivators, even the 'hominoids' such as us are not real human beings.
"When my coworkers and I worked for three days and three nights in a row deep inside the deep, dark mines until we were melted into the dark minerals and only our teeth were white, we observed each other and did not know whether we were human beings, ghosts, or monkeys whose hair had been plucked.
"But no matter how the Immortal Cultivators belittled us, deep down in our hearts … we still craved to be real human beings and did not want to be defined by anybody! Are we really not human beings but some sort of human-shaped animals just because the Immortal Cultivators say that we are 'hominoids'? Do the high and mighty emperors and deities have the final say on whether or not I am a human being? What kind of f * cking logic is that?
"I do not want other people to decide whether or not I am a human being. So, I am not qualified, nor am I willing, to define whether or not you are human beings. Since living human beings such as us can be exploited and transformed into tools by the Immortal Cultivators, why can't tools become human beings? Is there any law that is violated?
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