The long black hair that spread out of the back of Wuying Qi's head, or rather, the nerves that grew out of his soul, suddenly expanded multiple times.
The dark power was injected into Li Yao's soul incessantly, covering his body with black stripes and spots.
The dark area expanded nonstop, enshrouding Li Yao like some sort of glittering gelatinous substance and dragging him into the infinite swamp.
Li Yao struggled hard to resist. The fire of his soul jumped out of the gaps of darkness and burned up the black nerves that connected him to Wuying Qi.
"Although … your words are very pleasant to hear, and your slogan is very loud, including the dilemma you threw out, I can't give an answer to it right now."
Gritting his teeth, Li Yao said, one word after another, "However, no matter what you say, it cannot change the fact that the Pangu civilization, which boasted the 'most advanced information interaction technology' that could enlighten a civilization instantly, perished in the end!
"Hehe, I don't believe that the Pangu people are as' peace-loving and kind-hearted 'as you claim. Perhaps, the Pangu people implanted the idea that' Pangu is supreme and our leader 'into the heads of other carbon-based lives through brainwashing. Finally, the' Pangu Alliance 'was established with them as the core. Such a half-forced, half-deceitful country always had hidden problems. As time went by, the problems grew bigger and bigger. Both the Nuwa Clan and the Houyi Clan realized part of the truth one after another. Perhaps that was why the alliance of the Pangu Alliance fell apart and led to the primeval war!
"Since the alliance of the Pangu Alliance of Civilizations did not walk out through brainwashing, why do you think that we can? Will we not repeat their mistake?"
"You're smart, but you're too suspicious. Even if the Pangu people's motives were impure, it has nothing to do with the 'enlightenment technology'. The technology itself is neither good nor bad. It's like how a knife does not kill people. Whether it's good or bad depends on how human beings make use of it."
Wuying Qi seemed to have considered the question a long time ago and was not shaken by Li Yao at all. He simply said casually, "New technologies tend to go astray when they're just born. How can we deny the value of a new technology just because it's not mature enough?
"As for the destruction of the Pangu Alliance of Civilizations, we have to look at it dialectically. We have to learn the lessons of the Pangu people and discard the dross so that we can make greater successes on their failures.
"The past is the teacher of the future. Although the civilization of mankind today is far weaker than the Pangu civilization in the past, we have the greatest advantage, which is that we are standing on the shoulders of giants and do not have to walk on the dead ends that have been verified by them.
"What are 'dead ends'? The simplest example is that the Pangu people invented the 'enlightenment technology' a long time ago, but it is possible that a lot of people among them are as conservative and conservative as you. Fearing the power of the new technology, they did not develop the technology to the fullest. In the beginning, they only used it for simple communication among the carbon-based lives, and later, they used it to wash away the feelings, desires, and will of the people, turning them into empty pieces of paper without injecting anything new into them.
"They did that because they were scared by the universe beyond the universe and lost the will to evolve and the courage to move forward. They did not know what to inject into their heads at all.
"A person without bones is destined to be a pile of mud. A civilization without spirit is destined to be destroyed! If the Pangu people did not occupy the brain, the other monsters, such as the extraterrestrial devils, would. How can it be kept empty forever?
"Do you understand it now? The 'enlightenment technology' is not wrong per se. What is wrong is that the Pangu people only implemented half of it. They only 'cleaned' the wrong, complicated, and disordered thoughts and desires of their people but did not inject new, healthy, and positive thoughts and desires. The carbon-based lives that created the brilliant and glorious civilization in the past have all turned into walking dead. How can they not perish?
"It is the same for the people of the Holy League. They have excavated the most precious treasures in the universe and boasted technologies that are enough to change the universe, but they are completely bound by the 'Path of Ultimate Benevolence'. They only inject the worship for the Pangu civilization and the fear of the universe into their heads. They are just a bunch of duplicates, smaller-sized Pangu people who are destined to perish!
"However, my 'enlightenment' will not be abandoned just like that. Not only will I purge all the unhealthy and even evil thoughts in the heads of the traitors such as selfishness, insatiable greed, shortsightedness, cowardice, and so on, but more importantly, I will inject open, shining, and pure thoughts into them so that they will be polished into glittering beliefs and turned into real people, great warriors, and pure Immortal Cultivators!"
Li Yao's voice shivered. "Do you think I will believe that?"
"Why not? Imagine such a beautiful future — "
Narrowing his eyes, Wuying Qi waved his hands, and countless vivid holograms popped up from all directions again. In every picture, countless Immortal Cultivators who seemed sunny, passionate, tall, and handsome were either studying and working attentively or fighting in space fearlessly. However, their enemies were not human beings but hideous alien species that Li Yao had never seen before. It appeared that the picture meant that they had left the swamp of the tiny Pangu universe and were fighting for a vaster living space for the civilization of mankind in the vaster grand universe.
"I will not, nor do I have to, deprive everybody of their thoughts and their so-called 'free will'. Really, I will not change 95% of the parts in your heads. I will only perform a minor, harmless' thought surgery 'on the evil 5%. The dark, selfish, and evil parts will be removed and replaced by righteous, selfless, and noble thoughts. Then, the new ideas will be carved on the brain and even the soul so that nobody will ever forget them."
Wuying Qi went on, "After such a minor thought surgery, the Immortal Cultivators will still retain their original memories and selves, except that they will no longer be as selfish, short-sighted, cowardly, and dark as in the past. Instead, they will be able to summon their courage and loyalty and serve the entire civilization enthusiastically. They will abide by the rules of 'justice, fairness, and openness' that I have set up for the Imperium forever. Any dark thoughts that pop up in their heads will be destroyed by themselves immediately. Even when faced with the indescribable fears beyond the universe, they will fight bravely to the end!
"As for exactly how much they will change, it will depend on how corrupted they are. The more corrupted they are, the more they will be changed. Take you and General Lei Chenghu for example. You are determined and ambitious people in the first place. You won't even feel any change!
"You don't believe me? It doesn't matter. Listen to both sides. I am not a feudal monarch, and I don't have the final say. In the future, we can even establish an 'Enlightenment Committee' to gather the knowledgeable people from all walks of life to discuss the 'leading ideas' that will be inculcated into the people in the current year. It will be equivalent to the Education Committee and the textbook compilation team right now. By then, you can be one of the leaders of the committee and supervise the ideas that we will inculcate into the people's heads in person.
"Of course. Right now, the enemy is at our doorstep, and we are in an emergency. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and it is impossible for us to be overly cautious about democratic supervision. I'm sure you can understand that, right, Cultivator?"
"Enlightenment Committee?"
Li Yao almost bit his own tongue off. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"Do you think that I have a lot of time to joke with you? You have underestimated my breadth of mind, Li Yao. After learning the vastness and dangers of the grand universe, the competition between the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators has long become something that is not worth mentioning in my eyes. It's just the conflicts of children." Wuying sighed. "It's rare to find a scoundrel.
Wuying Qi sighed and said, "Scoundrels are common, but honest ministers are hard to come by. A thousand years ago, I was surrounded by scoundrels and scoundrels. Because of my negligence, I was flattered by them and did not carry out the reform to the end. In the end, I made a great mistake, and those scoundrels also expanded into beasts such as the four Kurfürst families. A thousand years later, I came back again and made up my mind not to make such a mistake again. I don't want any of those scoundrels. I only want an honest minister like you. Li Yao, you can totally keep your beliefs as a Cultivator and stay by my side as a mirror to help me know myself better.
"As for your country of Cultivators, is there any reason why I have to annihilate you? All the deepest contradictions between us, the competition between the paths of the Cultivators and the Immortal Cultivators, and how we should treat the ordinary people, are all caused by the scarcity of resources and the population explosion after all?
"As long as the scarcity of resources and the population explosion cannot be resolved, the contradictions will always exist, and there will always be Cultivators and Immortal Cultivators. Neither you nor I can change that.
"But if my plan works out, and we do jump out and find ten times or a hundred times more resources in the grand universe than we do right now, the contradictions between the superhumans and the ordinary people will be gone by then. The ordinary people that you have been thinking about will be able to live a godly life, and you can even give each of them a planet so that they can dominate. Then, is there any need for the Immortal Cultivators to exploit the ordinary people? Then, what contradictions do we have exactly? None. None at all!
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