Once upon a time, there was a mountain, a temple in the mountain, and a person in the temple. That person told a story. He said, "Once upon a time, there was a mountain." If Fan Xian's experience in the Temple continued to develop like this, without question, the people everywhere in the world who were eagerly waiting for him to live or die would be covered in many layers of cobwebs and then dragged to death.
Just like the world after the calamity, regardless of cause and effect or something else, it was impossible to always sink into a dull repetition. The rebirth of a civilization after its destruction could not be completely the same as before. Even the only remaining Temple in the world, at the beginning of humankind's second rise, began to endlessly send the seeds of the last civilization to humankind through the blindfolded emissary.
The most obvious change between the two worlds could not escape Fan Xian's eyes. After being reborn for more than 20 years, he meditated and practiced the Tyrannical martial method every day. In this year, he had also begun to sense the yuanqi that filled the world. This was the true difference. Human society seemed to have found a way to develop it. The meridians in the human body were clear proof of this change.
If the yuanqi in the world and the zhenqi in the human body belonged to the same path, then they were all traces left in the world after the calamity hundreds of thousands of years ago. They were traces left behind by nature. But, why did these traces not kill the humans living in them?
Using the explanation of the voice in the Temple, perhaps adapting to the environment and finding a certain point of balance and benefit in this adaptation was a tenacious characteristic that life itself possessed.
Thinking of this, Fan Xian couldn't help but feel a sense of loss. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he was speechless for a long time. In his heart, the civilization that he had thought was the most tenacious and impossible to extinguish was, in reality, the most fragile existence. However, the seemingly fragile life became the strongest and most fearless existence in the face of an iron-like reality.
Humans had adapted to this kind of environment. The newly grown plants and animals had also adapted to this environment. Fan Xian closed his eyes and thought carefully about everything he had seen and heard since his rebirth. He suddenly found that, regardless of whether it was humans or animals, they did not seem to have changed much because of the yuanqi that filled the world. This reality truly made him dumbfounded.
Although radiation was terrifying, in the long river of time, it was actually nothing more than a fresh and moving painting.
…
…
After an indeterminable amount of time, Fan Xian finally shook off this shock and confusion. The image on the smooth mirror in the air above the Temple had already left Dong Mountain and began to show all kinds of vivid images.
Some people were quietly hunting in the dense forest, some people were happily working in the fields, there were women smiling and washing clothes by the stream, there were children learning to walk clumsily on the kang bed. There was smoke, there were villages, there were cities, there were palaces, and naturally, there were disputes, wars, killings, and bloodshed.
The scene gradually slowed down, and scenes of martial arts cultivators appeared. They were either sitting on a lotus or spread out on a mountain peak, incomparably tenacious, eating and sleeping in the open. Over the years, they looked up at the sky and down at the sea, looking out at the wilderness, looking straight into the heart, breathing in the residual Qi of Heaven and Earth, exhaling the turbid Qi of the body, and finally one day, the martial arts of the continent gradually formed.
.
…
"Come, come, come …" Fan Xian felt that when he saw these scenes, he did not feel as if he was floating. It was all thanks to the solid foundation laid down by the Overwatch Council's education when he was young. Even so, after seeing the true scene of the land changing, his state of mind was still shaken. A bitter and strange smile rose to the corners of his lips. Facing the mirror in front of him, he called out in a raspy voice, "Tell me, since martial secrets and such things are cultivated by people, why are there so many powerful things in the Temple? He casually stole two books and created a few grandmasters in the world. "
Without waiting for the Temple to speak, Fan Xian coughed and rushed to say, "We have already talked to this point. Presumably, you have long analyzed my origins. Don't talk nonsense like it is some fairy technique left behind by the god realm."
The Temple was silent for a long time. Then, the voice calmly rang out again. "For countless years, the Temple has always observed the world. We will gather information and analyze it. Then, we will combine it with the unique characteristics of humans to carry out summaries and corrections. In the end, we have research results in a few directions."
So, this was the origin of the martial methods that his mother, Ye Qingmei, had secretly taken out of the Temple. However, thinking about it carefully, it made sense. If it was not for an extremely brilliant vision and methods, the Heart of countless sects that were not passed on to outsiders, and the vast amount of information to choose from, who in the secular world could be like the Temple and use countless years to carefully select these things?
"You have passed on many useful methods to the world." This was something that had appeared in the earlier images. Fan Xian would not erase the usefulness of this ruin for the passing on of civilization. He was silent for a moment and then said, "When opening up the wastelands, the Temple even directly sent out emissaries to help humans deal with giant beasts that were difficult to deal with. Later, they also passed on many skills to establish a foothold in the natural world. Why did you not directly pass on these methods to humans? Or, there must be a lot of information in the Temple. Why have you always hidden it?"
Speaking of this, he was finally close to the woman. Thinking of how his mother, Ye Qingmei's death could not be separated from the Temple, regardless of whether it was the martial methods that Ye Qingmei stole out of the Temple or the craftsmanship in the palace treasury that surpassed the natural development of human society, Fan Xian's heart chilled slightly. In a raspy voice, he stared at the mirror of light and faintly said, "Furthermore, you will break your own rules and chase after those people everywhere."
"There are no those people. There is only one person."
The Temple's voice remained calm. Perhaps it was because it still had not come to a definite conclusion about Fan Xian's analysis from the information and conversation, so the Temple's answer appeared particularly honest. "We are protectors. We are protecting the last spark of human civilization to sprout again. We want the remnant of humans to be able to live in this world again. This is our mission."
"The Temple will pass on some suitable skills and knowledge to the world, such as irrigation, rice, and martial arts skills. We will not try to forcefully influence everything in the world," Fan Xian suddenly said.
Fan Xian suddenly opened his mouth and said, "You say you are only a protector and not a controller, but you have cast the shadow of the Temple over the heads of humans for many years. Furthermore, you have always tried to plan a world you think is perfect according to your own imaginations."
His brows furrowed slightly. "It has been a thousand years. The Wei Kingdom has been founded for a thousand years. This world has not actually changed in any fundamental way."
The Temple's voice was silent for a long time. Then, for the first time, it used a rhetorical tone to say, "Is this not good?"
…
…
Was this good? Or was it not good? No one could say for sure. Fan Xian was a person with a sharp mind. From the letters in the Temple's voice, he had long clearly determined that although the Temple, or perhaps the last ruins of a previous civilization, still carried out the orders in its program, that great calamity and human self-destruction had, in the end, had an effect on its way of thinking.
He didn't know whether or not the Temple was an entity with its own consciousness. It was clear that the Temple had always calmly watched everything in the world, preventing human society from advancing toward a higher level of civilization. Perhaps, in its eyes, if civilization continued to advance along the old path, it would certainly welcome another fate of destruction.
Back then, Ye Qingmei had called the wind and summoned the rain in the world, driving the entire land's production and technology forward. Without question, she had already touched the Temple's bottom line. Thus, the Temple had chosen the Qing Emperor to be its spokesperson in the human world. It wanted to wipe out everything related to Ye Qingmei. However, the Temple's emissaries were already rare. Furthermore, they had died one after another at Uncle Wu Zhu's hands. It had no way of understanding or controlling them. The Qing Emperor was still using the palace treasury, and he, Ye Qingmei's bloodline, was still alive.
Fan Xian's mood calmed a great deal. He didn't think there was much meaning in being angry or sorrowful toward an existence similar to an artificial intelligence. He propped up his chin and was silent for a moment. He then said, "Regardless of whether it's good or bad, you are, in the end, interfering in the affairs of the human world. This is not quite right with your rules."
"The Temple does not care about the affairs of the human world. It has also never forcefully stopped the evolution of human civilization. We are only trying to correct this process. If there is an outside power that tries to forcefully speed up this process, we will certainly stop it."
The Temple's voice rang calmly and coldly through the entire building.
Fan Xian paused. Immediately after, he began to laugh. Because of his illness, his voice was already extremely raspy. Now, his laughter appeared particularly dry and strange. However, his laughter grew louder and louder, echoing endlessly through the empty building. In the end, he even laughed until tears came out. He couldn't resist lying back.
The mirror of light was smooth. The voice was quiet. The Temple did not seem to care why this strange traveler was laughing so wantonly in such a solemn place. It only waited calmly.
After an indeterminable amount of time, Fan Xian finally stopped laughing. Hiding on the icy cold ground, his expression was calm. His eyes stared straight at the ceiling of the building. After a moment of silence, he said, "You are used to calling yourself the Temple. It looks like after these hundreds of thousands of years, you really do think of yourself as a god."
No sound rang out in the Temple. Only the mirror of light floated in the air and flew to the top of his head. It unfurled again and began to show scenes from the end of the world. However, this time, the lens did not seem to be facing the grasslands and oceans. Instead, it was directly facing the people who had suffered endlessly.
Fan Xian furrowed his brows. He knew that the Temple wanted to use these images to carry out a wordless explanation. These soundless images were truly shocking, but he didn't want to see them. Straightforwardly, he said, "Turn it off. It's not like it's a true romantic painting."
The mirror of light floating in the air gradually restrained itself and lost its luster. It became a flat scroll. It moved from the two sides to the center and gradually closed the image. Following the disappearance of the last charred corpse, the mirror of light became a rod. Then, the figure of the old man floating in the light reappeared.
"I repeat, I am a guardian, not a god."
"If you are not a god, how can you have your own judgment and actions?" Fan Xian seemed to be a bit tired. The long conversation and the scenes of the river of time in front of him made him look a bit embarrassed. He put his hands behind his head and looked calmly at the old man floating above him. "You were created by humans, yet you have begun to control human development. What kind of program did this kind of behavior develop from?"
"The four laws of the Temple," Fan Xian replied calmly.
Fan Xian's tone was calm as he replied, "You are still used to calling yourself the Temple. This is the thing I cannot understand."
"The first law is that the Temple must not harm humans. It must also not stand by and watch as humans are harmed. The second law is that the Temple must obey all orders from humans, but it must not violate the first law. The third law is that the Temple must protect its own safety, but it must not violate the first and second laws … "
The Temple's voice had not finished when Fan Xian's brows furrowed again. He kept feeling that these three laws sounded familiar. However, there seemed to be a slight difference between the details and something he remembered.
"The zeroth law is that the Temple must protect the interests of humans as a whole and not be harmed. The other three laws are all established under this premise."
Fan Xian thought deeply for a long time and finally remembered where these familiar laws came from. They were the three laws of robotics that had appeared countless times in the novels and movies of his world. He suddenly thought of something he had not thought of for a long time, such as the handsome Xiaohei and the robot that was even more handsome than Xiaohei.
It seemed that in the world after his death or transmigration, when civilization had developed to a certain stage, Asimov's three laws had truly been used in reality. What made Fan Xian feel cold and fearful was the zeroth law that the Temple spoke of at the end.
Protect the interests of humans as a whole and not be harmed? The zeroth law that the Temple followed was this one? It looked like a glorious, correct, and great law, but Fan Xian easily found an unusually dangerous place in it.
It was because of the existence of this law that the Temple could faintly control the progress of human civilization. That was why, apart from ignoring the affairs of the world, it placed so much attention on Ye Qingmei, who had escaped from the Temple. In the end, it did not hesitate to violate the first and second laws and join hands with the Emperor to erase Ye Qingmei from the world.
The most important and terrifying word in the zeroth law was the so-called interests of humans as a whole. The problem was, who would determine the interests of humans as a whole? What kind of world environment and what kind of form of society would truly be in line with the interests of humans as a whole? In the Temple's view, if they followed the old path and walked step by step toward the peak of human civilization, the appearance of firearms and even more powerful weapons would only destroy all of human society. Naturally, they would feel that this was not in line with the interests of humans as a whole.
However, things like technological civilization, things that could make the lives of the poor people who worked hard in the fields and the refugees who sold their children better, could they never appear in this world? Fan Xian was not a person who believed in technology, but he still firmly believed that the people of the 21st century in that world would certainly live much more happily than the people of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Interests of humans as a whole? This was a chaotic and even absurd word. Could it be decided by an emotionless, non-human intelligence that perhaps rarely made mistakes? Fan Xian's face was slightly pale. He looked at the old man floating above his head and was silent for a long time. He then asked, "Where exactly are the interests of humans as a whole?"
The old man was also silent for a long time. He then said, "The Temple does not know, but the Temple knows that some paths cannot be taken."
"No wonder the last time the emissaries came ashore from the South, they killed so many innocent people along the way. If the three laws were truly effective, how could such a situation have occurred?" Fan Xian looked at the old man and said in a slightly trembling voice, "For the vague concept of the interests of the whole, you can do whatever you want. Don't you think this is very dangerous?"
"The Temple has methods of self-control. This is a kind of data judgment," the old man said calmly. "The Temple cannot just watch as humans walk down the old path."
"Should I thank you or scold you?" Fan Xian pushed himself up with his hands and sat up from the icy ground. His expression was perplexed. Slowly, he said, "Who created this d * mned zeroth law?"
"It wasn't created by a dog," the old man replied calmly. The old man from the Temple replied calmly, but he did not know that his reply sounded like an extremely cold joke. "When the Temple woke up, this law already existed."
"Because of this so-called zeroth law, you killed her." Fan Xian's face was pale. His dry lips moved slightly as he quietly muttered to himself. Gradually, his voice grew louder and louder. "Because of such a strange reason, you killed her. You killed her …"
"You killed her!" Too many complicated emotions rose in Fan Xian's eyes. He stared in a daze at the figure of the old man floating in the air. The pain seeped into his bones, yet he spoke lightly.
The old man's voice remained calm. "The Temple must protect the interests of the whole of humankind and not be harmed."
This was not the explanation the Temple gave Fan Xian regarding the matter of Ye Qingmei. It was just a repetition of this cold creed. Immediately after, the old man said to Fan Xian, "My three travelers, I am willing to accept you as believers of the Temple and emissaries of the Temple. You will represent the will of heaven to walk the vast world and protect the people of the land."
The tone of these words was clearly different from before. This was probably a passage the Temple's program had made up for itself. Thus, it appeared particularly ethereal. However, Fan Xian and the Temple had already spoken for so long, but the Temple's reaction was still so rigid.
It seemed that the old man now remembered that the young and weak human in front of him was not like other people. He continued, "Fellow traveler from the god world, please remember the zeroth law."
Following this, the old man sank into silence. The color of the face formed by the screen of light changed endlessly. It was as if he was carrying out a final judgment and thought. A moment later, the old man said, "In order to abide by the zeroth law, please remain in the Temple."
…
…
The three sentences represented the Temple's three programs. One by one, they were triggered. From the beginning of the recruitment of emissaries, it became a warning to Fan Xian and the final announcement to imprison Fan Xian in the Temple.
Fan Xian calmly listened to the three sentences and stood up. He did not appear nervous or afraid. Being imprisoned in this icy and snowy Temple and being crippled for the rest of his life was not a good future. Although the Temple's energy source was showing signs of drying up, presumably, there had to be some way to produce food. Otherwise, Ye Qingmei would not have been locked up for so many years.
However, Ye Qingmei, who was only four, could rely on Ku He and Xiao En to escape the Temple. Furthermore, Fan Xian had two companions waiting quietly outside. Fan Xian was not worried about anything. He just looked calmly at the old man in the air. After a moment of silence, he suddenly opened his mouth and said,
"Insults and threats are not true battles. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any need to get angry at an inanimate object like you," he said in a raspy voice. "It's useless for you to threaten me. For some reason, I keep having the urge to insult you."
"Son of a b * tch." Fan Xian spat out a mouthful of phlegm. It passed through the old man's floating, radiant clothes and landed with a splat on the ground.
Immediately after, he patted his buttocks and turned to walk toward the main door. He threw down a few words to the old man from the Temple. "You're just a ball of fireflies right now. How dare you pretend to be a flame monarch in front of me. I've already given you enough face by talking a few words with you, yet you want to lock me up for the rest of my life …"
Fan Xian walked all the way to the main door of the empty building. Nothing strange happened. The figure of the old man floating in the air only watched him leave quietly.
Placing his palm firmly on the mechanism to open the door, Fan Xian turned his head. Narrowing his eyes, he said in a cold voice, "I'm not afraid to tell you, I am Ye Qingmei's son. The wooden messengers in your temple have long been killed by my uncle. It's still the same old saying. Do your job as a guide with a good future. Don't always think about pretending to be some god."
Pausing for a moment, Fan Xian smiled coldly and said, "If you make me angry, I'll tear down your solar panels and go back to Danzhou to boil hot water for a bath. I'll tear down your mainframe and have my son kneel for a CPU. What are you trying to scare me for?"
The main door was pulled open abruptly. A world of ice and snow returned to his eyes. Fan Xian stepped out of the main door of the undamaged building. Narrowing his eyes, he greedily looked at the true scene in this world. He threw all the shocking scenes he had seen earlier to the back of his mind. He took a deep breath and roared loudly. His voice echoed through the entire snowy mountain and valley.
He didn't know where the Temple's weakness was, and he didn't want to take the risk. Ye Qingmei was such a stunning figure. She had successfully taken away the most valiant Uncle Wu Zhu in the Temple, yet she had never thought about destroying the Temple. She must have had her own considerations. The thought of revenge for Ye Qingmei, after seeing the changes in the world, had miraculously evolved into some other emotion, although it had not faded.
Most importantly, once Uncle Wu Zhu entered the Temple, he was unable to leave. This seemingly broken down place must have a truly terrifying aspect. Fan Xian appeared to be unbridled earlier because he knew that a dead object like the Temple could not have any unnecessary emotions such as holding a grudge against him venting. He just wanted to vent the bitterness in his heart.
After the echoing cries crashed into the snowy mountain countless times, they gradually weakened. Two figures swept past the stone platform in front of the building as quickly as possible and came to Fan Xian's side. They looked at him with nervous and worried gazes.
Fan Xian glanced at Haitang and Thirteenth Wang. With great difficulty, he pulled his lips into a smile. He did not plan on telling anyone everything he knew in the building because there was no need. He would let his one remaining enjoy the loneliness, pain, and helplessness alone.
"Did you find it?" Fan Xian asked.
Thirteenth Wang nodded. Only then did Fan Xian notice that he was carrying a large black chest on his back. His mood immediately became nervous. His pupils constricted slightly. Suddenly, he felt that he seemed to have missed something. In a raspy voice, he said urgently, "Get out of the temple!"
…
…
"Clear target one." The Temple's voice suddenly rang out from all directions. The elder's figure had long disappeared. The Temple was the Temple. It no longer wasted energy to form a human figure.
Following these four normal words ringing out through the empty temple, Thirteenth Wang suddenly felt the black chest on his back move.
With a crash, the black chest immediately disintegrated. A streak of black light flashed. A black metal drill pierced calmly and accurately into Fan Xian's body with an unimaginable speed.
Fan Xian's hand gripped the metal drill tightly in his body. Suddenly, he felt a sweetness in his mouth. He did not lower his head to look at the wound on his chest. Instead, he stared in a daze at the familiar face in front of him that would never grow old, as well as the unusually cold black cloth that covered the other person's eyes.
Fan Xian knew he had missed something. The emissaries of the Temple had indeed all died. The Temple itself did not have much defensive power. However, he had forgotten that his dearest Uncle Wu Zhu had always been the most powerful emissary in the Temple.
Wu Zhu was a legend, but he was a legend of the Temple.
Fan Xian looked at Wu Zhu's face and opened his mouth in disbelief. "If this gets out, even my mother won't believe it."
…
…
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
