Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Dumbfounded, Di Feiwen was at a loss for words.

His dilemmas had always gone unchallenged in the past. It had never occurred to him that they would be stalled by a bad, irritating joke!

Calming himself down, he sorted out his messy thoughts and said, “Where there is life, there is hope. Survival is what matters most! In any case, we must live on. We may be deformed and even end up as lackeys of the tigers, but so what? If we are alive, there will be hope for a comeback. Revenge is a dish best served cold. As long as we wait patiently and swallow all the humiliation, we will certainly be able to beat the tigers to death, and then we can always change back to what we used to be. Won’t that solve the problem?”

Looking at the flapping red flags below the mountain, Li Yao said softly, “No. A lot of mistakes can never be made up for once they are made, and many things can never change back to what they were once they are changed. Even if the ‘lackeys’ truly kill the tigers, they will only become the second tigers at most and will never become humans again.

“There are some things that are more important than survival, aren’t there? Let’s still take the example just now. Assuming that you are travelling with your children in the wilderness and you encounter a tiger, you will have two choices.

“Firstly, you can stand in the tiger’s way, shouting, kicking, and attracting the tiger’s attention. You can even charge forward and fight the tiger bravely, trying to buy more time for your children to run away. But they are too little to run away. After you are eaten up by the tiger, they will also be killed one after another.

“In other words, everything you do will be futile. The best you can do is make your family die with dignity.

“Secondly, you abandon your wife and your children and run first. You can even throw your children at the bloody maw of the tiger. As an adult, your speed is higher. While the tiger is enjoying the delicate flesh of your children, there is a one percent likelihood that you may survive.

“According to the so-called ‘rationality’ of the Immortal Cultivators, naturally, the second choice ensures the greatest good for the entire team. After all, everything is unlikely to survive in the first place. It is perfectly reasonable to make your children make contributions by helping you gain a slim chance of living.

“However, ask yourself this. If you make the second choice and send your children into the tiger’s mouth to get yourself more time, will you ever be able to become who you were?

“Even if you discover a primeval relic after surviving the tiger where you pick up marvelous arts, allowing you to slay a thousand or ten thousand tigers in the wilderness, before you find a hundred beautiful women to give you hundreds of children, will you go back to who you were? Will you still be the same as the past?”

This time, it was Di Feiwen who was lost for words.

Li Yao smiled and said, “Besides, the odds of surviving the tiger can’t be as high as one percent. As you put it just now, the universe is a boundless dark forest, frequented by countless tigers, vipers, scorpions, and other ferocious beasts. Even if you escape from a tiger’s attack though such a vile method, there’s a ninety-nine percent likelihood that you will immediately run into an even more brutal and terrifying monster, isn’t there?

“If you think about it, it will be extremely easy to conclude that compared to the short history of mankind and the three thousand Sectors that we have explored, the whole universe is close to infinity in terms of both time and space.

“In the infinite time and space, countless magnificent beings that are too strong for us to resist or even imagine must’ve been born. They are not deities and devils; they are the creators of deities and devils, or the creators of the creators of deities and devils!

“For any civilization, eventual destruction is a highly probable event. The hope of ‘eternity’ is so slim that it borders on zero.

“Then, what’s the use of you changing yourselves humbly and humiliatingly, demeaning yourselves to be lackeys, animals, cockroaches, and locusts? Can you escape from the dark forest and live an eternal life if you do that?

“You can’t. Faced with the boundless universe, we are like the ordinary people faced with a tiger in the wilderness. We will die if we fight. We will die if we run away. We will die if we curse it at the top of our voice. We will still die if we sh*t ourselves and even send our children to the animal dutifully. Since we are all going to die anyway, why don’t we choose to die with dignity?

“Let’s just take the Imperium of True Human Beings for example, which has turned itself into such a hideous country under the guidance of the true path of immortality. But so what? Does it help? After a thousand years of fighting, you haven’t even finished a minor Alliance of the Holy Covenant yet. The future of the country is gloomy!

“Even if you do defeat the Alliance of the Holy Covenant, you may be faced with the dual threats of the Pangu Civilization and the extraterrestrial devils. Even if you deform yourselves and transform yourselves into ‘iron cockroaches’ that are completely different from mankind of the past, allowing you to crush the Pangu Civilization and the extraterrestrial devils, then what?

“The universe is infinite, and there will be countless stronger forces and beings. The day will come when a godly civilization that even ‘iron cockroaches’ cannot take care of. It will erase you completely in the most casual way!”

Di Feiwen’s eyes lost focus, and he thought in a daze for a long time. Taking a long breath, he said, “I thought that you did not understand the darkness of the universe. I was terribly wrong. It never occurred to me that you are even more pessimistic than the Immortal Cultivators. You have almost seen the deepest darkness of the universe.

“The Immortal Cultivators still hope to struggle and strive to change ourselves by following the law of the universe so that we can live on in the cruel world.

“I didn’t know that you had even completely abandoned the slim hope and lost all desire to survive. All you are thinking of is how to die a heroic death. I really… don’t know how I should comment on that.”

“You’re wrong again.” Li Yao smiled, baring his white teeth. “Of course, the Cultivators can see the darkness of the universe, but we can also see the flickering light hidden in the darkness. Although eventual destruction is a highly probable event, it is possible that our path will last longer than your true path of immortality!”

“Oh?” Di Feiwen’s eyes glittered. “Where is the light from?”

“In the past,” Li Yao said, “I was once caught in the impasse of the so-called ‘dark forest’, too, and thought that it was practically impossible to crack the trap. ‘Ordinary people’ such as us are unlikely to survive since we are travelling in the wilderness teeming with tigers.

“However, when I thought of the joke about dying with dignity, I suddenly had a vague epiphany.

“Who says that we are walking alone in the dark forest, surrounded by only ‘tigers’? No. The universe is vast, but we are not alone!”

Di Feiwen narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand…”

“It’s simple. The metaphorical ‘tigers’ refer to the alien civilizations that are stronger than the civilization of mankind and are malicious enough to destroy us, right?” Li Yao said in excitement. “However, who says that the alien civilizations must be wolves, leopards, lions, or other monsters that are determined to destroy us?

“Yes. According to the law of survival of the fittest in the dark forest, the alien civilizations are supposed to destroy or enslave us in order to exterminate the threat of a chance of one billionth while it is still in cradle.

“But what if they want to die with dignity, too?

“Look. If they are civilizations that are far stronger and more advanced than us, their logical thinking abilities must be much higher than ours, right? Then, if even I have realized that death is inevitable no matter how we struggle and we might as well die a dignified and valiant death while maintaining our original appearance and most precious beliefs, how could those civilizations have never thought of it?

“If a highly-developed civilization decides to die with dignity, it will possibly extend olive branches of friendship and communication to all directions to edify, help, and protect the weaker civilizations. Then, it will not be a tiger but a teacher and a comrade that we can trust and fight side by side with.

“There must be thousands of civilizations in the boundless universe. If only one or two of them decide to die with dignity, they will naturally be swallowed by the darkness around them soon. But if ten, a hundred, ten thousand civilizations all choose to die with dignity, to communicate with and help each other instead of attacking one another, it is possible that none of us will die. It is possible that we will drive away the darkness of the universe and fill it with light, isn’t it?”

Di Feiwen eyed Li Yao as if he were mentally disabled.

Ignoring him, Li Yao went on even more passionately. “The civilization of mankind is still too weak right now, and it is practically impossible for us to burn down the entire dark forest on our own. But I do not believe that we are fighting alone or that we are the only civilization who consider that ‘dignity’ is more important than ‘survival’. Or rather, in my definition, so-called civilizations are established to protect something that is more important than survival!

“Perhaps, in places where our eyes can’t reach, the dark forest is already on fire. What we need to do is join the team of ‘arsonists’ and ignite the most critical spark to make the fire spread to an uncontrollable extent. Who says that it is not a possibility?

“Of course, if there is indeed such an alliance of arsonists made of universal civilizations who hope to ‘die with dignity’, it must require certain conditions to join the alliance. At the very least, I don’t think that the Immortal Cultivators will be qualified to be members of the alliance if you continue evolving in the direction of ‘iron cockroaches’ and ‘armed locusts’.

“This is what I want to express, no matter how much you roll your eyes. I don’t care about what you think. All in all, I will just walk down my path and carry out the ideology of the Cultivators until we march out of the three thousand Sectors of the civilization of mankind and reach a greater, vaster universe where we will find ‘arsonists’ and show them the dignity and pride of mankind. We will tell them that even if we are far inferior to them in terms of strength and technology, our minds are as powerful and noble as theirs. When our eventual destruction comes, we will also protect the things we value most with all our courage, wisdom, and resolution and fight until the end valiantly!”