Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Looking at the ill and devastated child, Li Yao could not help but feel sorrowful.

The Fist King continued projecting the third paragraph of last words, which belonged to a skinny man whose big eyes were filled with sadness.

“…Today is March 4th, 1855. This is Shelter 668. Yesterday, our last companion left this world. I am the only living man in the shelter right now.

“The air circulation system has been seriously damaged. The food has been used up, too. Whatever’s left of my life can only be measured by ‘minutes’ now. In a certain number of ‘minutes’, this shelter will become a dead tomb, which will probably not be discovered in the next thousand years. Let’s hope so!

“In the past half a year, I sorted and gathered the journals and last words of everyone in the shelter. Together with the books, jade chips, and crystal processors we brought from the ground, I preserved them in a vacuum.

“The documents have recorded the brilliance and glory of our civilization in the past, as well as the arrogance of us Cultivators, who considered ourselves the guardians of the civilization, and the unpardonable mistakes we made behind the brilliance and glory.

“I hope that somebody will see everything in a thousand years and realize how naïve, childish, blind, hypocritic, and idiotic the Cultivators in the past were, and how zealous, ignorant, violent, and easily manipulated the mass were.

“I hope—I hope that people in the future will not make the same mistake that the Martial Meritocrats Sector made, but I hope more that you will not walk on the opposite side and become monsters like the Immortal Cultivators.

“I hope that Cultivators will still exist in the world in a thousand years, ones who are more intelligent, wise, and rational than us. Then, they will lead the seemingly zealous, ignorant, and violent people to resolve the problems that we did not have enough wisdom and courage to resolve so that they will struggle to walk on in the darkness of the universe.

“However zealous, idiotic, ignorant, selfish, and evil they may be, there is still hope for human beings, right? Right…”

The last Cultivator a thousand years ago mumbled. His voice became more and more feeble, and the picture gradually faded out.

The Fist King opened his fingers, extending five crystal wires from his palm into the data transmission holes on Li Yao’s back to transmit the journals and last words of all the Cultivators, Chiyou cultists, and ordinary people in the underground sanctuary.

Li Yao immediately sensed the joy and sorrow of countless people, the struggle of countless souls in darkness and desperation, and their repentance.

Han Te and Liu Li held their hands and loosened them again and again. In the end, they held each other’s hands and declared solemnly, “Yes. In any case, we will never become Immortal Cultivators. Never!”

Calming himself down, Li Yao pondered for a moment and asked, “So, was Wei Longtao speaking the truth?”

“99.5% of what he said must be true,” the Fist King said. “However, he seems to be overenthusiastic about my current iron body. He has been beating around the bush to ask me how I managed to escape from my doom and how the body was created. He does not seem convinced that I could have crafted such a perfect slaughter machine. Of course, his guess is correct. It’s true that I can’t.”

Li Yao was somewhat alarmed. “This is a very important mission. Since we have gotten involved in it, it is only natural for him to want to figure out every detail. He can’t be too prudent.”

“If he were prudent, he shouldn’t have rescued us at such great risk,” the Fist King analyzed rationally. “Even if he did risk saving us, there was no need for him to bring us to the secret base where dozens of ‘earthly dragons’ have been gathered. If the Immortal Cultivators were to trace us back to this place, wouldn’t all of them be fished up?

“He could have asked Zuo Jingyun to drill her earthly dragon into a wasted mine thousands of kilometers away for careful scrutiny and vetting. In that case, even if the Immortal Cultivators discovered our tracks, the loss would only be Zuo Jingyun’s earthly dragon. Do you not feel that it should’ve been the most normal approach for a commander of a secret resistance organization?”

Li Yao’s soul rippled out. He finally understood why he vaguely felt ill at ease at the beginning.

The Fist King was right. Wei Longtao’s decision was reckless.

If the commander of ‘Starlight’ in the Land of Sins was such a straightforward iron-blooded general, it would have been impossible for the organization to persist to this day under the relentless assault of Manjusaka.

The man was reckless in the major decisions but prudent in the minor details. He had also appeared at the best and most critical moment. What kind of truth was hidden behind all the anomalies?

“Also, he seems particularly interested in Han Te and Liu Li,” the Fist King said casually. “More precisely speaking, he is very interested in you.”

“Me?” Li Yao’s soul was disturbed, and his computational ability soared.

“He mentioned Han Te and Liu Li incidentally and asked if they were my family and whether their spiritual puppet and beast puppet, referring to your two clones, were produced by me,” the Fist King said. “Although he pretended to be casual, I sensed that something was not right from the constrictions of his facial muscles and his pupils.”

“You did not tell him who I really was, right?” The more Li Yao thought about it, the weirder it felt.

“Of course not,” the Fist King said calmly. “After careful analysis for a long time, I feel that my secrets are likely to have been exposed. But I do not want another spiritual puppet with such advanced automatic learning and upgrading functions to be discovered by the City in the Sky. By my calculation, keeping your secrets will improve the odds of blowing up Manjusaka so that I will have a greater likelihood to be stronger!”

Li Yao did not know how he should explain himself to make the Fist King believe that he was not his own kind.

Right then, the chains outside rang again. The magnificent shadow of Zuo Jingyun, the one-armed female warrior, blocked the light from the entrance of the cave.

Li Yao hurried to retreat his telepathic thoughts and the brightness inside his eyes, disguising both the Tarantula and Fiend Star as regular puppets.

The Fist King’s man-made eyes flashed. Looking at her, he asked, “Conductor Zuo, did Commander Wei send you here?”

Zuo Jingyun was slightly dazed. Her cold metal arm was carrying two fluffy quilts, and her right hand was holding some food and simple medicine. Nodding, she said, “Yes. Commander Wei asked me to check if you needed anything. I thought that the cave might be too dark and damp for the two little fellows’ bodies, so I decided to bring two quilts for you.”

“We are not ‘little’ at all!”

Hiding behind the Fist King, Liu Li grabbed the Fist King’s dented fist and craned her head out from behind the Fist King’s arm. Summoning her courage, she said, “Han Te and I are brave warriors, too. We will be heroes and Cultivators in the future!”

“You want to be Cultivators, too?” Zuo Jingyun chuckled in astonishment. Illuminated under the dim light, the contours of her face somehow became gentle. As long as she was not faced with the ferocious bandits and thugs, she did not seem as taciturn and unapproachable as they thought.

She helped the two little fellows make their beds and opened the food boxes, revealing the hot, synthesized food inside. Naturally, it did not taste as good as the pure natural ingredients that the Fist King treated them to the previous night, but it did smell delicious enough.

“You are hurt. Come here. Let me clean your injury for you.”

She beckoned Liu Li over, but then she seized Liu Li impatiently and pressed her on her round and healthy legs. Smiling casually, she asked, “Do you even know what a ‘Cultivator’ is when you are talking your nonsense? I’m rather curious. You are obviously from the Desolate Worlds. How on earth did you become an acquaintance of the Fist King, the most dreadful bandit in the Land of Sins? Neither Liberty City nor the underground world is a place that little guys like you should visit.”

“I said that we are not ‘little’!” Liu Li struggled hard on Zuo Jingyun’s leg. Blushing, she argued, not convinced at all, “Of course we know what a ‘Cultivator’ is. My mother was a Cultivator!”

“Is that so?” Zuo Jingyun stopped applying the medicine to the girl’s arm. The frost on her face completely melted, and she asked with great interest, “What’s her story?”

Liu Li looked at Han Te and, biting her lips, told her origins exactly as it was, but naturally hiding the parts where Li Yao was involved. She only said that Han Te and her were both gifted puppeteers, and ‘Fiend Star’ and the ‘Tarantula’ were the best battle puppets in the village.

“My mother entrusted the mission to plant the Gold Barley to my father before she passed away, and the mission has been passed on from my father to me. Look. They are the seeds of the Gold Barley that I have been carrying with me. One day, I will grow the Gold Barley all over the land so that everybody’s stomach will be filled!”

Liu Li presented the Gold Barley very proudly and sent it before Zuo Jingyun’s nose. She said, “Sister Yun, do you think that my parents are qualified to be called ‘Cultivators’?”

Zuo Jingyun did not expect that the two little fellows had such a background. Staring at the can of Gold Barley seeds for a long time in a daze, she said thoughtfully, “That’s right. I was told by someone in the organization that we indeed sent some warriors to travel in the Land of Sins and disseminate the ideology of the Cultivators a long, long time ago, hoping to make the flowers of hope blossom in the most barren deserts.

“However, such a practice was too dangerous. Many fellow Cultivators were discovered and captured by Manjusaka. Even if they weren’t, they were mostly taken by the sinners in the Land of Sins for idiots or lunatics. Because of the unsatisfactory result, the practice slowly came to an end.

“I did not know that the seeds we planted in the past really flowered and fruited. How beautiful the seeds of the Gold Barley are.”

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath of the fragrance, she looked at the two little fellows in a completely different way when she opened her eyes again.

“Of course your father and your mother are qualified to be called Cultivators. I believe that the two of you will grow into awesome Cultivators in the future, too!”