I'm Trapped in the Block

Chapter 440: Chapter 437: God and Tea

At this question, the alarms in Old Xu’s mind suddenly blared.

His sense of danger suddenly spiked, then plummeted, like a roller coaster—up and down, bizarrely erratic.

Old Xu had never encountered such a strange phenomenon. The hand holding his teacup began to tremble, and he quickly set it down. He picked up a nearby towel and gently wiped the table, a small act to hide his inner turmoil.

He agonized over his choice of words, various arguments surfacing in his mind.

Discussions about God from classical antiquity surfaced, as did the standard arguments of modern atheism. Old Xu wanted to quote the sages, to give the strange creature before him a proper explanation. But as the words reached his lips, he felt that anything he might say would be wrong.

Something was always missing.

After drinking cup after cup of tea, Old Xu’s thoughts gradually cleared.

”Humanity needs a god.”

Old Xu blurted out.

The moment he spoke those words, his sense of danger reached its peak.

But he suppressed his discomfort and quickly changed tack.

”But not one that provides everything.”

The danger level dropped again.

He wiped away his sweat and posed a question to the Waterman. ”Let me give you an analogy. Humanity needs fire. Where does fire come from?”

”We humans have a myth about a god named Prometheus, who stole fire for mankind. This fire drove away the darkness, gave us cooked food, and ushered humanity into the age of civilization.”

”Having such a ’Fire Thief’ to bring light to humanity is, of course, a good thing,” Old Xu said earnestly.

As he spoke these words, the danger level began to rise again.

”But!” Old Xu changed his tack once more.

”Humanity doesn’t actually need a Fire Thief, and that myth isn’t real...”

”In the beginning, humans found fire in forests struck by lightning. Then they collected the embers and built the first bonfire. The gift of fire didn’t come from a god. Later, humans discovered that heating flammable materials would cause them to combust.”

”Making fire by drilling wood or striking flint—these earliest methods laid the foundation of human civilization. They were also humanity’s first explorations of ’fire’ itself.”

”Burning wood, burning coal, boiling water, splitting atoms... human civilization was built upon this exploration of ’fire.’ Our knowledge itself is a result of studying how things burn.”

”If a god had simply given us fire, we would have just enjoyed it. Why would we have studied its source? And if a god had done that, human civilization would never have reached its current level.”

The more Old Xu spoke, the more fluently the words came, and his internal danger level slowly dropped back to a normal range.

Seeing this, Old Xu decided to press his advantage.

”A god only needs to exist as a symbol, offering psychological comfort. They don’t need to do anything...”

As Old Xu continued his explanation, the danger level slowly fell to normal. He decided to stop there. He watched the Waterman, awaiting its response.

”If gods are useless, why have them at all?”

”Why must they be useful?” Old Xu shot back. ”Doesn’t this world have things that exist without any inherent purpose?”

Old Xu’s words seemed to strike a heavy blow against the Waterman.

”I understand...”

”But what about the humans trapped in misery, who sincerely pray to a god for their wishes? Shouldn’t a god grant them?” the Waterman asked, and the danger level began to rise again.

Old Xu was on high alert. ”What kind of misery?” he asked cautiously.

”Old age, sickness, death, hunger, thirst, plague, war...” With every word the Waterman spoke, the danger level ticked up.

”Stop!” Old Xu quickly cut the Waterman off. His mind raced, and he soon found a suitable argument.

”Let me give you an example. In a desert, there are two people dying of thirst. One prays to a god for a fresh spring, and the other prays for a wad of cash. Which one should the god help?”

”The fresh spring,” the Waterman blurted out.

”Then the god is unfair,” Old Xu stated bluntly.

”In a brutal war, one side has ten thousand people praying for victory, while the other side has twenty thousand. Which side does the god help?” Old Xu asked.

”A god would compare the aggregate strength of the wishes...” the Waterman replied.

”The god is unfair,” Old Xu repeated.

”Consider an elderly, wealthy man who has never prayed in his life. But at the age of eighty, he makes a single wish for his family’s safety and well-being. At the same time, a five-year-old child makes the exact same wish before a statue of a god.”

”Furthermore, at the very moment the child is praying, his father is at the hospital, receiving his child’s terminal diagnosis. He breaks down sobbing. With no money for treatment, his only thought is to kidnap the wealthy old man. And so, he too prays to a god for his family’s safety and well-being.”

”Of these three people, whose wish should the god grant?”

After he asked this question, Old Xu noticed the danger level had frozen completely. It wasn’t moving at all.

”The child?”

”Then the old rich man will die.”

”Can’t they all be fulfilled?” The Waterman suddenly began to question itself.

”The father’s kidnapping fails. He returns to the hospital and discovers the nurse mixed up the diagnoses; the child isn’t sick at all. That way, all three have a happy ending...” the Waterman replied after a moment of thought.

”The nurse has been a diligent employee for over a decade,” Old Xu added. ”She just recently made a wish for a promotion and a raise. Now, after making such a huge mistake, she gets mercilessly chewed out by her supervisor, and her hopes for a promotion are dashed.”

The Waterman considered this. ”Then we’ll find another way...”

But before the Waterman could finish, Old Xu cut it off.

”Don’t you get it yet? A god can’t be fair. If you grant wishes based on the degree of suffering, you’ll be trapped in a never-ending cycle. Fulfilling one person’s wish will inevitably cause another to suffer.”

The Waterman froze. It stared blankly at the tea. Pale dregs of tea leaves had settled at the bottom, leaving the liquid above perfectly clear. The world, it realized, was inherently uneven, and suffering always settled at the bottom.

It picked up the teacup and swirled it. The dregs rose from the bottom, clouding the liquid. The tea became a chaotic mess as dark flecks of leaves drifted everywhere. Some clung to the walls of the cup, others floated on the surface.

The Waterman kept swirling the cup, trying to make the dregs distribute themselves evenly, but it was impossible.

But it refused to accept this. A dazzling golden light flared from its body, enveloping the teacup.

Under the golden light, all the dark tea dregs dissolved instantly. Yet, tiny black specks remained suspended in the water, refusing to disappear. The golden light surged again, targeting the specks.

It wanted to completely eliminate all the world’s inequalities.

Old Xu sat to the side, silent, quietly watching the overflowing golden light.

Finally, through the Waterman’s tireless efforts, the tea became perfectly clear.

But the original color of the tea was gone as well.

All that remained in the cup was clear water.