Chapter 147 – Radiant Style Paintings as well as Legends

Once upon a time there was a mountain, and in the mountain there was a temple, and in the temple there was a man, and the man told a story, and he said, Once upon a time there was a mountain …… If Fan Xian’s experience in the temple had gone on like this, there is no doubt that those people who were waiting with baited breath for him to survive or die in every part of the world would have been covered in many layers of cobwebs and dragged to their deaths alive.

Just like the world after that great catastrophe, whether it was karma or something else, it was impossible to stay stuck in a boring repetition, the rebirth of a civilization after its destruction could not produce exactly the same appearance as the first time, even if the only remaining temple in this world, at the beginning of the second sprouting of mankind, began to continuously transmit to mankind the seeds of the last civilization, through the blindfolded emissary.

The most obvious change between the two worlds naturally could not escape Fan Xian’s eyes, having been reborn for more than twenty years, meditating and practicing the Hegemony Kung Fu Technique day in and day out, and then beginning to sense those Yuan Qi that filled heaven and earth in this year, this was the real difference, human society seemed to have sought a means of development, and the meridians within the body of a human being were the clear proof of this change.

If those Yuan Qi between heaven and earth, as well as the True Qi within the human body, belong to the same path, are all traces left in the world after the great calamity hundreds of thousands of years ago, those traces after being balanced by nature, then why did these traces not cause the death of the human beings who lived in the middle of it?

Using the explanation of the voice in the temple, perhaps adapting to the environment and finding some kind of balance and benefit in this adaptation is the tenacious characteristic of life itself.

Thinking about this, Fan Xian could not help but feel confused, sitting on the ground, unable to speak for a long time. In his heart, he thought that the civilization which was the most tenacious and most unlikely to be extinguished was in fact the most fragile existence, while the life which seemed to be the most fragile became the strongest and the most fearless existence in front of the ironic facts.

Humans adapted to this environment, and the plants and animals that grew back up adapted to it as well. Fan Xian closed his eyes and thought carefully about what he had seen and heard since he was reborn, and was shocked to find that both humans and animals did not seem to have too many mutations due to the Yuan Qi that filled the sky and the earth, a fact that really made him a bit stupefied.

It seemed that although the radiation was horrible, in the long stretch of time, it was actually nothing more than a refreshing and moving picture of flavor.

I don’t know how long it took before Fan Xian was able to shake himself out of this mood of shock and confusion, and by this time, the images on the smooth light mirror in the air of the temple had also left the Great Eastern Mountains and began to present all sorts of vivid images.

There were people quietly hunting in the dense forest, people cheerfully working in the fields, women laughing and washing clothes by the stream, young children learning to walk clumsily in their beds, smoke from the cooking fires, villages, city-states, palaces, and naturally, strife, wars, killings, and bloodshed.

The picture gradually slowed down, appeared a scene of martial arts practitioners practicing the scene, or sitting in a lotus flower, or scattered plate on the mountain top, tough and unparalleled, the wind, food and shelter, years and years, on the dome of the sky under the sea, outside the view of the four fields directly point to the heart, call the world’s yuan qi residue, spit in the body of the turbid breath, the end of the day, the continent of the martial arts gradual completion.

“Come come …… “Fan Xian think this day he saw these images, basically has not yet given birth to the feeling of floating immortal, is really thanks to the young inspector general’s institute education to lay a solid enough foundation, but forgive me, after looking at the continent changes the real scene, he After all, he was still a bit shaken, the corners of his lips spread a bitter and inexplicable smile, and called out to the light mirror in front of him with a sandy voice: “Tell me, since the secrets of the martial arts are all cultivated by the world itself, why are there so many powerful things in the temple? Stealing two books out at random has created several great masters in the world.”

Not waiting for the divine temple to open its mouth to speak, Fan Xian coughed twice and preempted, “It’s already come to this, I’m sure you’ve already analyzed where I came from, so don’t say that it’s some kind of immortal art left over from the divine realm or any other nonsense like that.”

The temple was quiet for a long time, then that voice once again sounded calmly, “For countless years, the temple has been observing the world, we would collect information, analyze it, and then with the biological characteristics of humans themselves, we would summarize and correct it, and finally got the research results in several directions.”

It turned out that the several techniques that were secretly brought out of the temple by mother Ye Qingmei, was actually such an origin, but thinking about it, it was also right, if there was not an extremely high level of vision and means, as well as countless genres of secretive mind techniques, grand as a sea of information to be selected, in the secular world, who could be like the temple of the gods, with countless years, only to be handpicked to become such a few things.

“You have passed on many useful dharmas to the world.” This was something that had long appeared in the earlier image, and Fan Xian would not dismiss the efficacy of this site for the inheritance of civilization, as he said after a moment of silence, “During the opening up of the barbaric wilderness, the divine temple even sent out direct emissaries to help mankind deal with the intractable behemoths, and later on, it also passed down many of the skills used to gain a foothold in the natural world… …Why didn’t you pass these techniques directly to humans, or rather, there must be a lot more information in the temple, so why have you been hiding it all this time?”

At this point in the conversation, finally on the verge of approaching that woman, thinking that his mother Ye Qingmei’s death was inseparable from the temple, whether it was Ye Qingmei stealing out the temple’s kung fu techniques or those crafts in the inner vault that exceeded the natural level of development of human society, Fan Xian’s heart chilled slightly, and his voice was hoarse as he stared at that mirror of light and said quietly, “And it would be to break your own rules and go around chasing after those people.”

“There are no those people, there is only one.” The temple’s voice remained calm, perhaps because his analysis of Fan Xian from the information and conversations had never come to a solid conclusion, the temple’s reply seemed extraordinarily honest, “We are the guardians, we guard the last embers of human civilization from sprouting once again, and we want to make it so that the remnants of mankind can once again survive in this world, this is our mission. ”

“The temple will spread some appropriate skills and knowledge to the world, such as water conservancy, such as rice, such as martial arts skills, but we will not try to forcefully influence everything in the world.”

Fan Xian suddenly spoke, “You say that you are only the guardians and not the manipulators, but you have kept the shadow of the temple over the heads of humanity for so many years now, and you have been trying to plan a world that you think is perfect according to your own vision.”

His brow furrowed slightly, “It’s been a thousand years, a thousand years since the founding of the Great Wei Dynasty, and the world hasn’t really changed in any essential way.”

The voice from the temple was silent for a long, long time before saying for the first time in a rhetorical tone, “Is this not good?”

Is this good? Or is it not good? Who could say clearly. Fan Xian was a person with an extremely sharp mind, and from those messages in the temple’s voice, he had long ago judged very clearly that the temple, or the last ruins of the previous generation’s civilization, although still carrying out the instructions in the program, that great catastrophe, the self-destruction of mankind, had ultimately had an impact on its way of thinking.

It was not known whether the temple was an autonomous individual or not, but it was obvious that the temple had been calmly watching everything in the world, preventing human society from moving towards a higher level of civilization, perhaps in its view, if the civilization followed the old path, then it would surely usher in the end of another destruction.

Ye Qingmei was in the world, driving the productivity and technology of the entire continent upward, no doubt has touched the bottom line of the temple, so the temple will choose Qingdi as its spokesman on earth, to wipe out everything related to Ye Qingmei. It was just that the temple’s emissaries had ultimately been very scarce and had died one after another at the hands of Uncle Wuzhu, and it had no way of understanding as well as controlling the fact that Emperor Qing was still utilizing the inner treasury, and that he himself, Ye Qingmei’s bloodline, was still alive.

Fan Xian’s mood calmed down a lot, and he didn’t see much point in being angry or sad at an AI-like being. He propped his jaw in silence for a moment before saying, “Whether it’s good or bad, but you’re ultimately meddling in the affairs of the human world, which doesn’t quite fit with your rules.”

“The Temple of God will not pay attention to the affairs of the human world, nor has it ever forcefully stopped the evolution of human civilization, we are only trying to correct the process, but if an outside force tries to forcefully speed up the process, we will definitely stop it.”

The temple’s voice resounded calmly and indifferently throughout the entire building.

Fan Xian was stunned at first, and then laughed immediately afterward. His voice was already hoarse to the point of being unbearable due to his illness, and at this time, his laughter was even more dry and strange, and on the contrary, his laughter grew louder and louder, echoing endlessly in the empty building, until finally he even burst into tears from his laughter, and he couldn’t help but lie down towards the back.

The mirror of light was smooth, the sound was quiet, the temple didn’t seem to care about this strange traveler, why he was laughing uncontrollably in such a solemn place, it just waited calmly.

I don’t know how long it took before Fan Xian finally stopped laughing, hiding on the cold ground with a calm expression, his eyes staring straight up at the ceiling of this building, and after a moment of silence, he said, “You’re used to calling yourself a divine temple, so it seems that after all these hundreds of thousands of years have passed, you really do think of yourself as a god.”

No sound rang out from the temple, only that the light mirror hovered in the air and flew above his head, unfolding once again, and the scenes from the End Times Cataclysm began to appear once again, only this time the lens did not seem to be directed at those grassland oceans, but rather, it was directly in front of those who had suffered endless hardships.

Fan Xian’s brows furrowed, knowing that the temple was trying to use these images for a wordless explanation. These silent images were really a bit shocking, but he didn’t want to look at them and simply said, “Turn it off, it’s not like it’s a real flavor painting.”

The light mirror suspended in the air gradually converged and lost its luster, turning into a flat scroll, leaning from the two sides to the center, gradually closing the picture, and with the disappearance of the last glance of the charred corpse, the light mirror turned into a stick, and then the old man, who floated and sank among the points of light, reappeared.

“Repeat, I am a Guardian, and not a god.”

“If you’re not a god, how could you possibly possess your own judgment as well as behavior?” Fan Xian seemed to be a bit tired, the long conversation and the images of the long river of time in front of him made him look a bit embarrassed by his burden. He rested his hands on the back of his head, calmly looking at the old man suspended above him, and asked, “You were created by mankind, and now you’ve begun to control mankind’s development, based on what kind of program did this behavior develop?”

“The Four Laws of the Temple.”

Fan Xian responded in a calm tone, “You’re still in the habit of calling yourself a divine temple, which is the thing I can’t understand the most.”

“The first law, a divine temple shall not harm humans, nor shall it stand idly by when it sees humans being harmed. Second law, the temple shall obey all orders from humans, but shall not violate the first law. Third law, the temple shall protect its own safety, but shall not violate the first or second law ……”

Before the temple’s voice had even finished, Fan Xian’s brows furrowed once again, because he always felt that these three laws sounded somewhat familiar, but it seemed that there were changes in the details from certain things he remembered, in some subtle ways.

“Law Zero, the temple must protect the overall interests of mankind from harm, the other three laws can only be established under this premise.”

Fan Xian pondered for a long time, and finally remembered where these incomparably familiar laws came from, and it was precisely the Three Laws of Robotics that had appeared countless times in novels and movies in that world. At this moment, he suddenly remembered some things that he hadn’t thought of for a long time, such as that little black handsome man, and that robot that was even more handsome than the little black handsome man.

It seemed that in that world after his own death or crossing over, when civilization had developed to a certain stage, the three laws of Asimov’s classmates had really been applied to reality. However, what made Fan Xian feel a bit cold and a bit awe-inspiring was the Zeroth Law that the temple spoke of at the end.

Protecting the overall interests of humanity from harm? The Zero Law that the temple observed was actually this one? It seemed like such an honorable, correct, and great law, yet Fan Xian easily found something unusually sinister in it.

It was precisely because of the existence of this law that the divine temple had vaguely controlled the progress of human civilization, that it had ignored the affairs of the world while betting so much attention on Ye Qingmei, who had escaped from the divine temple, and that it had even gone so far as to violate the First and Second Laws in the end, directly teaming up with the emperor’s old man to wipe Ye Qingmei out of the world.

The most crucial and frightening word in the Zero Law is the so-called overall interest of mankind, and the question is, who actually determines the overall interest of mankind? What kind of world environment, what kind of social composition is really in line with the overall interests of mankind? In the Temple’s view, if we follow the old path, step by step towards the peak of human civilization, the emergence of thermal weapons and even stronger weapons will only destroy the entire human society, and naturally, we will think that this is not in line with the overall interests of mankind.

However, these things of technology and civilization, these things that can make the lives of the poor who are desperately trying to make a living in the fields and the exiles who are selling their children and daughters better, can’t they ever appear in this world? Fan Xian was not a technologically oriented person, but he still firmly believed that the twenty-first century human beings in that world must be living a much happier life than the seventeenth and eighteenth century human beings.

Overall interest? This was such a chaotic and even absurd word, could it be determined by a non-human intelligence that had no feelings and perhaps rarely made mistakes? Fan Xian’s face paled slightly as he looked at the old man floating above his head, and after a long, long moment of silence, he asked, “Where exactly is the overall interest of mankind?”

The old man was also silent for a long, long time before speaking, “The temple doesn’t know, but the temple knows that there are some paths that can’t be taken.”

“No wonder the last time the emissary landed on from the south, he killed so many innocent people along the way, if the three laws were really valid, how could this happen?” Fan Xian looked at the old man, his voice trembled slightly as he said, “For the sake of the vague notion of the overall good, you can do whatever you want, don’t you think that’s dangerous?”

“The temple has a means of self-control, this is a data judgment.” The old man spoke calmly, “There’s no way the Temple can stand by and watch humanity go down the same old path.”

“Should I thank you or scold you?” Fan Xian propped up his hands and sat up from the cold ground with a perplexed look on his face as he slowly said, “Who came up with this doggone Zeroth Law?”

“It wasn’t the dog that came up with it.” The temple elder replied calmly, not realizing that this reply of his was like an extremely cold joke, “When the temple awakened, this law already existed.”

“Just because of this unknowing Zeroth Law, you guys killed her.” Fan Xian’s face was pale, his dry lips slightly opened, softly muttering to himself, gradually his voice grew louder and louder, “Just because of such an inexplicable reason, you guys killed her, you guys killed her ……”

“You killed her!” Fan Xian’s eyes gave birth to too many complex emotions, staring blankly at the figure of the old man floating in the air, pained to the bone, but also said gently.

The old man’s voice was still so calm: “The temple must protect the overall interests of humanity from harm.”

This was not the explanation given to Fan Xian by the divine temple regarding the matter of Ye Qingmei, but merely a repetition of this cold and icy creed, for immediately after, the old man said to Fan Xian, “Three travelers, I am willing to accept you to become the temple’s followers, the temple’s emissaries, and in place of Heaven’s will, to walk the vast human world, sheltering the continent’s remnants.”

The tone of this passage was clearly different from the previous one, and presumably this was a self-formulated passage in the divine temple’s program, thus making it seem extraordinarily immortal-sounding and ethereal. However, Fan Xian and the divine temple had already been speaking to each other for so long in front of them, yet the divine temple’s response still seemed as deadpan as ever.

It seemed that the old man had remembered at this point that the young and frail human before him was not like the average person, and continued, “Fellow travelers from the divine realm, please remember the Zeroth Law.”

Then the old man fell into silence, the color on the face pet that was condensed by the curtain of light kept changing, as if he was making a final judgment and thinking. A moment later the old man said, “In order to comply with the Zero Law, please stay within the temple.”

The three passages represented the three procedures of the temple, triggered one after the other, from the most previous enlistment of the messenger to a warning to Fan Xian and a final proclamation that Fan Xian would be imprisoned within the temple.

Fan Xian calmly listened to these three segments and stood up, not looking how nervous or cowed he was. Being imprisoned in this icy temple and being crippled for the rest of his life was naturally not a good future. Of course, although the energy source of the divine temple showed signs of depletion, it was thought that there must be some method to produce food or something like that, or else Ye Qingmei could not have been imprisoned for several years back then.

However, at just four years old, Ye Qingmei could rely on the arrival of Bitter Lotus and Sean to escape from the Snowy Mountain Temple, not to mention Fan Xian at this time, who also had two companions who had been quietly waiting outside, and Fan Xian wasn’t worried about anything. He just calmly looked at the old man in the air, and after a long time of calmness, he suddenly spoke, “Insults and intimidation are definitely not real combat, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a need to be angry at a dead thing like you.” He said in a sandy voice, “It’s useless for you to intimidate me, but I don’t know why, but I always have the urge to insult you.”

“Son of a bitch.” Fan Xian spat out a mouthful of phlegm, which passed through the old man’s fluttering, lustrous robes, then landed on the ground with a snap.

Immediately after that, he patted his ass, then turned around and walked towards the gate, throwing down a sentence to that temple old man, “You’re a ball of fireflies right now, acting as a flame monarch in front of my little master, accompanying you for a few words will give you enough face, and you actually want to lock me up for the rest of my life …… ”

Fan Xian had walked all the way to the front door of the empty building, nothing unusual had happened, and the figure of the old man floating in the air had just quietly watched him leave.

With his palm resting steadily on the mechanism that opened the door, Fan Xian turned back and said in a cold voice with narrowed eyes, “I’m not afraid to tell you plainly that I’m Ye Qingmei’s son. That wooden messenger in your temple was killed by my uncle long ago. It’s the same old story, do a good job as a docent, a promising job, and don’t always think of posing as some kind of god.”

After a slight pause, Fan Xian sneered and said, “Piss me off, dismantle your solar panels, go back to Tanyu to boil hot water for bathing, dismantle your mainframe, and make my son kneel down on his knees CPU. what are you bluffing about in front of me?”

The gate was violently pulled open, a world of ice and snow returning to his eyes, Fan Xian stepped out of the gate of this intact building, squinting his eyes greedily at the real sights of this world, leaving behind all the chilling scenes he had previously seen inside, he took a deep breath and roared loudly, his voice echoing throughout the snowy mountain valley.

He did not know where the vitals of the temple were, and he did not want to take any chances, Ye Qingmei’s amazing talent, managed to take away the toughest Uncle Five Bamboo in the temple, but did not think of destroying the temple, there must be her own considerations, and the idea of avenging Ye Qingmei’s death, after seeing the vicissitudes of the sea in that scene, although it still did not turn pale, but it evolved into some other emotions in a marvelous way.

The most crucial thing was that Uncle Five Bamboo could not leave the temple once he entered it, and this seemingly shabby place must have its true and frightening aspects. Fan Xian’s seeming wantonness earlier was actually because he knew that a dead thing like the temple could not possibly have such superfluous emotions as holding a grudge for his outbursts, and that he was merely trying to vent the bitterness in his heart.

The echoing shouts gradually weakened after colliding into the snowy mountains countless times, and two figures swept across the stone platform in front of the building as fast as they could, arriving in front of Fan Xian, looking at him with nervous and worried eyes.

Fan Xian glanced at Haitang and Wang XIII Lang, and with great difficulty pulled his lips into a smile, about everything he knew in the building, he did not intend to tell anyone about it, because there was no need to do so, and that kind of loneliness, suffering and helplessness, and let his only remaining to enjoy it alone.

“Did you find it?” Fan Xian asked.

Wang Thirteen Lang nodded, and only then did Fan Xian notice that he was carrying an extremely large black box behind him, and his mood immediately tensed, his pupils shrinking slightly, suddenly sensing that he seemed to have missed something, and with a sandy voice he said urgently, “Exit the temple gate!”

“Clearing target one.” The voice of the temple suddenly rang out from all directions, that old man’s figure had long since dispersed, the temple was the temple, no longer wasting energy to condense any human form.

As these usual five words resounded among the empty temple, Wang XIII Lang suddenly felt the black box he was carrying behind him move!

With a clamor, the black box instantly disintegrated, only to see a black light flash by, and a black brazier calmly and accurately pierced into Fan Xian’s body with a speed the world could hardly imagine!

Fan Xian’s hand tightly gripped the brazier inside his body, suddenly feeling some bitterness in his mouth, he didn’t look down to see the wounds on his chest and abdomen, but instead stared blankly at the familiar, never-getting-old face in front of him, as well as the unusually icy black cloth that blindfolded the other’s eyes.

Fan Xian knew that he had missed something, the temple’s messengers had indeed died out, and the temple itself did not have much of a guarding force, yet he had forgotten that his closest uncle, Five Bamboo, had always been the most powerful one in the temple.

Five Bamboo was a legend, yet he was the legend of the temple.

Fan Xian looked at Five Bamboo’s face and opened his mouth somewhat incredulously, “My mom can’t believe this when it’s told.”