Star Gate

Chapter 442: Picking Up Money From The Streets (III)

“I’ve been pondering the path of martial masters and the purpose for our existence!” Hong Yitang chuckled when he looked at He Yong. “I once read an ancient book that spoke of heroes acting bravely for the sake of righteousness, that they championed the cause of justice and redressed wrongdoings for people and nation. I treated it as a joke and felt that was quite an exaggeration. How can martial artists be heroes?

“What are heroes? They punish evil, support the weak, redress wrongdoings, act boldly for a just cause, and are concerned about the people and nation. Those are heroes! What heroes are there in the modern martial world? We’re just a bunch of martial blockheads obsessed with increasing their own strength at any cost!

“You are, I am, Yuan Shuo is, and so is everyone else!

“I paged through the ancient book again these years and came to some different thoughts. Perhaps these thoughts are immature or idealized, but I’ve been thinking about what the purpose of growing stronger is. Is it to gain eternal life? Be at peace with the world? Hold oneself as invincible throughout the world? And then?”

Hong Yitang chuckled. “And then... we turn into skeletons in the ground! No one will remember us after a certain number of years. Would even those of Silver Moon remember someone as strong as Yuan Shuo if he died in Silver City? Has he brought any changes to the province? Has he improved the lives of thousands of families? Has his strength brought a single bit of help to the hundreds of millions of souls in the world?”

He Yong’s throat bobbed up and down. Had Yuan Shuo? Of course not! It was impossible for any of that to have taken place as martial masters were a headstrong, competitive bunch that rampaged through the four corners of the world. Their actions were all in pursuit of growing stronger, finding the right path, and reaching enlightenment...

What came after enlightenment?

Nothing!

What else was there?

Southern Fist suddenly looked at Hong Yitang with fear. This guy was terrifying!

“Hong Yitang... What... are you thinking of?”

“What’s with that look on your face?” Hong Yitang broke out laughing. “I’m just pondering over my life. People always say that martial masters and supernaturals exist to kill. I find nothing wrong with that, but is the purpose of killing just to kill? We kill because we can? That’s such a narrow-minded perspective!

“Killing is but a process, not a goal! Don’t confuse the two concepts. Li Hao is of the same mindset—I grow stronger to kill others. And then what? What comes next after exterminating your enemies?”

Cold prickled at He Yong’s scalp and he looked at Hong Yitang, wanting to move as far away as possible! This person was impossible to read sometimes.

“Stop looking at me like that, I’m not a saint. I’m just thinking. Do I have to be constrained in even my thoughts? The ancient books say one’s thoughts cannot be constrained. One’s body can, but the thoughts run ever freely. I am alive so long as my mind is alive. I am truly dead when even my thinking is curtailed.

“Skystar Dynasty is rotten to the core!” Hong Yitang said as they walked. “The dynasty restrains the people’s thoughts! The tenets of education are not developed and the people’s minds do not advance. Everything must be derived from ancient civilizations. We do not build or study anything on our own.

“Our education systems are incomplete! Take Silver City for example. How many out of one million are cultured and knowledgeable? Their Veteris Institute is their crown jewel, but there’s less than two thousand students in attendance. Is this number of cultured people among one million a proper ratio?

“The vast Silver Moon boasts of one hundred million in population. While my observations and compilations have not produced a total number of schools, there are only thirty-seven institutions of higher learning. There are roughly two hundred thousand in attendance and approximately fifty thousand graduate every four years.

“If the average working lifespan is forty years, then two million graduates from schools of higher learning within these forty years are the entirety of our society’s elites and upper class. Two million out of one hundred million? Do you think that’s a lot or too little?

“That puts the percentage of advanced students at two percent, with mid to low students ten times that at the very, very most. Twenty percent is definitely a high estimate! Our literacy rate is twenty-two percent of the population. What do you think about this proportion?”

“Is that low?” He Yong asked. He didn’t think it was! “That’s a very high rate at more than twenty percent, right? I remember it wasn’t this high before. This means that one person out of five can read and write. Only one or two out of a hundred could read a few decades ago. Is there a problem here?”

He really didn’t think so. This was great!

“You really are...” Hong Yitang shook his head with a laugh. “Forget it, I can’t be bothered speaking to you! Read some more books, especially the ancient books, and think on why the ancient civilization was so powerful! What would you think if I told you that the literacy rate in the ancient civilization was ninety-nine percent? Indeed, everyone could read and write apart from a very few!

“Literacy was the basis for the rise of a nation and people! Don’t expect knowledge out of a bunch of people who can’t read or write, much less change your life or strengthen your path. Could Yuan Shuo have created his own dao if he wasn’t literate?”

Hong Yitang suddenly felt that he was playing the lute to a cow in talking to He Yong. Forget it, what am I telling him all this for!

“And another thing, there is no ministry out of the nine that is in charge of education. The places of higher learning were established by local authorities in a haphazard manner. Additionally, the ancients knew to encourage and support farmers. Our age is so advanced that we have planes and missiles, but we don’t have a specific agriculture department to help people reclaim wasteland and cultivate new seeds... We just know to live off the sky, mountain, or whatever’s nearby.

“The dynasty’s reformations are a joke! The royal family retreated behind the scenes only because their strength was less than others. Everyone only cares about strength, no one cares about anything else.

“Silver Moon’s provincial government is well enough. Zhao and Zhou have done a decent job over the years, but they cannot see the wood for the trees!”

He Yong stared dumbly at his counterpart, suddenly feeling like he didn’t know Hong Yitang! Was this the Earthturner Sword that he knew!

“You are a martial master...”

“Correct, which is why I say that I cannot be one of those who hold the nation and people in their hearts. I am a martial master, not a hero!”

Much less a knight errant of old!

Hong Yitang chuckled without a care in the world. He wasn’t worthy of being hailed a hero—no one was in this era. They were all just martial masters. Perhaps heroes of that caliber would one day be seen in their time? He looked at Li Hao in front of him and shook his head. Not him!

Li Hao was just a martial master as well, the same as the rest of them. It was good enough that he didn’t kill innocents. He was destined to be unable to become a hero as well.

The key point was that no one seemed to nurse such concepts. That martial masters should work to further the lives of regular people? This was not a notion found since the ancient times.

“No... Liu Long...” Hong Yitang suddenly thought of someone a little strange. Here was an interesting fellow. His strength wasn’t that impressive, but it was very unique to possess a heart of wanting to protect the people in this day and age. Of course, he was only concerned about Silver City, so perhaps he might be hailed as the hero of Silver City.

That was enough, it placed him above many martial masters! To the rest, their homeland was just a place to rest. If it was destroyed, they would simply move on to a different place.

......

The sounds of fighting continued outside the city, but Li Hao was lost in a daze. The big turtle above looked silently at a person—not Li Hao, but Hong Yitang. The turtle was also in a daze. It seemed to have heard and felt something.

A hero...

Who among this world and four directions could call themselves a hero? This person might not be able to, but he reminded the turtle of another—an extremely valiant existence, a king of humans in a peculiar age, one who often spoke of “education above all. As poor as we might be, we cannot stint on education.”

This was a very long time ago, and this person on the streets below wasn’t very much like that lofty existence. He was so, so much worse! That person had been the light of his era and the personal mentor of the later Human King. There had been many characters like him in that age.

They knew what they were fighting for and what was the future. They also knew that standing on their own two feet and every person rising like a dragon was the foundation of a strong era. Thus, they created that unique period of time, the one that was hard to repeat afterward. Living in that period was the pride of all its denizens!

No matter how tiring or dangerous it was, one command saw thousands of people charge and battle to the last drop of blood in their veins! No one regretted it as, when they turned back, they saw that they dispelled the darkness and welcomed the light.

And now, perhaps... they had all sunk into the darkness.

Who would light the flares of Battle Heaven in the modern world? Who could lead the city in severing the firmament?

Likely no one!

The old turtle closed its eyes once more. No one... There was no spark of hope in this age. At least, it didn’t see or feel it. That person might’ve been the last spark, but he didn’t seem to amount to much. The turtle’s thoughts shifted...

Hong Yitang paused between steps and looked down at where a storage ring had appeared. He blinked and picked it up, freezing when he looked inside.

Li Hao and He Yong looked at him when they sensed the disturbance. A storage ring? Hong Yitang had found it?

The man blinked fiercely, thinking he was dreaming. He suddenly kicked He Yong, sending the man into a rage.

“What are you doing?!”

“He Yong... I just found riches on the ground. Do you think the heavens have taken pity on me because they think I’m too poor?”

“......”

“What did you pick up, Martial Uncle Hong?” Li Hao was incredibly curious. “Is there anything inside?”

Hong Yitang nodded woodenly and summoned the contents. Li Hao and He Yong’s jaws dropped and their eyes widened. It was... a mysterious power stone bigger than their heads!