Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao recalled the fierce, soul-stirring fights with ‘Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan’ in Hundred Flowers City and with ‘Extraterrestrial Devil Lu Qingchen’ in the space battle.

At that time, he had thought that the few extraterrestrial devils were the most dreadful enemies. Never did it occur to him that the greatest ticking bomb had been right next to him the whole time and could have been detonated at any moment!

Now that he thought about it, he could not help but shiver in fear.

Long Yangjun chuckled and went on, “At that time, I thought that I was ‘only’ the reincarnation of an elite warrior of the Nuwa Civilization; therefore, I was baffled by the two competing voices in my head. Even though I devoured tremendous resources and boasted the assistance of advanced, high-performance crystal processors with your support, the puzzles in my heart were never completely resolved.

“It was not until I returned to the Land of Eternal Night again and entered the Pangu laboratory, where I was electrocuted by the revived member of the Pangu Clan and thousands of electric currents ran through my soul, that most of the puzzles were completely shattered. I have been finally awakened and realized… who I am exactly!

“That explains a lot. I am not just the reincarnation of an elite warrior of the Nuwa Clan. I was infected with the power of the Pangu Clan when I was still in the fetus state. I am a being that carries dual destinies. Everything has started to make sense now!”

Nervously, Li Yao asked, “What kind of ‘destinies’?”

Long Yangjun sniffed and said, “Reviving the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, conquering the universe, suppressing human beings, destroying the world, or similar boring stuff.”

Li Yao was dumbfounded. “In that case, you had ten thousand opportunities to achieve your purposes at the critical moments in Hundred Flowers City and in the space battle or even in the Pangu laboratory just now. The odds of your success were quite high. Why did you never take action?”

Long Yangjun was amused. Blinking her big eyes that seemed to have been covered in a thin layer of crystals, she asked back, “Why would I do such boring stuff?”

Li Yao was completely confused. “Weren’t you the one who told me that the most important thing in your life was to figure out who you were and to accomplish your destiny? You have awakened right now and know what your ‘destiny’ is!”

“Wrong!” Long Yangjun declared matter-of-factly. “You did not get what I meant. I was going to accomplish ‘my’ destiny, not a destiny that was given by somebody else.”

Li Yao blinked. “Is there any difference between them?”

“Of course there is. Assume that, one day, you have an uncanny dream and a solemn, unquestionable voice pops up in your head, telling you that you are a man for a great cause, and that you have been bestowed a sacred, glorious responsibility before you were born, which is to eat s*it.

“Let me ask you, would you consider such a destiny as a goal to fight for with your life and your whole significance?”

“…I don’t think that’s the same.”

“Why not?” Narrowing her eyes and observing her narrow and sharp fingers that looked like daggers, Long Yangjun softly said, “If I do not figure out why I have to do it before I do anything, is there any difference between conquering the world, manipulating people, and destroying everything and eating s*it?”

Li Yao thought for a long time and argued, “But that is the destiny given by the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, your creators.”

“Therefore, if you parents ask you to eat s*it, you will just be a good kid and eat it obediently?” Long Yangjun asked.

“Can we just talk nicely instead of resorting to such metaphors?” Li Yao replied.

“I only mean to make it easier for you to understand, considering that your abilities in analysis and comprehension are rather low.” Long Yangjun chuckled. “All in all, the weird voices in my head, the boring things including asking me to search for a certain base, to release the Nuwa Clan, to revive the Pangu Clan, to conquer a certain planet, to occupy a certain fortress, to bewilder people, to deprive them of their feelings… They are all destinies that other people have given me, not my own real destiny. Even if I follow the voices and do what they ask me to, I will have to figure out the significance behind the destinies first. Do you understand? I can’t just do anything because a voice in my head tells me to do it!”

Li Yao nodded slowly and was almost awed by Long Yangjun. “I seem to get what you are trying to say now.”

“In fact, you should feel lucky, as should the entire Star Glory Federation, that the ‘original body’ of the Nuwa Clan was corrupted by the power of the Pangu Clan in the beginning,” Long Yangjun said gloomily. “I believe that you have also noticed that both the Pangu Civilization and the Nuwa Civilization have fatal shortcomings. They are on two different extremities. Even if they have any concept of ‘morals’, theirs must be vastly different from what mankind has today.

“If the Pangu Civilization can be compared to an overly-stern and coldhearted father, the Nuwa Civilization would be a wild, indulging mother. While the father’s way of education is greatly wrong, the mother’s approach is not entirely correct either!

“If I was a pure member of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan, nothing good would’ve happened after I was released.

“If I were a pure member of the Nuwa Clan, as an accomplice of chaos and a kin of the extraterrestrial devils, I would’ve conspired with the extraterrestrial devils in Hundred Flowers City or in the space battle. Or, I might’ve swallowed the new-generation extraterrestrial devils such as Mo Xuan, Lei Yuqin, and Lu Qingchen directly and reformed the Star Glory Federation in their place in the Nuwa Clan’s way.

“If I were a pure member of the Pangu Clan, after we destroyed Mo Xuan, Lu Qingchen, and the rest of them, I would’ve tried anything possible to eradicate the feelings, emotions, and will of all the people in the federation, transforming the Star Glory Federation into a minor Alliance of the Holy Covenant. I wouldn’t have felt sorry at all even if the lives of billions of people were wiped out for that purpose.

“Thankfully, I belonged to neither the Pangu Clan nor the Nuwa Clan. I was a combination of the two of them. When the two strengths, two ideologies, and two beliefs collided, offset, and swallowed each other inside my soul, they gave me room to think on my own.

“It was even luckier that you were the first one that I met when my real life began to sprout.”

Pointing at himself, Li Yao asked, “What about me?”

“It seems that you haven’t realized how important you were!” Long Yangjun smiled, her crystal-like eyes purer than ever. “Did you know? In the first hundred years after I was born, my mind had always been in a certain ignorant ‘fetus’ state and did not grow at all. Even though I was already the powerful ‘Lead Eunuch Wang Xi’ whose influence spread throughout the Great Qian Dynasty, it was in fact merely a role that I played, a disguise, and a false identity that was shaped based on certain animalistic instincts. Or rather, I was merely a larva that had yet to metamorphize into a butterfly.

“It was not until I entered the Nuwa warship that the shell that sealed and protected my soul cracked, allowing my real self to awaken.

“At that time, my real self was still ignorant and did not know the first thing about the entire world. The identity of the Pangu Clan, the identity of the Nuwa Clan, and the identity of ‘Lead Eunuch Wang Xi’ were nothing more than mottled memory pieces that were enough to form my real self-awareness, personality, and way of thinking.

“At that time, I ran into you.

“How should I describe you? You are sometimes reckless and hotblooded, sometimes ridiculously naïve, sometimes astoundingly unintelligent, and sometimes so whimsical that the only ideas you can come up with are worse than what you have already proposed. Besides, you are sloppy, lazy, and do not have the charisma of the supposed dominator of three Sectors…”

“Thank you,” Li Yao said. “Why don’t you skip to the ‘but’ part?”

“But… perhaps because I was too young and ignorant back then, it was rather strange that I was affected, moved, or maybe even contaminated by you before I knew it?” Long Yangjun mumbled. “It’s true that you are rather silly, but you have also shown me what a real Cultivator should look like and what a more independent, beautiful, and bright civilization of mankind can be without the support, interference, and control of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan. You showed me the third option between absolute control and absolute freedom. You let me know what courage, responsibility, and protection are and what law, system, and honor mean.

“Hehe. It is exactly because Vulture Li Yao, the dominator of three Sectors, is such a person that I have such a way of thinking right now after hanging around with you for a long time and being influenced by you. That is why I started to consider the differences between ordinary people and Cultivators carefully and the true meaning of life. I began to wonder if there was any difference between the destinies that other people gave me and my own destiny—if it was obligatory for me to hear the voices in my head and control or destroy everyone.

“What if it was not you who showed up before me but someone who was more selfish and focused more on his own interests? If he had intended to obtain something from me instead of showing me the possibilities of a bright and beautiful future of mankind, or if he had tried to capture me and interrogate me for the secrets of the Nuwa warship and even slice me up for studies, I wouldn’t have become who I am today, and the outcome of the Star Glory Federation would’ve been vastly different, too.

“Furthermore, if you hadn’t brought me to the Star Glory Federation, and Heiye Lan had taken me to the Black Wind Fleet or the Imperium of True Human Beings, allowing me to view myself and the entire universe in the ways of the Immortal Cultivators, I have no idea if I would’ve followed a certain voice inside my head and done anything unpredictable inside the Imperium.

“All in all, I must offer you my sincerest gratitude. At the very least, I’m very satisfied about my personality and way of thinking right now, which have been influenced by you to a very large extent.

“The Star Glory Federation, the edge of the cosmos, and the even vaster world owe you their thanks, too, for transforming me into what I am right now and stopping me from causing inestimable damage. From that point of view, you have saved the federation and the world yet again without knowing it!”

“You’re welcome.” Li Yao coughed and casually said, “Saving the world is a daily routine for me. I am already used to it.”