The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 143: Divided Family

Li Cu nodded, and then immediately shook his head. He couldn't link yesterday's incident with religion. "No, was what you said yesterday really a religious story?"

"No, what I said yesterday is a fact. Everything's true, but there's another correct answer hidden in what I said." The middle-aged man replied.

Li Cu grinned and said to himself, oh, there was still a correct answer? Will there be two answers to this kind of question?

The middle-aged man said, "Ok, the first logic is that what I taught you is very far from reality; any normal person would think this is a myth. The second logic is that I'm here to teach you these things, so they can't be a waste of time. We're very pressed for time, and since I can't deceive you, what I'm teaching you must be true. If you stand in the logic of reality and think about what I say, you have to believe in your own logic. In other words, you're correct to think that what I said is too far from reality, but at the same time, you have to admit that what I said isn't fiction. So, your job is to unify these two pieces of logic. I haven't lied to you, so you have no reason to doubt it." [1]

Li Cu's head was spinning when he heard this, and he asked, "Can you speak human? Or give a practical example? Even if I make a jingle [2] out of your words, I still can't understand it."

The middle-aged man said, "You must complete this thinking process by yourself, otherwise I can't continue teaching you. You can't pass the test here by simply repeating the things I've said before. You're receiving a real education, so I hope you can answer my questions with something I haven't mentioned before. You'll have to think of the answers yourself."

Li Cu frowned and began to think about everything the middle-aged man had said yesterday about a three thousand-year-old baby named Zhang Qilin, and a box with a dragon pattern on it.

The middle-aged man had said just now that every religion had a divine god or saint. This was a very simple hint, and he immediately came to his senses.

"This is a type of religion where they need a baby who has lived for three thousand years." Li Cu said slowly, fearing that he was wrong, "Then, because what you said is true, they got a three-thousand-year-old baby. But logically speaking, a baby can't live for three thousand years, so what they got was a three-thousand-year-old dead baby. But they needed a three-thousand-year-old live baby, not a dead one."

So they found a child to replace the dead baby.

The middle-aged man looked at Li Cu in silence for a long time, and then breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that under his guidance, Li Cu's IQ finally exceeded the passing line.

"Why?" Li Cu asked. He wasn't excited that he had guessed the answer, just curious. "Why did they want to create a three-thousand-year-old baby? Wouldn't it be easy to see the problem?"

"Perfect immortality is an extravagant hope." The middle-aged man said: "These people have a longer life span than ordinary people, but they also suffer from intolerable side effects. For their whole family, the possibility of a perfect eternal life happened to be the core of the family's survival."

No matter how strong the family's bonds were, under such a long period of suffering, there would always be doubts about the significance of their existence, and self-destructive emotions would always arise. But what if there was hope? What if someone told them that this kind of pain could be eliminated, and people who had successfully eliminated the pain had already appeared? Just like the relationship between Jesus and the world, he would become the key. As for the truth, who now can say that Jesus is a fake?

"You mean they needed a specimen. The ruler of the family needed a specimen to tell others that perfect immortality did exist."

The middle-aged man nodded: "These people were very wise, and seldom made mistakes. But this time, the mistake was too big.

"There's no direct evidence to support this theory, but we found the possibility— or the only correct logic— that they might have had a living baby, but it may not have grown up successfully. The three-thousand-year-old living baby had become an idol, however, a symbol that couldn't be allowed to disappear. So they replaced him with another baby.

"This unique logic, although lacking any evidence, was very lethal. We took advantage of their big mistake and broke down their core bonds." The middle-aged man continued: "Some of them were aware of this problem. I don't know if they found any evidence, but in a very short period of time, their faith in the family collapsed, a new social system came into being, and the family's conspiracies and lies were exposed. As a result, this huge family began to split up and disperse. After a lot of fighting, the most important group went to Changsha to escape that fate [3]. We'll talk about this part of history later."

Li Cu opened his eyes, and the middle-aged man continued, "The 'child' who was sealed away and protected like a god fell down from the altar. From an early age, he had been put under great pressure and educated to become a god, but in an instant, he became the garbage left by a scandal, the main culprit for dividing the family. And those who had used him to rule the family began regarding him as a disgrace, and threw him back into the care of a family member. We don't know if it was his real father, but whoever it was, he made the child's life rather difficult. The child had nothing left aside from the best training he had received before becoming garbage."

"Human nature is very ugly. Even those who control everything, and have lived for many years, are ugly. But the crisis in the family wasn't over. A few years later, an even bigger crisis was coming. At this time, no one was willing to become the patriarch, to bear that great pain and suffering. But one person suddenly said, 'Let the three-thousand-year-old child be the patriarch. He's the most suitable one.' As a result, the young man became their Zhang Qilin, and was pushed out into the world as a scapegoat for the whole family."

"Now, back to answering my question." The middle-aged man said. "How many correct answers are there to all the things I said just now, and all the things I said yesterday?"

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Notes:

[1] I'm not 100% sure logic should be the right word, but that's definitely what the author used. As I understand it, Li Cu's got 2 conflicting views: it's fake, but it's not. And middle-aged guy wants him to merge them and find some middle ground. Should make more sense as the chapter goes on (hopefully).

[2] Think like "Schoolhouse Rock" kind of jingle (Lol!).

[3] Pretty sure he's referring to Fo Ye (Zhang Qishan)'s family.