Chapter 151
Dongdong forgot to cry. He opened his big watery eyes and looked at Rongyuan.
Although he didn't understand a lot of what Rong Yuan said, he gradually understood what Rong Yuan wanted to say.
"Purely bad people are as rare as purely good people. Most people have two sides." A half-black and half-white virtual card turned over in Rong Yuan's hand. He said, "On the black side, he may be a selfish thief, a troublemaker, a murderer, a thug, a greedy profiteer, a corrupt official, or a tyrannical official. If you only look at this side, you will feel that such a person deserves to die ten thousand times... But on the white side , he may be a filial son, a loving parent, a conscientious employee, or have a great and naive dream. He may protect the weak in the face of violence, or he may stick to his principles in the face of major issues. He may have some advantages that we have always praised, promoted, and learned. If you only look at this side, you will feel that such a person should be written in textbooks."
"But in fact..."
Rong Yuan moved his fingers, and the black and white cards turned into countless tiny pieces, which merged into a gray card.
"——Most people are like this. Black and white blend together, good and evil coexist. No one deserves to die, and no one is innocent. Many people have their own way of dying, but they also have their own reasons for dying."
"So who do you think should die? And who should get my help?"
"If I take action... yes, I can end this quickly. I can kill all the so-called 'bad guys' and keep the 'good guys' alive. I can make people on the ground stop fighting, stop dying, and even stop doing bad things. Everyone will be a good person and do good things. Everyone will be polite, kind, and willing to help others."
“I can do that.”
"——But is such a world really good?"
"In other words, is what I consider to be 'good' really good? Is what I consider to be 'evil' necessarily evil? If everyone in the world only has the white side - and that is the side I consider to be white - would such a world make people feel beautiful or horrified?"
Duoduo had been confused from the beginning, and felt that Rong Yuan was no longer talking to him, but he could still understand this sentence. He asked in confusion: "Why do you feel that the world is not good when it is full of good people?"
Rong Yuan smiled and said, "Well, Duoduo, you like to study, but your brother likes to play games and your sister likes dolls, right?"
"Um ."
“Compared to playing games, studying feels better and more right, right?”
Duoduo thought for a while and then nodded.
"What if one day your mother says that playing games is not good and your brother is not allowed to play games anymore? He can only study like you or play dolls like your sister. If he plays games, she will lock him up, not allow him to eat, not allow you to talk to him, and beat him... Can you accept it?"
Duoduo immediately shook his head as if he was frightened.
"But your mother is doing this for his own good. Only by learning more knowledge can one become a better person, right?"
"But... but this is not good... we can't do this..." Duoduo said anxiously, as if she was afraid that Rongyuan and his mother would really forbid other children from playing games from now on, so that they could only study. Even Duoduo herself, although not as addicted as others, also liked to play during her rest time.
"So, Duoduo, studying and playing games are the same as the good and evil in the world." Rong Yuan said softly: "A world with only 'white' is like a world where everyone can only study and cannot play. It is very scary. Children should have the right to like studying and the right to like playing games, just like people should have the freedom to choose good and the freedom to choose evil; the freedom to choose to help others and the freedom to choose not to help others; the freedom to choose to work and the freedom to choose to be lazy. We cannot forcibly remove something from people's choices just because someone thinks it is bad. Instead, it should be based on people's own expectations of improving their lives, the drive of the overall morality and interests of society, and the prohibition of certain evil deeds by legal policies... Use these things to promote good, stop evil, expand white, and reduce black, and finally form a society that is formed by the choice and promotion of the entire group and can be accepted and recognized by the vast majority of people."
"Now, Zhongwu Star is in such a critical period of transformation. In the past few hundred years, there has been an imbalance between the strength of foreign humans and local alien races, resulting in either alien races enslaving humans or humans oppressing alien races. This relationship is deformed. They hate each other and have many contradictions. No matter which side has the upper hand, it will make the other race live a life worse than death. But now, humans have an advantage in technology and wisdom, while the individual qualities and abilities of alien races are more distinctive. Both sides have the conditions to form a certain balance and mutual restraint. Especially in the past few decades, the development of science and technology has driven the progress of social civilization as a whole, and abundant social resources have alleviated the pressure brought by people's survival, so more people will be willing to think about some issues about human nature, justice, and equality. Especially among the middle and lower class civilians, there are more and more humans and alien races who are willing to understand and help each other. This is a good start, but also a very fragile bud . At this time, although war will bring death, it is also the most effective catalyst - in the face of life and death, people can often abandon some insignificant trivial issues and see the purest and most core issues."
"There will be no real winners or complete losers in this war. They will all experience tragic casualties, but it will also be a valuable baptism. Many people will be able to re-understand the world and themselves through this war, and then many capable people will begin to seek a way for both sides to coexist peacefully. This process will not be easy, but it will transform this place into a better world. This is an inevitable trend brought about by technological progress and the development of civilization."
Not everyone in the Star Alliance agreed with the statement "all intelligent races are created equal" at the beginning. They had experienced very dark and even bloody times in the past, and countless races had disappeared because of it. But in the end, the need for survival forced them to sit down and form a set of peaceful solutions that everyone could roughly accept, and then slowly evolve it into common sense that was accepted by people from the bottom of their hearts.
Of course, the development of Zhongwu Star might not have been so smooth. After all, a civilization always advances in a spiral, and sometimes it will go backwards for a while. If some cruel and hateful people gain power in this war, it may cause a tragedy like genocide, and there are actually many such people on Zhongwu Star. But since Rong Yuan has been watching, it is destined that once such people emerge, they will soon die in an "accident".
Duoduo was still a child after all, and when children faced something they did not understand, they were always easily persuaded by adults, so although he did not quite understand Rong Yuan's words, he left with the thought that "Mr. Rong must have his reasons for doing this and it was correct." But for a long time after he left, Rong Yuan just sat in the shadows without saying a word.
Silence and depression spread in the air. Pea quietly crawled out of Rongyuan's pocket and sat beside him.
Rong Yuan’s words just now made it feel very strange for a moment.
Rong Yuan used to be the child who would quietly scoop up the struggling fish in the puddle and put it back into the sea without letting anyone else know; but now he would stand indifferently on the beach, letting other fish see how the struggling fish in the puddle were painfully sunburned to death, and then they would remember the lesson firmly and dare not cross that line again.
The former is man, the latter is God.
It's hard to say which approach is more correct, because after all, the child can't always stay by the puddle to save the fish that are about to be sunburned, but how many people can watch their own kind struggling on the brink of death without doing anything? Such indifference can even be said to be superior and distant, which makes Wandou feel unfamiliar.
But at this moment, his long silence made Wandou feel a pain in his heart.
Rong Yuan rarely spoke at such length. He said so much, and it was more like he was trying to convince himself than explaining to Duoduo.
When he was young, Rong Yuan was cold on the outside, but he was actually kindhearted and gentle in his heart. He had no hatred or revenge against his parents who had abandoned him. He would also shut out those who hated him, resented him, and disliked him from his heart, and only cared about those who loved him, and did his best to be good to them.
——So now, even though he has experienced the vicissitudes of life, can he just watch others wail and die indifferently? He just knows what is the most correct thing to do, and has enough tenacity to stick to it. But Rong Yuan also knows that those who choose to stand by and watch the victims who have been crushed by the wheels of history are as guilty as the perpetrators. What kind of pressure does he bear in his heart when he sees the bloodshed and misery on Zhongwu Star every day?
The pea couldn't imagine it, because to it, the strange humans on the ground were just meaningless symbols, and only the person next to it was real. All it could do was to stay by his side so that he would not be alone until the end of time.
