Chapter 8 Punishing Evil
After coming out of the pet hospital, Rong Yuan no longer had any interest in scoring points and verifying the rules of the "Book of Merits". He sat casually on a bench on the side of the road to sort out his thoughts.
There were still many rules in the "Book of Merits" that had not been shown, which he had known for a long time, but he did not expect that the idea of brushing points that had just come to his mind would be proven to be unfeasible so quickly.
In this society, the power of one person is ultimately limited. If you want to gain a lot of merit points, you must rely on the power of others. However, if you want to do good deeds through others, you cannot avoid the problem of someone pretending to obey but actually disobeying. For example, after he accumulated initial funds, he opened free pet rescue centers all over the country to rescue and feed stray cats and dogs. This is of course a good thing and can quickly collect a lot of merit points. But there is only one point that he can keep an eye on. If the staff hired in other places buy, sell, or even abuse and kill stray cats and dogs, the losses will be unpredictable. Moreover, when doing good deeds, as the leader, he can only gain half of the merit points, but when doing evil deeds, he will directly deduct three times. With this increase and decrease, it is really hard to say how much he can gain in the end.
For example, if he wants to build a bridge or a road, he certainly can't do it by himself. He must transfer the funds to government departments or construction companies. In this way, there are more variables, which may lead to various problems such as embezzlement of arrears, passing off inferior goods as good ones, and forced collection. He doesn't know how difficult it is to do a good deed, but from what he has learned from the news, it is definitely not that if he pays, someone will do the job properly without any mistakes. If there is a collapse or loss of life due to quality problems in the future, the "Book of Merits" will definitely count him as one of them.
It’s not that these things can’t be done at all. It’s just that in order to do it well, he needs an efficient, loyal, and large team, needs to formulate complete and standardized regulations, needs a lot of money and a high social status, only in this way can others do their best to complete his requirements. In addition, the screening and inspection of personnel before doing good deeds, the supervision and management during the period, and the inspection and maintenance after the completion, each item must be taken care of in detail, so as to ensure that even if someone commits evil during the period, the merits he can gain will far outweigh the losses. This cannot be achieved overnight, it requires a lot of time and long-term planning.
"Robbery! Someone is robbing money! Who can help me catch him?"
The woman's sharp voice tore through the noisy yet orderly street. The whole road seemed to be quiet, and then - contrary to expectations but not unexpected, the people blocking the road scattered, for fear of becoming obstacles to the robbers with sharp knives.
The woman couldn't catch up with the robber in her high heels, so she simply gave up and pointed at the fleeing robber and cursed: "You bastard! How dare you rob me of my money! You son of a bitch! Get hit by a car when you go out!!!" A string of obscenities came out without pause. The robber, who had run dozens of meters away, couldn't bear it anymore - or perhaps the avoidance attitude of passers-by fueled his arrogance - the man wearing a mask and a hat suddenly braked, turned around and ran towards the woman waving a dagger.
The woman was stunned. It was obvious that the development of the matter was a little different from what she expected. Fortunately, she reacted quickly and immediately threw off her two high heels and turned around and ran away, shouting in horror: "Help! Murder! The robber is killing people!"
Passersby dodged faster, and they seemed to not even have the courage to look at the robber. Several children burst into tears out of fear.
The robber ran much faster than the pampered woman. In the blink of an eye, he caught up with the woman and raised his knife. Just as he was about to kill her, the robber kicked her hard in the waist. The man fell violently and rolled twice on the ground. When he raised his head again, his face was covered with blood, which was very horrifying.
Rong Yuan, who kicked him out, had an even darker expression on his face than his.
He sent the injured Chihuahua to the pet hospital in time for treatment. The 10 merit points deducted for not rescuing the dying Chihuahua were finally offset by the merit points for rescuing the Chihuahua. If he left it alone, he would definitely be deducted points. But no one would be happy if they were forced to do good deeds. Moreover, Rong Yuan was in a terrible mood because he had just discovered that a way to increase his points was not feasible.
He vented his anger on the robber without any hesitation, and he didn't care even if the "Merit Book" would deduct points for assaulting others.
——He wanted to save the woman without hurting anyone, he is not a god! Is he really expected to take the knife for a person who has no relatives or friends?
He kicked the man's wrist holding the knife hard, and the short knife flashed with a cold light and flew out and landed in the green belt.
——He is clearly asked to help others do good deeds, but he has to worry about this and that, so he may end up with nothing good. Unless he can control the thoughts of others, how can he achieve perfection?
The man struggled to get up, but was kicked in the nose again. With a click, his nose became crooked and a pool of blood appeared on the white medical mask.
The robbed woman took back her bag and beat the robber fiercely with her high heels, making him scream in pain. When passers-by saw that he had lost his weapon and looked so miserable, they all ran over to "come to his aid" and pushed Rong Yuan to the back.
Rong Yuan stood for a while, picked up the schoolbag thrown aside, patted the dirt off it, and felt a little regretful.
The Merit Book was still in his schoolbag. His life was tied to it now. He shouldn't have been so careless. Even if the Merit Book was just an English Vocabulary in other people's eyes, someone might steal it while the situation was chaotic. Whether the Merit Book was sold, thrown away, or given away, it was not up to him. It would be even more difficult to find it back before the expiration of its lifespan. If someone else discovered the strangeness of this book, the consequences would be even more disastrous.
Rong Yuan frowned, adding another worry. Whether he carried the Merit Book with him or kept it at home, there were unpredictable risks. At this moment, he couldn't help but daydream, if only the Merit Book could be stored in the body or hidden in a different dimension like the artifacts in the novels.
Also, he should find a way to offset the more than 100 million negative merit points. That way, if he loses his merit book one day, he won't die because he can't exchange it for life.
There are many things to do, but none of them can be done overnight. He should just follow the steps. What's the point of worrying too much? The sky will not fall tomorrow.
…
The sky was dark, and many outdoor snack and barbecue stalls were set up on the street. There was a snack street outside Tai'an Community, and the flow of people was even more than during the day. Rong Yuan, carrying his schoolbag, quietly walked past the crying and laughing drunks and returned to his cold and deserted home. He took a shower, ate a portion of fried rice brought back from the snack street, and then opened the "Merit Book" to count the day's income.
He had already decided that, in addition to his daily life and testing the effectiveness and bottom line of the "Book of Merit", he would have to earn at least 100 merit points every day as a guaranteed score, half of which he would use to exchange for life, and the other half would be accumulated for emergencies. Although it wasn't much, a river is formed by the accumulation of small streams. One day, he would accumulate enough merit points and no longer be bound by this book. By then, the world would be so big that he would be able to go anywhere.
The cats and dogs contributed nearly two hundred points to him that day, but to his surprise, he did not lose any points for beating the robber.
The record of gains and losses in the merit book clearly states:
[Save Xu Ya from a fatal crisis, Merit +50]
[Punish the robber Zhang Hao who committed many crimes and make him accept the punishment, merit +530] 530? So much? Rong Yuan's heart moved, and he quickly turned to the rules on the front page. Sure enough, a new rule appeared: [Rule 9: The contractor can obtain merit points that are positively correlated with the degree of his evil deeds if he prevents evil deeds or punishes and punishes evildoers.] Rong Yuan pondered for a moment, and the haze on his face disappeared, and he even smiled.
If he took back the things after Zhang Hao robbed him today, he might only get about 10 merit points; if he stopped him when he wanted to kill someone... or at least stabbed someone, his merit points would double; and the reason why there are so many merit points is 530... from the words "crimes are numerous" and "accept sanctions", this Zhang Hao must not have robbed for the first time, and he may have done other bad things. If his merit points were visible, they must have been negative. And it seems that he was not only beaten by everyone, but someone also called the police. In this way, his negative merit points were converted into positive numbers and given to Rong Yuan, who beat him up and caused him to accept legal sanctions later - maybe not all, but only these, it is already an unexpectedly large income.
More importantly, Rong Yuan saw from this rule a faster and easier way to "get rich" and accumulate merits with less risk and energy. Moreover, compared with helping others, this kind of happy revenge is more in line with his heart.
Merit, merit, he should have thought of it earlier - promoting good is merit, so how can punishing evil not be merit?
