Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 884: Earth 1,000 Years Ago, the Ark, Selfish People, and Right and Wrong
Unfortunately, during this attack, the resistance members who sneaked into the factory only killed some ordinary staff members. As for those senior engineers who were like treasures, there were no casualties except for one person whose leg was grazed by a stray bullet.
As for the identity of the attackers, it was soon investigated. The leader was a former mercenary named Prince. He once served in the US special forces "Navy SEALs". After retiring, he and his comrades formed a mercenary group called "Shadow Force". This mercenary group was secretly funded by the US government and was active in the West Asia region. They specialized in helping the United States do some dirty work. If something needed to be solved by force but the regular army could not do it, the US government would order mercenaries like them to do it. These people were ruthless and unscrupulous ... During the Second Energy War, more than 70% of the casualties of innocent civilians in the West Asia region were caused by these mercenaries.
But later, with the introduction of the global ceasefire agreement, these mercenaries lost their jobs... and in order to whitewash themselves, the US government naturally cut off contact with them - the US government no longer funded these mercenaries, and refused to admit that all their actions were related to the government...
For the US government, this is a normal thing, but for these abandoned mercenaries, they have suddenly become lonely ghosts wandering in a foreign land...
Because they killed innocent people during the war and lost the protection of the US government, these people were held accountable by law. They could not even return to their own country and could only live in the remote areas of small West Asian countries, while always guarding against retaliation from local people.
These people have spent the first half of their lives fighting. Without war, they would lose their means of making a living... For these mercenaries, peace is the most terrifying thing.
Their living standards also plummeted. Not only were all their bank accounts seized, they were no longer supplied with weapons, ammunition, or even daily necessities and food. Instead, their names and photos were posted on international wanted websites... These people must have hated their former employers to the core.
When the resistance organizations came to them, the two sides naturally hit it off - these former mercenaries helped the resistance organizations train armed personnel, and even led the teams to carry out various sabotage missions. These mercenaries were very good at doing this kind of thing, which was much more difficult than those who only knew how to march and demonstrate and shout slogans on the Internet.
But the irony is that they don't know that behind the resistance organizations that "hired" them, there are actually their former employers...
According to the agreement jointly issued by various countries, after Noah's Ark is built, only humans with the best genes will be selected as "seeds", and those heads of state, dignitaries... most of them are not on this list.
Although at the critical moment of human survival, heads of state of various countries have made selfless decisions, there are still selfish people in the upper echelons of human society... not only that, but there are also quite a few of them.
While these people tried every means to get themselves and their families on the boarding list, they also secretly contacted resistance organizations, provided them with funding and convenience, and let them carry out attacks on various construction sites of the Ark, and used this as bargaining chips to attack their opponents... During the construction of the Ark, the governments of various countries seemed to be working together, but in fact there were undercurrents, and everyone had his own little thoughts... If you are not careful, you will be doomed.
In fact, there was indeed a group of dignitaries who successfully got their offspring on the list, but none of these people themselves succeeded - because Noah's Ark needed to pass through the star gate to accelerate, the acceleration process would put a great strain on the crew's bodies. Even with the protection of the hibernation capsule, people with weaker constitutions would not be able to survive this stage... Because of this, Noah's Ark actually still had a plan B.
"Human Seed Bank".
This human seed bank contains a large number of high-quality and healthy human promotion cells. If no crew members survive after the Ark's acceleration phase or if the crew members' genes and bodies mutate and lose their fertility due to some special reasons, this plan B will be activated. The preset program will thaw these human promotion cells and combine them in pairs to cultivate a new batch of humans.
Even young and healthy crew members may not be able to survive the Ark's acceleration phase, let alone those elderly dignitaries... The first condition for crew selection is that the age must not exceed 35 years old.
Those who have children will naturally take great pains to send their children to the Ark, while those who have no offspring or whose offspring do not meet the requirements will naturally try to obstruct the Ark plan with the idea that "since I can't get a chance to survive, then neither can others"... Even if they shout slogans of righteousness on the surface, in secret, they are continuously transferring funds into the accounts of the resistance organizations.
These people never consider whether the human race will become extinct because of this. In their opinion, if their family line cannot be continued, then it is better for humanity to be destroyed and buried with themselves.
This idea is very extreme, but it has to be said that it is indeed "human nature"...
Nieto was not wrong when he said… “Human nature is evil.”
This kind of "evil" comes from people's instinct for survival. Rather than calling it "evil", it would be more appropriate to call it selfishness - there are only so many survival resources, and if you share them with others, you won't be able to survive... If you want to survive, you can only plunder other people's survival resources, or simply kill others.
Ultimately, this is the reason why most wars in human history were caused.
Humans are social animals, but unlike bees, which have only one will, the queen bee. Each individual human has his or her own thoughts, desires, greed, selfishness, violence... These negative emotions have been buried in the dark side of human nature since the beginning of human minds. A little negative emotion may stimulate a person's willpower, but if there are too many negative emotions, the whole person will be completely devoured...
There is no "perfect person" in this world. People who are called "saints" have more or less shortcomings... But even so, there are very few people who can be called "saints" in thousands of years of history.
More people believe in the saying "If a man does not work for himself, he will be punished by heaven and earth"... Even if they have never heard of this proverb, they will definitely put their own interests first when doing things.
No matter in which era, those who "sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others" may be openly regarded as the objects of "positive energy" propaganda, but behind the scenes, who knows how many people will ridicule him.
People with a slightly better character would simply "admire" him but would not make close friends with him, let alone become such a person.
Just as this thought was fermenting in Ke Lan's mind, the scene around him changed again.
He found himself sitting at a dining table.
On the other three sides of the dining table sat a man, a woman and a boy who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old.
There were bowls and chopsticks in front of the three people, except for Ke Lan, who had nothing in front of him.
Ke Lan looked down and found that there were no dishes or chopsticks, not even a chair, and he couldn't see his own legs - in this scene, he was a transparent person, a "spectator" who was completely outside.
There is a paper calendar hanging on the wall. From the date on the calendar, it can be seen that this family lives in the mid-twenty-first century. From the dishes on the table and the interior decoration, this family is not rich, but at least they can be said to be a well-off family, at least they have exceeded the poverty line by a long way.
The boy seemed to have just come back from outside. The clothes on his back were still wet, and white sweat vapor and the heat from the food were rising together. He had not even had time to take off the protective gear on his elbows. He just wiped his face hastily with a wet towel and sat down at the dining table.
"I broke the record again today, with an average speed of over 35 mph!" the boy said excitedly, "I feel like the special training over the past month has been very effective!"
There was a bicycle helmet on the cabinet next to him. It was obvious that the boy was a cycling enthusiast.
"Oh." The boy's father responded without raising his head. He sipped the wine in the glass nonchalantly while swiping the screen of his mobile phone with his finger. The mobile phone was playing short videos that were popular in that era. Harsh laughter and dubbing came out from the external speakers from time to time.
"On the way home today, I helped an old man. I saw that the old man was having a hard time riding a tricycle uphill, so I got off and helped him push the tricycle uphill... There were several people watching at the side, but no one helped. After I got off to help, I felt like they were all staring at me!" The boy said proudly, with a happy smile on his face, as if he was waiting for his parents' praise.
But the father still just murmured "hmm", and after two seconds, he raised his head and looked at the boy with a frown.
The boy didn’t seem to understand the hidden meaning in his father’s eyes, and continued, “After we passed that slope and waited for the red light, the old man rode up to me and kept thanking me… Hehe…”
The boy was still smug, but his father said indifferently: "That's because you are lucky."
"Lucky?" The boy was stunned for a moment, "What do you mean..."
"Have you ever thought about what would happen if that person fell down while you were helping him push the cart?" the father said while looking at his phone. "You are lucky because you met a reasonable person today. What if you met an unreasonable person?"
"Ah?" The boy obviously didn't understand what his father said. "Why did he fall? And even if he fell, why did I..."
"Of course it has something to do with you." The father interrupted the boy. "Because you took action, you have to take responsibility. There is no need to ask why. This is the reality. Why do you think those people just watched and were unwilling to help? Because they are smart, and you are the dumbest."
"Is there anything wrong with being helpful?" the boy said unconvinced, his face suddenly turning red.
"It's okay to help, but you have to take care of yourself first." The father took another sip of wine and said, "You know that everyone knows that those people in the news and those who were blackmailed are innocent, but is it useful? Even if everyone thinks he is not wrong, he still has to bear part of the responsibility. Just because he helped others, he has to pay a 'price' - do you remember the day before yesterday when we drove out and a person riding an electric scooter ran a red light and was almost hit by us?"
"……Remember."
"It was the person riding the electric bike who violated the traffic rules. We did nothing wrong. But even so, if something really happened, we would have to pay that person tens of thousands of yuan, you know?" The father continued, "We are not a wealthy family, we don't have that much money to do good things, we just need to take care of ourselves, do you understand?"
"But I just want to help..."
"Have you ever thought about what you would do if you were blackmailed?" the father asked in a deep voice.
At this time, the short video in the father's hand happened to show a scene of a cheesy skit that seemed to be promoting some kind of "positive energy". Although it was ostensibly promoting "positive energy", in essence it was one of those low-quality pretentious and face-slapping scripts. Accompanied by a burst of harsh canned laughter and funny sound effects, the people in the video spoke in unstandard Mandarin about the kind of "truths" that were basically nonsense... and at the dinner table of this family of three, the atmosphere became increasingly tense.
“Then the law should be amended so that people who lend a helping hand do not have to acknowledge any responsibility. This way everyone will be willing to help others, and this society will become better and better,” said the boy.
"What do you know?!" His father glared at him. "You said you want to change the law? Who do you think you are? You always think things are too simple, but never consider the problems in reality. People like you will definitely suffer a lot when they enter society in the future!"
"Mistakes should be corrected. This is such a simple truth that everyone should understand!" The boy began to "talk back."
"Then go and do it! What's the point of saying all this if you can't do it?!" The father's voice tone became noticeably higher. The mother at the side saw this and gently pulled the boy's sleeve, signaling him not to argue with his father anymore.
But the boy ignored his mother's dissuasion and continued, "I just can't understand why I can't do the right thing! I don't understand!"
"These are not things we need to consider!" The father said angrily, "Do you know how hard it is for me to maintain this family? If you don't run a household, you don't know how expensive firewood and rice are. You think about these illusory things all day long. If you have the mind to think about them, you might as well study harder, get into a good university, find a good job in the future, and make more money!"
"Studying is just for making money? But..."
As if he knew what the boy wanted to say, the father interrupted him again: "I'll say it again, those are not things you need to consider ! We just need to take care of ourselves! Reality is not what you think it is!"
