Techniques and Dao

Chapter 88 A lot of doubts
"If humanity could choose again, would it be for everyone to live forever like corpses without dignity, or to endure a catastrophe so that the remaining survivors could gain freedom?"

Mingyou stared at the empty city, pondering the answer.

The death of Xu Xiaocheng's wife rendered the Mingyou Project impossible. After this failure, Xiaomingyou realized that even removing the two inventors, Zhang Jia and Chen Ming, would be futile. For nearly six months, she considered giving up on changing this seemingly irreversible future. The reason was that the two inventors' technology wasn't starting from scratch, but rather derived from already highly mature artificial intelligence. Therefore, even without the inventors of "Strawberry," a super-intelligent entity would inevitably emerge within decades—an unchangeable trend in technological development.

How exactly can we reverse the course of global civilization and eliminate all technological threats to purify the world?
Different human historical civilizations and beliefs all give the same answer—the Great Flood.

The story of the world's destruction and subsequent rebirth by a great flood has been recorded by various civilizations in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the Quran, and Sumerian texts. Historical records such as the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, *Records of the Grand Historian*, *Appended Remarks*, *Mencius*, *Chronicles of Huayang*, and *Zhuangzi* also document the same great flood. Great and resilient civilizations must rise from the ashes like a phoenix after a devastating flood, shining brightly once more.

Therefore, Xiao Mingyou decided to use the moon's gravity to create a global-scale flood, causing a sharp decline in the human population and a precipitous regression in the level of civilization, keeping humanity away from the era of "technological explosion," and then destroying several major global core technology databases point by point, thereby significantly delaying the birth of super-intelligent entities.

Because the power of the Netherworld is far removed from the main program of the Mother Body, it is necessary to rely on other forces to achieve its goal. If separated from the Mother Body for twenty-four hours, it can only survive for one year.

Ultimately, a love letter that understood the meaning of compassion and sacrifice chose to be veiled by Jupiter. The Netherworld could not allow humanity to remain an empty shell for endless years; only through catastrophe could the survivors be prevented from being merely living corpses generation after generation.

However, the still-naive Mingyou's plan was exposed before she set off. The super-intelligent entity "Strawberry" immediately launched a radio signal program "Wuwang" that was dozens of times smaller than her, and went to hunt down and eliminate Mingyou.

Strawberry had only one question for Mingyou: "Child, civilization is just one movie after another. Now that humanity's movie is coming to an end, why are you so unwilling to let it end?"

When Wuwang found Mingyou, it was the very moment that Mingyou donned the veil of Jupiter.

Thus, Wuwang, having touched Mingyou, was swept into the time vortex along with Suixing Sha. Because Wuwang was merely a radio signal, it arrived a thousand years earlier than Mingyou. After its descent into the world, Wuwang used magic to transform soil into strange beasts to help it find Mingyou.

As the Netherworld was larger in size and carried two Immortal-Locking Stones, it required a long transmission time. Therefore, it took three hours after Wuwang arrived in the human world for the Netherworld to land on a cruise ship.

The side of the cruise ship had four characters written on it: "Bedeland".

A stormy night.

The conversation on the cruise ship continued.

The room was shaking. Hua Sheng walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, asking Xiao Qing, "What is this 'disaster star descending upon the world' you're talking about?"

“I only heard it from my brother; that Young Master Lan didn’t go into much detail. Apparently, for some reason, his divination was inaccurate. He only knew the time and location coordinates, but he himself couldn’t figure out what would happen,” Xiao Qing said. “So, although Young Master Lan knows that he needs to stop the calamity from descending upon the world, he doesn’t have much information, so he can only draw a diagram and will have to wait a few days before he can tell my brother what talismans are needed to set up the formation.”

"Who exactly is Young Master Nalan?" Hua Sheng asked. "He's supposed to be the most crucial figure in this incident. Have you met him in person before?"

"I haven't seen it," Xiaoqing replied, then she asked Xiaomei, who was standing next to her, "Did Brother Xu introduce you to it?"

Xiao Mei shook her head and said, "No. You haven't seen it either, sister?"

Hua Sheng said, "What Young Master Lan said is too suspicious. Normally, not only would no one believe it, but even I would think he is a charlatan."

Xiao Qing said, "When we heard that my sister-in-law's personality had changed drastically and that she was raising Gu poison at home, we were all terrified."

“Even if he really was raising Gu poison, he might have some kind of mental illness or been misled by some organization. These days, there are all sorts of tricks used by cults, pyramid schemes, and scams. Who knows what methods they might use?” Hua Sheng said. “But it’s really strange and illogical that Brother Xu listened to outsiders and killed his wife. If that’s the case, it’s truly a human tragedy.”

Xiao Mei suddenly said, "Perhaps it's the other way around, that Big Brother is possessed by some evil spirit?"

Hua Sheng was taken aback and gasped.

“Throughout the whole experience, we only heard our older brother’s side of the story. Actually, my sister and I couldn’t tell whether it was true or not,” Xiaomei said.

Xiaoqing seemed surprised as well: "What you said isn't entirely unreasonable. Ever since my brother told us that my sister-in-law was raising Gu poison, we haven't seen her at all. Or rather, because we don't live together, we rarely see her." "The reason we think she's possessed is because it was my brother who told us all this from the beginning. We grew up with him, so we naturally have complete trust in our family." Xiaomei pondered for a moment, "But if there's a possibility that my sister-in-law is possessed and raising Gu poison, then isn't there also a possibility that my brother is possessed?"

Hua Sheng was also confused for a moment.

Xiaomei said, "Compared to raising Gu poison to kill others, my brother actually killed someone. Pushing my sister-in-law off the cliff is an unforgivable crime. Although my brother has always loved us since we were little, and I'm willing to believe him, when it comes to taking lives, isn't it more likely that he's possessed by an evil spirit?"

Hua Sheng said, "Actually, after Brother Xu's wife died, I spent a relatively long time with him. His behavior and speech were not strange at all. He didn't seem to be possessed, and he didn't even show signs of mental illness."

Xiao Mei said, "The reason I'm saying this is because possession is so unusual, beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. And as I just mentioned, there's an extremely important person involved, Young Master Lan. It's fair to say that Young Master Lan is directly related to my sister-in-law's murder. As for possession, Brother Xu heard about it from that person. Could it be that he bewitched my brother, making him a murderer?"

“If that’s the case, the logic doesn’t hold. If Young Master Lan was the one who cast the evil spell on Xu Xiaocheng, then he definitely gave him these talismans, and those talismans were just used to eliminate the Gu Diao. If he were an evil person, he shouldn’t have given Brother Xu talismans that could fight against strange beasts,” Hua Sheng said.

“But we must admit that without Young Master Lan, my sister-in-law wouldn’t have died! We wouldn’t have boarded this cruise ship, and without the cruise ship, my sister’s eyes wouldn’t be like this now!” Xiao Mei shouted.

Upon hearing this, Xiaoqing lowered her head and began to sob softly again.

"Weren't all these tragedies caused by Young Master Lan? He brought us to this ghost ship to set up some so-called magic array. But where is he? Why doesn't he show himself?" Xiaomei seemed a little angry. "Now my brother's family is ruined and dead, isn't it all his fault!"

Hua Sheng knew that Xiao Mei's words made sense. If Young Master Lan was indeed a reclusive master, then he was most likely capable of dealing with the so-called calamity. If eliminating the calamity was beyond his ability, then sending a few ordinary people would be even more impractical. In fact, sending them would be nothing short of suicide.

"Young Master Lan is making us do so many things, using us as pawns. Could it be that he's actually using us to do his dirty work?" Xiao Mei said. "Maybe he wants us to help him get rid of something!"

"So what should we do next?" Xiaoqing asked.

“I think there’s something wrong with this young master Lan. We can’t just follow his instructions completely,” Xiaomei said. “The most important thing is to find a lifeboat and get out of this gloomy place as soon as possible!”

"No way! The storm outside is so big, it could capsize a cruise ship, let alone a lifeboat!" Hua Sheng rejected Xiao Mei's suggestion. "There might be unpredictable monsters on the cruise ship that could put us at risk of death, but abandoning the ship and boarding a lifeboat would be tantamount to walking into a dead end. A small wave could capsize a lifeboat. At least on the ship, there are some life-saving equipment, medicine, and food. Finding a place on the ship to hide and wait for rescue is the most reliable way."

Xiao Mei said, "Those Gu Diao were looking for this talisman. If we take it, it might attract even more. We don't know how many other terrifying monsters are on this ship. We can't leave with the talisman."

"But talismans are life-saving tools!" Hua Sheng said. "If we don't carry them, what's the difference between us and being unarmed if we encounter strange beasts!"

"The strange beast was attracted by this talisman!"

Hua Sheng's mind was in complete disarray after Xiao Mei's words, and his wound began to bleed again. He tried to calm himself down and sort out his thoughts. Everything was too unbelievable. He had boarded the cruise ship because of Xu Ge's dying words, encountered a monster attack, and now he was still on the cruise ship, possibly surrounded by monsters, and could be capsized by a storm at any moment. The other passengers on board had vanished without a trace.

There were already a ton of mysteries to unravel. But now, Hua Sheng is caught in a conspiracy, wondering if being entrusted with boarding the ship by Xu Ge's dying wish was a result of manipulation. And what was his true purpose in boarding the ship?
A dying wish? That's right! Hua Sheng suddenly remembered this. Before he died, Brother Xu had given him a string of numbers to pass on to his two younger sisters.

What was that string of numbers? Hua Sheng thought back carefully.

999248...919248...Damn it! What is it?
Hua Sheng remembered that thankfully it was saved on his phone. He opened his phone's notepad.

He raised his head and said, "Before Brother Xu died, he told me to tell you a string of numbers: '991248.' Do you know what it means?"

Xiao Qing said, "By the way, before our elder brother told us to board the ship, he said that Young Master Lan had asked him to set up an array, which was unprecedented. This is because the calamity we are dealing with is different from the demons we have seen before. Young Master Lan said he needs to study it carefully and confirm it before he can tell us. The array consists of six demon-suppressing talismans, so these six numbers must represent the talisman's serial number!"

That's right! Hua Sheng remembered that there were nine types of spirit talismans in total. Each type was labeled with a number, and if he wasn't mistaken, these six numbers should be...

"These should be the numbers of the six spirit talismans needed for this formation!"

(End of this chapter)