Chapter 2485: Turmoil Before Doomsday

　　Li Yao couldn’t help but feel chilled by what Long Yangjun said.

　　The virtual black tides before him seemed to have turned into a starless universe too.

　　The seemingly dark void was actually the best protection because patrolling beyond the darkness was an irresistible strength that was a hundred times darker than darkness…

　　“Even… Even if your guess is correct…”

　　Li Yao’s voice sounded like the cold wind blowing out of an ice cave, brimming with coldness. “They didn’t have to go so far as to completely abandon their feelings, did they?”

　　“They must.”

　　Long Yangjun sighed and said, “In the past, we thought that the Pangu civilization erased their feelings because the resources were highly limited and they had to be frugal. After all, the intense activities caused by feelings—the most extreme case being war—would significantly accelerate the consumption of resources, resulting in the advanced drought and collapse of the closed world.

　　“However, that is only just one of the reasons and a lesser one.

　　“Secondly, and more importantly, feelings lead to desires. For a highly-developed intelligent life, their strongest desire can’t be the primitive survival and reproduction, but the ambitions to explore the unknown, to march to the world beyond, to break all the boundaries, to reach the edge of the universe, and to jump out of it!

　　“Even though the leadership of the Pangu civilization could disband the expedition fleet and even destroy the technologies about crystal processors, the Spiritual Nexus, and how to use tenebrum energy, they could not guarantee that those technologies would not be secretly developed in the tens of thousands of years to come, allowing some ambitious, reckless young men to break out of the three thousand Sectors with the new-generation starships assisted by artificial intelligence and powered by tenebrum energy!

　　“After all, the universe is simply too huge. Even the ‘tiny’ three thousand Sectors are in fact an extremely vast sea of stars. You cannot set up surveillance everywhere. As long as they are determined, somebody will definitely escape one day.

　　“Just like what I said a moment ago, and never forget it, not a single starship, an individual, or a cell of this world can escape out of here. If they do and are sensed by the Flood, everything will be doomed!

　　“Then, to forestall the accident and to settle the problem from the origins, it was not enough to only destroy technologies and dismantle starships, but also necessary to completely eliminate desires. The desire to learn, to explore, and the curiosity of the imagination must not be allowed. Only the individuals who did not feel anything when they raised their heads to look at the stars in the sky were the safest beings for the Pangu civilization as a whole.

　　“In order to suffocate desires, the first thing to be done is to suppress feelings. Feelings and desires are the two sides of the same coin. It will only be safe enough if they are destroyed at the same time!”

　　With his mouth open, Li Yao thought for a long time but had to admit that Long Yangjun did have a point.

　　The greatest difference between human beings, the wisest of all creatures, and other ignorant beasts was their curiosity and imagination, wasn’t it?

　　As long as human beings still had curiosity and imagination, when they raised their heads to look at the sky, they would want to know what lay behind the curtain of stars, and countless people would eventually break out by paying with their wisdom, courage, sweat, and even life!

　　The Pangu civilization must’ve been the same, right? Their hearts must’ve been filled by surging tides and volcano eruptions when they looked at the stars, didn’t they?

　　“Thirdly, and also the most important reason to get rid of feelings—”

　　Long Yangjun continued solemnly, “Keeping fear away and maintaining the order could make the Pangu civilization operate at the minimal efficiency and preserve the seeds of the civilization.”

　　Li Yao was slightly stunned. “What do you mean? Wasn’t the fear already far away from them after they canceled the expedition fleet and stayed behind the black wall? What order needed maintaining?”

　　“You are thinking about it too simply. The Pangu civilization had probably never seen the Flood but only collected the clues about the Flood from the debris of other civilizations. Their fear originated from their own heart. How could they keep a distance from it?”

　　Long Yangjun looked both sad and indifferent. Or rather, in order not to expose the sorrow in her heart, she faked the nonchalance as if she were not concerned about it. “I wonder if you’ve heard this before. When the doomsday comes, the world is not destroyed in the doomsday, but by the chaos before the doom.

　　“You should never overestimate humanity. From the scale of the grand universe, both mankind and the Pangu civilization are just grains of dust. Faced with the great horror and the great catastrophe, most individuals of mankind and the Pangu civilization would find it unbearable.

　　“Li Yao, if everything I said just now is true, how do you feel? Do you feel shocked, terrified, and even completely desperate?”

　　“Well…”

　　Li Yao scratched his head and said, “I’m indeed a bit shocked and terrified, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m completely desperate. Hahahaha. I’ve been through too many battles and too many great scenes. Is a minor ‘Flood’ really so intimidating? If you are so awesome, Flood, why don’t you jump to my front and hit me? Come on, Flood, just show yourself and hit me! Hit me, idiot! Look, nothing happened at all. It suggests two things. The Flood is not omnipotent and omniscient, and it has weaknesses too. At the very least, it cannot detect our conversation or teleport itself over instantly.

　　“Or maybe even the Flood is scared of ‘Vulture Li Yao’ too, and it does not have the courage to show up and get killed when I’m cursing it aloud!”

　　Li Yao cursed at the starry sky with his arms akimbo for a long time, before he finally said to Long Yangjun seriously.

　　Long Yangjun: “…”

　　Li Yao: “Hey, hey, hey, what’s the meaning of this? Why are you leaving? We are having a delightful conversation and about to reach the key point. Where are you going exactly without saying anything?”

　　Long Yangjun: “I want to chat with Xiaoming and Wenwen. It occurs to me that even talking with the two kids will be more productive than talking with you.”

　　“Please don’t, let’s at least finish what we were talking about!”

　　Li Yao hurried to ask Long Yangjun to stay. He even swore, “I’ll stop talking, alright? I’ll just listen to you. I’m all ears!”

　　With her eyes half closed, Long Yangjun took a few deep breaths before she finally went on, “Forget it. It is redundant to ask you. I’ll just continue my theory.

　　“Leaving the weirdoes like you and the unparalleled experts whose minds are unbelievably firm, like Boss Bai, the Flood is the greatest catastrophe for most of the ordinary people and even for the experts who have mastered powerful strength but not determined hearts.

　　“There lies an irresistible and even unimaginable force outside of the world that we live in. The only reason why the force hasn’t destroyed us is that we are lucky. But our luck is not going to last forever! One day, the Flood will notice us, find us, and swallow our lazily!

　　“Countless civilizations have been destroyed by the Flood, and no matter how we develop our own civilization, we cannot stop the upcoming doom. This is exactly what they say ‘foreordained’!

　　“Do you understand, Li Yao? Such a perception will result in the deepest fear in everyone’s heart and ruin the hope of a civilization’s development. The fire of desperation will sweep across every planet in the three thousand Sectors and collapse the entire Pangu civilization before the Flood comes!

　　“Since destruction is unavoidable, what’s the point of working hard and contributing to the civilization today?

　　“Now that breaking out of the three thousand Sectors was an absolute taboo, where did the future of the Pangu civilization lie?

　　“When a terrible beast outside was ready to eat them any moment, how were the panicked individuals of the Pangu civilization going to live their daily lives?

　　“Nobody can answer those questions, but they will all gradually realize the unacceptable answers. Eventually, in the better case-scenarios, all the individuals find the significance of their lives lost, and they are too addicted to the primitive sensual stimulations and entertainments to free themselves, ending their life in self-abandonment; in the worst-case scenarios, the psychos and lunatics will simply end their civilization in the most extreme ways in their desperation. You may consider it as some sort of civilizational suicide?

　　“What about the government? Hehe. The government at such a moment should’ve lost all the authority, glory, and ability of governance, right? Now that even the government is incapable of coping with the Flood, is such a government good for anything?

　　“The Pangu civilization retrograded at an astonishing speed into anarchy. Everybody was bouncing between utter desperation and complete madness, as if they were all suffering the most severe bipolar disorder. Perhaps, in only a hundred years, the Pangu’s alliance established by the thirteen carbon-based intelligence lives together would be destroyed with their most spectacular civilization!

　　“Let me ask you, as the leader of the Pangu civilization, after foreseeing such a miserable future, what choice do you have except to deprive the people of their feelings and desires so that they will be kept away from fear and able to work and live ‘normally’, ensuring that the civilization still runs at the lowest efficiency?”

　　Li Yao thought hard for a long time and finally said, “It does make sense. In fact, for every living individual, materials do not matter most. What matters is whether or not you can see hope. As long as there is hope, it doesn’t matter even if life today is difficult. But if the future road has been entirely blocked by the Flood without any hope of development, the whole civilization will certainly be lost. The odds are quite high that what you described just now will happen, like the collapse of the government, the disruption of the social order, and the fallout of the civilization.

　　“Speaking of which, erasing feelings and desires and locking the development of all technologies are not going to work out in the long run either. Won’t they still be dead in the end?”

　　“It may have only been expediency.”

　　Long Yangjun said, “Perhaps the leader of the Pangu civilization who made the decision in the beginning believed that the Flood would not haunt the area forever. After a certain amount of time, the Flood would certainly leave and look for food from somewhere else. By then, they could find a way to unlock feelings, desires, and the progress of technologies so that the seeds of the civilization that had been running at the lowest efficiency would bloom and fruit again or even cross the black wall and march at the grand universe. Wouldn’t they be avoiding their doom in such a way?”