Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 628 - 272: Different Worlds

Chapter 628: Chapter 272: Different Worlds

"Have you ever pondered this question?" Ingrid gulped down half a glass of beer and then licked the foam from the corners of her mouth, "What’s ’common sense’ to one may not be so to another."

"In the jungles of Paraguay, there exists a hunting and gathering tribe that has survived to this day. They are known as the ’Ache People.’ The Ache are no strangers to killing their own. If an Ache woman gets too old and becomes a burden to the tribe, a young man will stealthily approach her from behind, waiting for the opportunity to cleave her head with an axe. A man of the Ache might kill his aunt, his uncle’s wife, or his mother’s sister during his youth... According to Ache customs, if a valuable member of the tribe dies, they would kill a little girl to accompany the deceased."

"Moreover, the life and death of children there is a matter of arbitrary decision. Infanticide is commonplace, and often it’s simply because they do not wish to raise more offspring. A man killed a baby boy merely because he was ’in a bad mood and the kid wouldn’t stop crying.’ There was even a child buried alive because ’it looked odd and the other children would laugh at it.’"

At this, Ingrid asked, "So, Mr. Lu, what do you think of these people?"

"Barbaric and ignorant," Lu Xuanyu said without hesitation.

"But, you know, among the adult Ache, there’s a lot of affection and very little violence. If an Ache encounters difficulty, the rest of the tribe will try to help him out. They might not have much materially, but they are very generous, and they don’t obsess over success or wealth. No one is driven to retaliate against society due to a career or bank loans. And there are no murders."

"In the worldview of the Ache, what matters most is healthy interpersonal interactions and genuine friendship. They do not hate another group of people from afar for no reason; they don’t engage in online bullying against those who suffer misfortune; they don’t spread rumors... The Great Chief of the tribe is also fair and doesn’t bleed the youth of the tribe with invisible values."

Lu Xuanyu was taken aback, "These guys are good people now?"

"’Good and evil’ is not an objective concept. In their worldview, they indeed are good people," Ingrid burped, "In their eyes, that’s how the normal world works. They abandon or bury their sick before they die. In their worldview, such a person may still be breathing, but is already dead. Just like you wouldn’t try to prolong the life of a deceased grandparent."

"As for ’killing children who can’t live independently,’ to them, it’s akin to ’abortion’... Ah, speaking of which, there are no conservative religious forces here forbidding abortion, right? You shouldn’t have any aversion to abortion, should you? They feel the same way. ’Children who can’t live independently’ in their worldview, are just like lifeless embryos... The harshness of their natural environment means any of them could die at any time... Aside from this point, they are generally good people. They don’t kill without reason..."

"Enough already!" Xiang Shan, who had been gradually lowering his head, suddenly stood up and shouted, "Even chimpanzees... Or was it bonobos or gorillas? Anyway, non-human primates also commit massacres against neighboring groups without necessity. Your so-called ’primitive’ humans with no massacres and tribal wars might just be because anthropologists haven’t recorded it!"

"Right, right, right, okay, okay, okay..." Ingrid waved her hands, "Sit down, don’t get worked up."

Xiang Shan sat down and continued sipping his sweet cocktail, "Where were we? Right, the ’normal’ benchmark is different. The underlying color of that kid’s worldview is that of an African farmer who hasn’t experienced modernization. To him, this city is built on great but obscure foreign witchcraft."

"The subway... he doesn’t understand why we need to dig such complex tunnels underground. It’s not like there isn’t enough space to walk on the surface. But if you tell him it’s for ’getting to distant places faster,’ he doesn’t grasp why one would want to go to distant places. Why do people find work halfway across the city? Why live so far from relatives? Why not farm the land near home? If you tell him ’there’s not enough land to farm,’ he’ll think city dwellers are a bit crazy, wondering why everyone wants to come to a place with no land to farm and serve others."

"Yog’s favorite place was the zoo in Beiping. Previously on his days off, he could spend half the day at the panda exhibit, even sitting outside the animal’s living area brainstorming his thesis. But Haya couldn’t understand this at all. The kid didn’t get what kind of Power would drive humans to collect different animals from all over the world and then confine them in similar cages... It must be said that his mind was particularly sick, seeing he had been sent to kill from a young age. Especially considering Sheluke Midom’s signature tourism project is a huge safari park."

"Although he finds hot showers comfortable, he doesn’t understand why we want to have them every day. Isn’t maintaining necessary cleanliness enough? The same goes for the dazzling array of food. Very tasty, but not necessary. Why transport meat hundreds or even thousands of miles? Why move seafood from the coast to inland? Isn’t it natural to eat whatever is available?"

"Then there’s entertainment. Screens are also a kind of impressive witchcraft. But he can’t understand why everyone wants to watch those ’known to be unreal’ images. And video games... why strive for meaningless numbers known as ’scores’? Why pretend to kill monsters that don’t exist?"

"Guns might be the foreign witchcraft he’s most familiar with. He also thinks guns are useful, but to him, this stick of foreign Martial Arts is just to compensate for the physical weaknesses that come with age. Without this witchcraft, he and his companions would still use knives to kill people, to kill members of the Zima Clan."

"The life we take for granted is very impressive to him, but completely unnecessary. At least there is no need to integrate tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people into one huge system... The industrial system that supports our lives, in his view, is indescribable, beyond imagination, an ineffable entity."

Xiang Shan said a lot all at once, as if he had been holding back many emotions. After letting these words out, he leaned back in his chair like a balloon that had released its air.

"He suddenly said he realized we were very impressive... I don’t know what the ’steel limbs’ mean in his eyes. But he intuitively realized that our ’witchcraft’ could subvert the fundamental logic of his knowledge. That moment of ’everything you knew before was wrong’ became real. It’s a good thing."

Murmuring "It’s a good thing," Xiang Shan repeated it several times, his voice getting lower and lower, as if he was about to fall asleep.

Perhaps it was the alcohol kicking in, but Lu Xuanyu finally asked the question he had been curious about, "That, I was wondering earlier. Why would he want to die at the hands of your friend’s kinsfolk? Your attitude towards that kid is also strange, Mr. Xiang."