My Wife Is A Sword Immortal-Chapter 500 - 334 Rong’er Brother, You Are My Sun_3

The Great Thieves.

In Wangque Continent, home to hundreds of dynasties over thousands of years, great thieves have been rampant.

He who steals a hook is executed, he who steals a kingdom becomes a marquis.

Even those who compiled these so-called official histories were, in fact, the very thieves who had stolen countries! They wrote with vibrant colors to gloss over the peace.

However, Zhao Rong was now half a mountain man, sitting alone in a corner of a study in the Confucian Academy, immersed in his books.

All these matters of the lower world seemed extremely distant to him, perceptible only through these withered yellow pages.

Days in Du You City passed by very slowly.

Zhao Rong’s current life consisted of studying in the Academy and spending time with his wife and Qian’er.

As for the great thieves in the mountains that his wife worried about, they seemed even farther away, or rather, high above, than those in the mundane world below.

Zhao Rong did not respond to his wife’s query, but shook his head and continued,

"Saints do not die, great thieves do not cease. The real curse is not on the Saints, for they are not evil, nor are the laws of the Saints evil, but the wicked deeds done by wicked men using the laws of the Saints. It’s not the Saints who should die, it’s the great thieves, yet as long as the laws of the Saints exist, they will inevitably be exploited by the wicked."

"Qing Jun, this seemingly unsolvable paradox is actually well understood by many of us, the orthodox scholars of the Confucian sect," he added.

Lingfei fell silent.

Seeing that her husband had no intention of continuing, she pondered for a moment and couldn’t help but ask, "If it was the Daoists who first brought this up, do they have a method to address it?"

Zhao Rong nodded, "Today, Daoist Tao Yuanran already spoke of it, saying that if the ’disparity’ causes trouble, then we should strive to cover up this ’disparity’."

"To return to the ancient times, to renounce sainthood and wisdom, forsake cleverness and profit, not to initiate saintly wisdom, to keep the populace ignorant—thus leaving the great thieves with nothing to steal, making their thefts pointless. In this way, the great thieves would cease, and there would be peace in the world."

Lingfei suddenly remembered what Zhao Rong had said during the day when he had walked into the clearing in the Bamboo Forest:

A Taoyuan paradise, two villages adjacent, where dogs and chickens are heard but the villagers never visit each other even until death.

Perhaps this was the simple world without Saints and great thieves that Tao Yuanran spoke of?

But...

Lingfei slowly shook her head, "How could we possibly return to that?"

Looking at her husband, she sighed, "That’s why you said during the day, ’The wisdom of the world has been awakened, chaos has died, the simplicity cannot return,’ right?"

Zhao Rong nodded, keeping some extended special topics to himself, such as how should the Cultivators in the mountains be dealt with? How should the looming Xuanhuang Cultivation World above the people’s heads be handled?

The air quieted for a while.

Zhao Rong felt the topic was a bit heavy, so he smiled lightly and patted the absent-minded Lingfei’s hand.

Picking up a grape, he popped it into his mouth, munching on it, when suddenly he paused and asked,

"By the way, Qing Jun, there is actually another conceptual issue. Do you think human nature is inherently good, evil, or does it oscillate between good and evil, or even, does it matter at all?"

Lingfei paused for a moment, understanding his point.

She gazed at the man who patiently taught her all he knew.

"I don’t know what the inherent good or evil in human nature is. But I believe that as long as one is bathed in sunlight, human nature tends towards good," she reflected.

Lingfei took Zhao Rong’s right hand and also grabbed the hand of the little maid who was eavesdropping nearby; their hands tightly held together.

She furrowed her brows, her speech clear, each word enunciated,

"Thank you for sharing so much with me,"

"The Daoists’ ’effortless action,’ I understand them, but I do not agree, because a world of equality based on the ignorance and lack of desire of all beings cannot last forever. Minds will always develop, societal differences will always arise. But human nature is like plants facing the sun, as long as there is the sun, they will grow upwards, and the sages are that sun. Rong’er, you... are my sun."

In the darkness, the man pausing to chew his grape was stunned.

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