“I think… because it can help people find the ‘right’ path. Search: \(Complete Book Site\) to read quality literature for free.”

“How so?”

The mountain wind blew, and on the mountain path of He Deng, Ning Yi shrugged.

“In this world, everyone wants to find the right path, and everyone asks themselves if what they're doing is right or wrong. If it's right, it works; if it's wrong, there are problems. Right and wrong are the most important concepts for ordinary people.” He said, pausing slightly. “But right and wrong are themselves inaccurate concepts…”

“…Farmers plant rice seedlings in spring and harvest in autumn. If there are insects, they must be killed. To go from He Deng to Ji Shan, you have to take mountain roads and waterways. In this case, right and wrong seem simple. But how do right and wrong come about? People, through thousands of years of observation and trial, see the laws clearly and know how to achieve their desired goals. The farmer asks a learned person, 'When should I plant rice seedlings?' The learned person says, 'Spring,' decisively. This is right because the question is simple. But what about more complex questions?”

“…If a person opens a small shop, how to open it correctly? It takes some effort, but you can still summarize some rules. If the shop is as big as Zhu Ji’s, what is the right way? When the Xia Army attacks Chengdu and takes the Chengdu Plain, is that right? If you want equality for all, how do you do it right?”

Ning Yi smiled. “You call a group of learned people together to discuss based on their own ideas, and then you have to weigh things yourself and make a decision. Is this decision right? Who gets to say? A thirty-year-old genius? A ninety-year-old scholar? Looking back at this time, the so-called right and wrong is something beyond human beings. The farmer asks a learned person when to plant rice seedlings, and spring is right, so the farmer has no burden. Is what the learned person said really right? Everyone is just making a relatively accurate judgment based on experience and the laws they see. After the judgment, you start doing it, and you have to go through a judgment of heaven and the laws again. Whether there are good results is another matter.”

“When someone is in power, whether it’s running a store or a country, the so-called right and wrong is difficult to find easily. You find a group of learned people to discuss, and in the end, you have to make a decision. You don’t know if this decision can withstand the judgment of heaven, so you need more urgency, more caution, and you have to rack your brains every day, thinking countless times. Most importantly, you have to make a decision and then accept the judgment of heaven… Only by bearing this urgency can you become a person who can take responsibility.”

“Many people pin their future on right and wrong. Farmers pin their future on learned people. But every responsible person can only pin right and wrong on themselves, make decisions, accept judgment, and based on this sense of urgency, you have to work a hundred times harder than others to reduce the risk of judgment. You will refer to other people’s opinions and sayings, but every responsible person must have their own set of measures… Just like the Xia Army's path, I thought about it ten thousand times. Unreliable literati come to argue with you, and when they can't win, they ask: 'Are you sure you're right?' Ah Gua, do you know how I treat these people?”

Xi Gua, walking beside him, smiled. “You just drive them out.”

“I wish I could slap them out.” Ning Yi also laughed. “Asking this kind of question proves that this person's thinking ability is at a very low level. I am happy to see different opinions and make references, but this kind of person's views are mostly wasting my time.”

He paused and kicked a stone on the roadside. “People like to hear stories of accepting advice, but everyone who can do things must have their own stubborn side, because the so-called responsibility is to be borne by oneself. If things are not done well, the result will be very uncomfortable. If you don't want to be uncomfortable, then do ten thousand rehearsals and think before, trying to consider all the factors. After you've thought about it ten thousand times, some guy runs over and says: 'Are you sure you're right?' Thinking this question is brilliant, he certainly only deserves a slap.”

Xi Gua pursed her lips. “So, Maitreya can tell people what is right.”

Ning Yi didn't answer, and after a moment, said a strange sentence: “The path of wisdom will become narrower and narrower.”

“Huh?” Xi Gua frowned.

Ning Yi looked at the trees ahead, remembering the past. “Ah Gua, more than ten years ago, that night in Hangzhou, I carried you on my back. There weren't many people on the road, and I told you about the possibility of equality for all. You were very happy, full of vigor. You felt that you had found the right path. That road was very wide at that time – everyone's road is very wide at the beginning. Weakness is wrong, so you give people steamed buns. People pick up knives. Inequality is wrong, equality is right…”

“But as you go further, the path based on wisdom will become narrower and narrower. You will find that giving people steamed buns is only the first step and doesn't solve the problem. But forcing people to pick up knives at least solves one step of the problem… As you go further, you will find that, from the beginning, making people pick up knives may not be the right path either. The people who pick up knives may not get good results… To reach the right result, you need to take one step at a time, all correctly. Even to the point that we don't know what the next step will be. People have to exhaust their thinking at every step, take this step and accept judgment…”

The wind on the mountain blew, howling. Ning Yi was silent for a moment. “Smart people are not necessarily happy. For smart people, the clearer they see the world, the more carefully they feel the laws, the narrower the correct path becomes, eventually becoming only one. Even that correct one starts to become blurry. Ah Gua, just like what you see now.”

“Equality for all, everyone can control their own destiny,” Ning Yi said. “This is a goal that human society may not reach even in ten thousand years. It is not a system that we can construct out of thin air just by thinking about it. There are too many preconditions. First, there must be material development, and material development must build a system in which everyone can be educated. The education system must constantly explore and integrate some necessary and basic concepts into everyone's spirit, such as the basic social structure, almost all of which are wrong now…”

He pointed down the mountain. “Everyone now, looking at the world around them, imagines that the world is a fixed, immutable object. ‘It has nothing to do with me.’ ‘If I don't do bad things, I have fulfilled my responsibility.’ Then, in everyone's imagination, bad things are done by bad people, and stopping bad people is the responsibility of good people, not the responsibility of ordinary people. But in reality, in a group of one hundred million people, everyone's desires are constantly causing this group to decline and settle. Even without bad people, based on everyone's desires, social classes will constantly settle and widen, eventually leading to the end of collapse… The real social structure is this constantly slipping system, and even if you want to maintain this system as it is, everyone has to put in their effort. If there is too little effort, it will continue to slip.”

“This kind of awareness gives people a sense of urgency. After having a sense of urgency, we also have to analyze how to realistically go on the right path. If ordinary people want to participate in a society, they have to know what is happening in this society. Then, they need a news and information system facing ordinary people. In order to let people get real information, there also needs to be someone to supervise this system. On the other hand, people in this system must have dignity and self-esteem. At this step, we also need a good enough system to allow ordinary people to properly exert their power. In the process of social development, mistakes will continue to appear, and people must constantly revise them to maintain the status quo… If one step is wrong, the whole thing collapses. Right is never half that is equal to wrong. Right is one path in ten thousand paths, and the rest are wrong.”

“Equality, democracy,” Ning Yi sighed. “Telling them that you are all the same doesn’t solve the problem. Letting ordinary people raise their hands on everything is a dead end. Ah Gua, we see many fools among the scholars. Are people who don't read books better than them? Actually, no. People don't read books at the beginning and don't like to think. When they read books and think, they're wrong at the beginning. Many scholars are on this wrong path, but people who don't read books and don't think can't even touch the edge of the right path. Only when you get to the end and touch the edge of the right path will you realize how difficult this path is.”

“Ah Gua, you've reached this point.” Ning Yi reached out and touched her head.

Xi Gua’s personality was outwardly strong but inwardly gentle. She didn’t usually like Ning Yi treating her like a child like this, but she didn’t resist at this time. After a while, she breathed out. “Maitreya is still better.”

“Yes, religion always gives people half the truth and doesn’t have to take responsibility.” Ning Yi tilted his head. “Believing is right, not believing is wrong, half and half, what a happy world.”

“But it doesn’t solve the problem,” Xi Gua smiled.

Ning Yi shook his head. “From an ultimate proposition, religion actually solves the problem. If a person is blindly superstitious from childhood, even if he is a slave for his entire life, he will be at peace from beginning to end. Living in peace and dying in peace can be considered a kind of perfection. This is also a compromise system built by people with wisdom… But people will eventually awaken. Outside of religion, more people still have to pursue a superficial, better world, hoping that children will suffer less hunger and cold, hoping that people can die as innocently as possible. Even in the best society, differences in class and wealth accumulation will occur, but hoping that effort and wisdom can compensate for this difference as much as possible… Ah Gua, even if we exhaust our lives, we can only take one or two steps in front of us, laying the material foundation and letting everyone know that there is the concept of equality for all. That's not easy.”

The two walked forward for a while, and Ning Yi said in a low voice, “Actually, those things in Hangzhou were all made up by me to fool you in order to save my life…”

Xi Gua kicked him, but Ning Yi easily dodged it. He saw the woman with her hands on her hips, looking up and saying, “You're only in your thirties. Anyway, I'll go further!”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Ning Yi nodded repeatedly. “You can't beat me, don't easily humiliate yourself.”

“See who humiliates himself… ah—” Xi Gua didn't finish speaking and gave a low cry. Although her martial arts were high, as a wife, she was ultimately difficult to display her skills in front of Ning Yi. After moving a few times in front of indescribable martial arts, she cursed "You're shameless," turned and ran. Ning Yi laughed with his hands on his hips, watching Xi Gua run away and say, “Go to the meeting! Du Sha, you follow him!” Continuing to walk away, he then restrained that flamboyant smile.

Du Sha slowly approached, seeing his young mistress's smile spread out, and he also smiled with some delight. “The master has worked hard again.”

“Xiao Ke spread rumors today that I was beaten by Liu Xiao Gua. If I don’t give her some color to see, my husband’s authority is hard to maintain.” Ning Yi smiled slightly. “Well, she fled in panic. Old Du, you are a witness. When you are asked to speak, you can’t hide.”

“The little one saw nothing…”

The two went on, Ning Yi was not surprised by his response, and sighed, “Alas, the world is going downhill…”

On this side, they were sighing softly, while on the other side, Xi Gua ran for a while before stopping, recalling what had just happened and smiling. Then, she sighed again with a complex look.

The path of wisdom will become narrower and narrower…

But besides that, there is ultimately no path.

Thinking this, the afternoon sky was just right, the mountain wind and clouds were accompanied by a pleasant autumn mood. The journey continued, and soon they arrived near the conference room of the General Political Department. She greeted her deputy and took the files and documents. When the meeting began, her husband had also arrived. He looked serious and calm, greeting the people who attended the meeting. This meeting discussed the handling of several major disciplinary violations in the war outside the mountain. Many people from the military, military law, political department, and staff headquarters were present. After the meeting began, Xi Gua secretly looked at Ning Yi’s expression from the side. He sat there with a calm expression, listening to the speakers, his expression with his own majesty, very different from the casualness of the two in the mountains just now.

After everyone had finished their opinions, Ning Yi sat quietly in his seat for a long time, then swept his gaze over everyone and began to scold people.

Well, the way he scolded people was so handsome, so amazing… At this moment, Xi Gua thought so in her heart.

Starting in Hangzhou, this was the fifteenth year after they met. The wind of time was passing from the mountains outside the window.

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