Chapter 343: The Tide
The next day, Shan Xu arrived at the competition venue early in the morning.
The competition was held in a massive circular stadium, adorned with red banners everywhere.
“Warmly celebrate the Tenth World’s Number One Martial Arts Competition and National Workers’ Skills Competition held in Chizhou!”
This banner is really freaking long!
Shan Xu tilted his head and stared for a long time before finishing reading the entire banner.
Such a long banner, an average person wouldn’t be able to read it in one breath.
Other banners, like “Friendship First, Competition Second” and “Faster, Stronger, More Striving,” were much more normal.
“Why are you here too?!”
Shan Xu was looking at the banners, seemingly absorbed, when he heard a familiar voice and someone patted him on the shoulder.
He turned his head and saw Shi Feizhe, looking like he was in his twenties.
“You… why do you look like this?!” Shan Xu asked, looking at the youthful Shi Feizhe.
Shi Feizhe put his arm around Shan Xu’s shoulder and said, “A simple disguise, otherwise, it wouldn’t be good if someone recognized me.”
“After all, I rarely get to rest and relax, so I came out to take a look around.” Shi Feizhe added.
“Rest?” Shan Xu said.
“Yeah, don’t I deserve a break?” Shi Feizhe countered.
People aren’t machines; they need to rest and adjust their mentality before they can continue working.
Even Shi Feizhe, facing the new Jianghu he built with his own hands, needs to rest.
“That tiring?” Shan Xu said.
He knew Shi Feizhe was the most powerful martial artist in the Jianghu. Could such a martial artist feel tired?
“Tired, not physically, but mentally.” Shi Feizhe put his arm around Shan Xu’s shoulder, just like the two of them when they were roaming the Jianghu back in the day.
As they walked towards the spectator stands, Shan Xu heard Shi Feizhe say, “Some people can share poverty, but not power. Power changes them.”
“Some people can share ideals, but not reality. They find reality too tiring.”
“Some people can… Forget it, let’s not talk about this.”
Just from these few words, Shan Xu understood Shi Feizhe’s difficulties.
“I told you back then that you were too idealistic, too far removed from me and the reality of the Jianghu.” Shan Xu said, “In these past few years, I’ve seen people worship gods more than once.”
He had roamed the Jianghu with Shi Feizhe and often read newspapers in recent years, so he naturally knew what Shi Feizhe was doing.
What Shi Feizhe had been doing in recent years was more like starting from the level of ideology.
But the Jianghu had existed for so many years, with rapid development in productivity, often changing beyond recognition within a few years.
Some people felt lost facing the rapid development of the new Jianghu, even worshipping gods and Buddhas they didn’t worship before.
Just for peace of mind.
Yes, for peace of mind.
Because they had done things that weighed on their conscience. They were afraid of the new Jianghu holding them accountable, even though the new Jianghu had given them a chance.
“Worship gods…”
Shi Feizhe and Shan Xu arrived at their seats and sat down.
“I clearly wrote the truth in textbooks, explained materialism and idealism so clearly, why do they still worship gods?” Shi Feizhe wondered.
He found it hard to understand, the secrets of the world, the principles of martial arts.
The material world and the idealistic martial arts.
Everything was written in textbooks, widely publicized.
Why would they imagine such an existence, believing that by worshipping it, they could pray for wealth and peace?
Abandoning truth for superstition, abandoning reality for falsehood.
Deceiving themselves, forcing themselves to kneel.
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Shan Xu had his own view on this matter, different from Shi Feizhe’s.
He was a true Jianghu person, and he said, “Perhaps, because it’s simple.”
“Simple?” Shi Feizhe didn’t understand.
“Yes!”
“Just kneel down, worship the gods, and you can hand over your worries, anxieties, doubts, fears, and greed to the gods to handle. How simple.” Shan Xu said.
“That’s it?” Shi Feizhe said.
“That’s it!” Shan Xu said, “Giving your problems to others, letting others solve them, how simple is that?”
“…”
Shi Feizhe remained silent for a moment and then said, “Aren’t they fools?”
Not solving their own problems but handing them over to others to solve, wasn’t that putting themselves in a position to be slaughtered?
How could anyone be so foolish?
Shan Xu said, “Most people live their lives seeking comfort. As long as they live comfortably, they’d rather deceive themselves.”
The right path is arduous, but the wrong path is easy. In recent years, people often complained to Shi Feizhe that it was too tiring, too hard.
In the old Jianghu, some people were willing to fight and strive for the life of the new Jianghu.
But once they reached the new Jianghu, they felt that they didn’t have to work so hard anymore, since the old Jianghu was gone.
Should the new Jianghu make them work hard and suffer all the time?
Couldn’t they enjoy themselves?
Couldn’t they enjoy the benefits?
Couldn’t they have a few good days?
In previous dynasties, people were granted titles and fiefdoms. In their new Jianghu, there were no kings or nobles, only service to the people. They were also one of the “people,” who would serve them?
“Don’t they consider the consequences?” Shi Feizhe sighed and said.
Over the past thirty years, such voices had grown louder and louder.
Besides these voices, there were also thoughts of breaking free, seeking freedom, and there was the new generation, who couldn’t understand both the old and the new Jianghu.
There were even novels with the old Jianghu as the theme.
The protagonists of these novels were either young masters of city lords or direct disciples of sects. Each of them would go down the mountain after learning their skills, showing off their abilities, and rescuing damsels in distress.
On the contrary, few people watched plays, novels, or other works that depicted the old Jianghu from the perspective of ordinary people in the new Jianghu, telling stories about the cannibalistic nature of the old Jianghu.
Because the new generation had heard this story from their parents, from books, from hearsay, until their ears were calloused.
They rebelliously thought that the old Jianghu was nothing special, and they could do it too.
They found the stories of young masters and direct disciples performing acts of chivalry very interesting.
“The sky is falling, and you, the tallest one, will hold it up.” Shan Xu joked, “What consequences are they afraid of?”
“So it’s me!” Shi Feizhe said.
“It’s you!” Shan Xu said, “It’s you. You transformed the old Jianghu into the new Jianghu, you’re the tallest person in the world!”
Productive forces influence production relations, production relations change social thought.
Shi Feizhe tried his best to make the productive forces develop at a high speed, so as to change social thought, but he also knew that even running wouldn’t bring them into the era of high productivity.
Productive forces and people could only develop generation after generation, awaken generation after generation, and progress generation after generation.
Only then could they finally reach that kind of world!
He wouldn’t live to see that day, so he said, “What do you think, how about I retire?”
“Retire?” Shan Xu didn’t understand.
As everyone knows, novels are all fictional.
