Chapter 242
After the filial piety gate was the fraternal duty gate.
Fraternal duty means brotherly love, helping one another, and in the broader term, it could also be extended to friends and mutual assistance.
With the experience of the filial piety gate, everyone has a considerable vigilance on the fraternal duty gate. Although it meant brotherly love, it basically did not have any relationship with the true brotherly love. On the trial like in the filial piety gate, although the implied rules did not violate the principle of filial piety, the people basically did not show any genuine filial piety—was presenting and receiving gift to and from cultivators that were virtually unrelated to each other could be considered as filial piety? How could there be such a ridiculous thing!
The trial of the eight virtues was merely a cleverly designed level test, to test participants’ wisdom and resilience, rather than simply the eight virtues. However, this was also in line with people’s perception, that the eight virtues of the Sage of the Eight Virtues were mortal world’s virtues and not cultivator’s virtues. For example, the filial piety, when the cultivators tread on the path of immortality, they usually cut off all of their relationships with the mortal world, therefore, filial piety was out of the question. After all, compared to the long life of the cultivators, the dozens of years life of the parents were really insignificant. Moreover, on the road of immortal cultivation, it was impossible to be accompanied by the parents often. If looking from the point of view of the principle ‘there are three ways to be unfilial; having no sons is the worst’, then in the immortal cultivation world, there were hardly any filial son.
One could also say that it was the filial piety to the Master, however, it was far from the concept of parents and children.
Therefore, when extrapolated to the rest, the rest of the virtues have a different meaning to the cultivator… However, it was of no use to think about it this time. Without entering the gate, they would not understand the sword tomb master’s design.
After the first attempt at the filial piety gate, it was found that the gate could indeed be opened just once. Although two-thirds of the people had not yet been tested, the filial piety gate would not be opened again. Therefore, on the second test, everyone went all in.
Luckily, these eight gates could only be opened in turn; the third door would not open until the trial on the second gate was over. Otherwise, the complexity of the game would’ve improved. Because, in accordance with Wang Lu’s habit, it was quite likely that after having a temporary advantage, he would instruct Bai Shixuan and Liu Li to open the next door, only for them to quickly give up the test, rendering that gate useless. In the end, Wang Lu would use his one or two achievements to prevail over the other opponents.
“Rest assured, the sword tomb will not allow it to happen. It needs to observe the cultivators during their struggle and competition, rather than simply selecting through the trial of the eight virtues. After all, no matter how extraordinary the rules are, the rules are dead, only the competition and the people are alive.”
Upon hearing Wang Lu’s words, many people’s heart could not help but sink.
The next seven gates would perhaps become more and more difficult…
—
Actually, everyone’s guess was indeed not wrong.
After entering the fraternal duty gate, what happened was quite unexpected for many people.
At first, the scene of the fraternal duty gate and filial piety gate was similar, with the same long and narrow dark passage. Dozens of people walked in it, however, this time, it was the Shengjing Sect team who acted as the vanguard, lest Wang Lu would take the advantage and dominate the whole game in one fell swoop like in the filial piety gate.
However, fraternal duty gate was different than filial piety gate. The end of the passage was no longer a small stone chamber. After walking for about the time to finish a cup of tea, a bright and spacious square appeared before the crowd.
In the square, there was an upside down stele hanging from the ceiling. Strange ancient writing was engraved on that stele. The translation was as follow:
Rules [1]:
1. Brothers quarreling at home join forces against attack from without.
A. Two persons form a group, becoming brothers (sisters).
B. Each person hold one hundred pieces of chips to use for resisting-the-attack-from-without and to argue within. The proportion can be freely assigned.
C. Each of the two people in one group uses their resisting-the-attack-from-without’s chip, so that they would exceed (including) one hundred. If they succeed to reach at minimum one hundred chips on resist-the-attack-from-without, as the reward, they will get double the chips that they just used. If the sum of the chips does not exceed one hundred, then it would be viewed as a failure of resist-the-attack-from-without, losing the qualification to pass the trial.
D. Every two people’s team that succeeded in reaching the required resisting-the-attack-from-without chips, later would compare the chips left in their hands in the arguing within part. The one who has more chips left wins, and would get the entire resisting-the-attack-from-without reward chip. If there were no winner, then the reward would be divided evenly.
E. The one with two hundred or more chips passes the trial.
2. Related requirements.
A. The virtual chip could not be reproduced in any form. Destroying or duplicating them are actions that violate the rules.
B. The participants allocate the chips by free will and cannot make decisions on behalf of others in any way.
C. Those who have more than two hundred chips may obtain the reward in the exchange list after passing the trial.
D. After the grouping is formed, there would be a time limit in decision making. If the decision has not been made within the time limit, it would be viewed as a waiver.
After reading this row of rules, everyone remained silent.
The rules were not difficult to understand, nor did they seem to be too crooked. Compared to the filial piety gate, these rules were much simpler.
However, after experiencing the big turn of event by Wang Lu in the first round, no one really dared to look down on these lines of words. Who knew if there was murderous intention hidden within this seemingly plain statement? After all, the ‘there are three ways to be unfilial, having no sons is the worst’ has given a very deep impression on everyone…
Needless to say, Shengjing, Kunlun, and Ten Thousand Arts have begun to seriously study the rules of the fraternal duty gate. Myriad of hidden meanings were chewed out of these few lines of words. Before long, everyone’s eyes lit up; obviously, each already has their own ideas.
Wang Lu also carefully looked at the rules twice and repeated in his mind once; he could not help but shake his head. “What does this have to do with brotherly love? Clearly, this is a prisoner’s dilemma, moreover, this is a very vicious prisoner’s dilemma!”
According to the rules, it was easy to obtain such deduction: to pass the trial, there are only two possibilities. First, the two brothers would spend all the one hundred chips for resisting-the-attack-from-without. In the end, each would get the two hundred chips settlement needed to pass the trial.
The second was to use only parts of the chips to resist-the-attack-from-without and use the other parts to compare the chips internally within the group. As long as one could guarantee that the chips used in internal strife were more than the rival, then one could defeat the opponent and monopolize all of the trial rewards… although no one has yet to see the exchange list, it was likely to contain valuable amazing treasure.
Of course, whether or not there were treasures was not really that important. More importantly was that, under such rules, for any rational person, unless there was a high degree of trust with the other side to disregard the rational point, otherwise, to win in the game of arguing within, one has to completely trample on the dead body of the opponent.
However, the more interesting part of the game was here.
How do you allocate the chips if you wanted to win the arguing within part? First of all, the team must make sure that the resisting-the-attack-from-without would not fail. To do that, the team must use one hundred chips, and the contribution from each member must be evenly divided. Everyone was not stupid. In case one spent the chip for resisting-the-attack-from-without too much, their chips to use for the arguing within would be fewer than their counterpart.
To split evenly, everyone must use fifty chips, but it could result in the lost of everyone as the combined chips could only reach one hundred, which would result in the elimination of both.
Therefore, it seemed that the method to win the argue within was unsustainable, seemingly a dead end? Then one could only return to the first method, which was for the two people to simultaneously come up with one hundred pieces of chips to use in resisting-the-attack-from-without so that both would pass the trial, and everyone was happy.
However, what if the other side also thought the same? If the other side also felt that only by coming up with one hundred pieces to use for the resisting-the-attack-from-without to be able to pass the trial, then as long as when the time came the other side used one less chip, then he or she could win (100 + 99) * 2 = 398 chips!
Thus, the problem was further complicated, resulting in this difficult-to-use-rational-way-to-solve situation, finally knowing that even though the choice to take was to perish together, one could not help but to choose so.
Moreover, there were several questions that could not be ascertained by reading the rules alone.
For example, the most important question: how to divide the group? Voluntary union or chosen by the sword tomb? If there was no accident, it should be the latter. It would be too cheap if it were voluntary union. If it were random grouping, the advantage of Shengjing Sect would be overwhelming—their people were too many.
In accordance with these rules, number superiority trumped everything. Even if Wang Lu could once again go against the heaven, at most, he could only guarantee himself to pass the trial, absolutely could not block the action of Shengjing Sect people. Moreover, according to his own speculation, it was quite possible that he would not be able to pass this trial.
Thinking to this, Wang Lu was inwardly moved; quietly, he pulled Liu Li and Bai Shixuan to the side and told them one key trick.
A moment later came the same cold voice that rang in the filial piety stone chamber.
“The test begins!”
The next moment, purple rays of light shone from under the feet of everyone. Then, by the sword tomb’s irresistible transmission spell, each of them was separately sent to a small grid independent of each other.
In the grid, there were two stone tables, each with two pieces of paper and a brush. Both the brush and the paper were spiritual in nature, not at all ordinary objects. However, now they were simply to be used to record the participant’s chips allocation plan.
A piece of paper to write for the ‘without’, and a piece of paper to write for the ‘within’. As long as one wrote down the numbers on the paper, the process of chip allocation was basically finished.
However, this time, the important thing was not the allocation plan, but…
“Wang Lu, long time no see!”
Along with the familiar sound coming through his ears, Wang Lu inwardly sighed and said, sure enough. Then he turned his head. The younger sister Wangyue Luanyu was behind him. With a face that was filled with determination, her delicate hands carried a writing brush. A drop of ink gently fell on the paper.
“Yo, your action is quite agile you know.”
Wangyue Luanyu said in a soft voice, “Wang Lu, do you want to pass the test? As long as you promise me one thing, I will immediately write one hundred to help you win total victory with ease… as long as you are willing to promise me one thing.”
Wang Lu said with a smile, “Little Sister Wangyue, can I ask you a question?”
Wangyue Luanyu didn’t seem to expect this reaction from Wang Lu. “What do you want to ask?”
“I want to ask, you have already suffered a great loss, why can’t you still understand your own IQ?”
“You!?”
“As the vice team leader of the Shengjing Sect team, your responsibility is to implement the will of Jianglu, rather than arbitrarily acting alone, thinking that one is clever. Make a deal with me and help me win a victory? We have just forged the hatred on the level of killing the parent, yet now you want to give your heart to me, do you think I’m a fool?”
Wangyue Luanyu was silent for a while. “I really do want to make a deal with you.”
“I’m sorry, I already have someone that I like, so I’m not interested in your deal.”
With that, Wang Lu picked up the pen and, in Wangyue Luanyu’s full of disbelieving look, wrote down his allocation plan.
Without trying to hide or conceal, in front of Wangyue Luanyu’s face, he calmly and steadily wrote down the number on the ‘arguing within’ paper…
100!
“Okay, I’m done. Now it’s your turn.”
Wang Lu put down the brush and then gazed at Wangyue Luanyu with indifferent look.
[1] The Game is a modified form of ‘prisoner’s dilemma.’