novelraw Chapter 30 Goal 3
Chapter 30 Goal 3
Hearing the boy's words, Tianmeng remained silent, unsure of what to say.
After a moment of silence, he finally spoke to the boy, asking, "So, what are you thinking now?"
Upon hearing this, the boy raised his head, pulling himself out of his reverie.
Then he looked at Tianmeng in front of him and said, "I couldn't understand it in the past. I thought that all of this was caused by my martial spirit, by that man and the duchess, and by everyone in the ducal mansion."
"For this reason, I worked hard to cultivate, wanting to become a Soul Master, wanting to become a Title Douluo, wanting to return one day and seek justice for my mother."
"However, after I came to the wasteland, I experienced many things and saw many things that I had never seen before."
"But I gradually realized that what I had seen before was just a manifestation, a problem that only scratched the surface, and I had not gone deep into the core at all."
"What I wanted to do before I came to the wasteland wouldn't change anything at all."
"In the past, my mother's identity was that man's personal maid, someone she grew up with. But after I was born, that identity changed."
"But even if these names change again and again, and the descriptions become more and more pleasant, the essence remains the same."
"To put it nicely, it's a servant-master relationship, with the servant's status, the concubine's status, and... you know, love."
"But this is actually the relationship between slave owners and slaves. The employment contract signed before that was already a contract of servitude. There was no self, no freedom, no personal likes or dislikes, not even the right to say no."
"Servants, maids, concubines—these names sound so nice, but in essence, they are still slaves to others, without the right to personal freedom or the opportunity to choose how they live."
"When they're happy, they'll summon them to smile and vent their desires, saying it's love. When they forget about it, they'll put it somewhere else, pretend it never existed, and they won't let it leave."
"If you're unhappy, you can just wave your hand, and the people around you can make that person disappear from the world. Even if they die, it won't attract any attention."
"The Duchess doesn't even need to give any orders. She can just wave her hand or give a look, and many people around her will be thinking about what to do to my mother, trying to curry favor with her."
"As for that man, he can have many reasons, and he will certainly explain his behavior himself. I can already imagine what he could say about it."
"Was it indifference, negligence, an accident, or something else? Was it because the heavy responsibility of guarding the empire's borders left him with no energy to pay attention to these things..."
"But how ridiculous these reasons seem to me now. What is he guarding and protecting, and what is he himself doing on this land? And why do I see such scenes in those villages and towns?"
"I saw in the wasteland a father and son, and a group of people, how hard they worked to improve people's lives so that people could have clean water to drink."
"And in the Douluo Continent now, how much of what the various empires are doing is for those people they wouldn't even bother to look at."
"In short, he would have many reasons, but when will he treat my mother as a real person?"
"Throughout her life, my mother tried, she struggled, and she persevered, waiting for hope to appear."
"But in the end, her life was like an object, something that was dispensable in the eyes of those people. They didn't care about her life or death, love or hate. They didn't care about her feelings. Just like all of this, it prevented my mother from having her own thoughts."
"There is no choice, no freedom, no right to refuse. Everything depends on the master's thoughts, and the person can only wait for the order to be given. Their life is fixed at the whim of others."
"In the past, I was angry about what my mother had gone through and felt that everything she had suffered was unfair. Even when my mother died in front of me, all I thought about was avenging her and getting back that so-called justice."
"But now I understand that my mother's experience was never an isolated case, nor was it a tragedy caused by the instigation of a single person."
"The villages and towns I passed through, the ordinary people there, were actually in the same situation as my mother."
"Their lives are no different from everything my mother went through. They were all slowly crushed by it all. They had no way to control their own lives, and they even had to do their best to maintain their basic needs."
"The only way to survive is to beg for alms from those people and endure all of this."
"It seems that only nobles and powerful Soul Masters have the right to live as human beings with a sense of self."
Within the sea of the spirit, as these words were spoken, the boy's eyes finally lost their previous calm or polite smile.
He finally expressed his own emotions, a kind of anger mixed with a resolute look in his eyes.
"I didn't understand these things during my eleven years here, but I saw them clearly in that world that was turned into wasteland by nuclear war."
"The history there is much shorter than that of Douluo Continent, but even though the people there turned the world into a wasteland because of war, the path they took before was far more exciting than those ancient empires here."
"Brother Tianmeng, you asked me what I want to do, and I can answer you right now."
"I want revenge, but not just superficial things. That man, the Duchess, Dai Huabin, the servants in the Duke's mansion, and even the Duke's mansion itself are not my whole goal."
"This past may be all I want to do for revenge, to get the justice my mother deserved, and to make these guys pay the price they deserve."
"And now, what I want to take revenge on are these people and the things behind them, the things that caused my mother to suffer like this, and the other people in this world who are also suffering and struggling in life. What I want to take revenge on is that thing."
"It's like money. Gold Soul Coins are the fairest thing right now. No matter what kind of background, status, or cultivation level the other party has, whether they are a noble or a commoner, a one-ring Soul Master or a nine-ring Title Douluo, they can use Gold Soul Coins to buy whatever they want."
"But Gold Soul Coins are also the most unfair thing to do. They are often concentrated in the hands of a small group of so-called noble and powerful people. They can then use Gold Soul Coins to make others do what they want, regardless of whether the things are right or wrong."
"Golden Soul Coins are just one aspect of this phenomenon. Just like the servants in the Duke's mansion, do they have such a deep-seated hatred for my mother? The reality is that they don't. In fact, not everyone in the vast Duke's mansion is familiar with them."
"But it's possible that just because the Duchess didn't say a word, those servants would rush over to bully my mother to curry favor with that person, or because Dai Huabin said a word or gave a look, the guards around her could take action and continue to beat my mother as she stepped forward to protect me."
"These people do this not because they have a grudge against my mother, nor are they of noble birth. They do it simply to curry favor and obey orders. And the most fundamental reason for this is power, the system that constructs this power structure."
"From top to bottom, there is a hierarchy, with the strong bullying the weak. Those who suffer don't even have the chance to cry out. Those of high status and great power can change a person's life at will..."
"It's like that contract called an employment contract, but in reality it's a contract of servitude. That violence, that relationship, trapped my mother in it for her whole life. Love, perseverance... those words that should describe good virtues became a cover for them."
"This tower is crushing the flesh and blood of everyone below, using all of this to maintain the operation of the entire regime."
"Back in the wasteland, before I left Mojave to find a way back, John, the captain of my Ranger squad, told me as he said goodbye that he saw in my eyes what he had lost, a clear goal, that he could only temporarily forget by immersing himself in alcohol, tobacco, dice, and poker."
At this point, Huo Yuhao paused, as if recalling something, but quickly readjusted his mindset and said to Tianmeng, "Actually, back then, all I wanted was to come back, and that was my only goal."
"My real goal at the time was not something I actually had. My goal was to find a way back and avenge my mother."
"But later, I walked and walked, from the West Coast to the East Coast, experienced a lot, and saw a lot. I gradually figured out why I was going through all of this."
"What do you mean I was born this way? What do you mean my martial soul is the Spirit Eye instead of the White Tiger? What do you mean my mother was of low birth? What do you mean I was born a bastard?"
"I recognized these reasons and excuses in the past. This is the reason why my mother suffered all of this. She believed that as long as I worked hard and became a Soul Master and a Title Douluo, I could change this situation."
"Perhaps when I really become a Title Douluo, no one will dare to mention what I experienced in the Duke's mansion before, and my mother will send someone to give me that so-called justice."
"But the essence of all this has not changed. On this Douluo Continent, there will definitely be another me who has had a similar experience, and then he will return to the path that I thought I had taken before, and take back the so-called justice."
"However, good luck and miracles don't always accompany you during this process. Most of the time, the cultivation of soul power will stop at a certain level."
"As for so-called justice, how could it be given to people like me, or those in villages and towns?"
"But we live here, we cry and laugh, we love and hate, we feel pain and we feel wronged... We are not something dispensable, not those things that don't matter to them, we are truly living in this world."
"But why is it that here we become, in the eyes of those people, beings who care nothing about life and death?"
"In the past, I only felt aggrieved and resentful about these things, but after arriving in the wasteland, I learned to ask why."
"And it was this question, 'Why,' that made me understand what I wanted to do and clearly see the target of my revenge."
"The issue here is no longer about men and women, soul masters and ordinary people, or the Star Luo Empire or any other empire—these so-called distinctions of identity."
"It's no longer a question of love or not love that has caused us to quarrel, spread, and fight each other for revenge."
"It is those who oppress others who built the entire system on it and made our lives like this. That is what I truly want to take revenge on."
"If I have the chance, I will tell my captain again in a serious tone that I now truly have a goal, a real goal."
Within the sea of spirit, the boy spoke, his eyes fixed on Tianmeng before him. At this moment, Tianmeng, facing the boy, could not get a word in edgewise.
"Brother Tianmeng, I will take my revenge, I want my revenge, but I don't want to go there like an assassin and kill those people, nor do I want to be like those characters in novels who just kill people after gaining power."
"Therefore I will return here and destroy all of this, along with the very thing behind it that makes all of this possible and keeps it running."
"This will be my personal revenge, and it will also be the revenge of all those people on the entire Douluo Continent, whether they know the names or not, whether they are aware of it or not, that I have kept hidden in my heart, never uttered it or even realized its existence."
When the boy finished speaking the last word, his mind returned to calm, and all the emotional fluctuations that had occurred before disappeared at that moment.
At this moment, Tianmeng silently looked at the boy, unsure how to respond to what he had said.
This tranquility did not last long, as applause rang out from within the sea of consciousness.