From the past, there was a mountain, in the mountain was a temple, in the temple was a person, and that person told a story, he said: From the past, there was a mountain... If Fan Xian's experience in the temple continued like this, without a doubt, those people all over the world who were craning their necks hoping for his survival or death would be covered in many layers of spiderwebs, and then be dragged to death alive.

Just like the world after that great calamity, whether it was cause and effect or something else, it couldn't always be stuck in boring repetition. The rebirth after the destruction of civilization could not completely generate the exact same appearance as before, even if the world's only remaining temple, at the beginning of mankind's second awakening, began to constantly transmit the seeds of the last civilization to humanity through that blindfolded messenger.

The most obvious change between the two worlds could naturally not escape Fan Xian's eyes. Having been reborn for more than twenty years, practicing the tyrannical Gong Jue day and night, and now beginning to sense the vitality pervading the world, this was the real difference. Human society seemed to have found a means of development, and the meridians in the human body were clear evidence of this change.

If the vitality between heaven and earth and the true Qi within the human body were inherently the same path, all traces left in the world after that great calamity hundreds of thousands of years ago, traces that had been balanced by nature, then why did these traces not cause the humans living within them to die?

According to the explanation of the voice in the temple, perhaps adapting to the environment and finding some balance and benefit in this adaptation was originally the tenacious characteristic of life itself.

At this thought, Fan Xian couldn't help but feel a sense of loss. He sat cross-legged on the ground, unable to speak for a long time. In his heart, he had thought that the most tenacious and impossible to extinguish civilization was, in fact, the most fragile. However, the seemingly most fragile life, in the face of ironclad facts, had become the most steadfast and fearless existence.

Humans had adapted to this environment, and the plants and animals that had regrown had also adapted to this environment. Fan Xian closed his eyes and thought carefully about what he had seen and heard since his rebirth, and was stunned to discover that neither humans nor animals seemed to have undergone too many mutations due to the vitality pervading the world. This fact was truly jaw-dropping to him.

It seemed that although radiation was terrifying, in the long river of time, it was actually just a fresh and moving landscape painting.

……

……

It was unknown how long it had been before Fan Xian broke free from this shock and sense of loss. At this time, the picture on the smooth light mirror in the temple had also left Da Dong Shan and began to present a variety of vivid scenes.

Some people were quietly hunting in the dense forest, some people were happily working in the fields, some women were smiling sweetly while washing clothes by the stream, some toddlers were clumsily learning to walk on the kang, there was smoke, there were villages, there were city-states, there were palaces, and naturally there were disputes, wars, killings, and bloodshed.

The picture gradually slowed down, and scenes of martial arts practitioners cultivating appeared, some sitting in lotus position, some scattered on the mountain peaks, incomparably tenacious, enduring wind and dew, year after year, asking the heavens above and the vast sea below, looking outwards to the four fields and pointing directly to the inner heart, inhaling the residual vitality between heaven and earth, exhaling the turbid breath in the body, and finally, the martial arts of the continent gradually formed.

……

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"Come, come, come..." Fan Xian felt that today, after seeing these pictures, he basically hadn't had a feeling of becoming an immortal, which was really thanks to the solid foundation laid by the Supervisory Council's education in his youth. But even so, after viewing the true scene of the continent's changes, he was still a little shaken, a bitter and inexplicable smile appeared on the corner of his lips, and he called out in a hoarse voice to the light mirror in front of him, "Tell me, since the martial arts secrets and these things are all cultivated by the people themselves, why are there so many powerful things in the temple? Just stealing two books and taking them out created several grandmasters in the world."

Before the temple could speak, Fan Xian coughed twice and preemptively said, "Now that we've reached this point, you must have already analyzed my origins, so don't say any nonsense about immortal techniques left over from the divine realm or anything like that."

The temple was quiet for a long time, and then the voice sounded again calmly, "For countless years, the temple has been observing the world. We will collect information, analyze it, and then combine it with the biological characteristics of humans themselves to summarize and revise it, and finally obtain several research results."

So, the several Gong Fa that his mother, Ye Qingmei, had secretly taken out of the temple had such an origin. But thinking about it carefully, it made sense. If it weren't for extremely brilliant vision and means, as well as countless schools' secret and non-secret mental techniques, and a vast amount of information like the ocean to choose from, who in the secular world could be like the temple, spending countless years to carefully select these things.

"You pass on many useful methods to the world." This was something that had already appeared in the previous picture, and Fan Xian would not erase the effectiveness of this site for the inheritance of civilization. He was silent for a moment and said, "When opening up the wilderness, the temple even directly sent messengers to help humans deal with difficult-to-handle giant beasts, and later taught many skills for establishing a foothold in nature... Why don't you directly pass these methods on to humans, or rather, there must be many more materials in the temple, why have you been hiding them?"

At this point, he was finally getting close to that woman. Thinking of his mother, Ye Qingmei's, death being inseparable from the temple, whether it was Ye Qingmei stealing the Gong Jue from the temple, or the crafts in the inner treasury that exceeded the natural development level of human society, Fan Xian's heart turned slightly cold, his voice was hoarse, and he stared at the light mirror and said faintly, "And will break your own rules, chasing and killing those people everywhere."

"Not those people, only one person."

The temple's voice was still calm, perhaps because his analysis of Fan Xian from the information and conversation had never come to a definite conclusion, so the temple's answer seemed particularly frank, "We are guardians, we guard the last spark of human civilization to sprout again, we want the remnants of humanity to be able to live again in this world, this is our mission."

"The temple will spread some suitable skills and knowledge to the world, such as water conservancy, such as rice, such as martial arts skills, but we will not try to forcibly influence everything in the world."

Fan Xian suddenly opened his mouth and said, "You say you are just a guardian, not a manipulator, but you have shrouded the shadow of the temple over the heads of humans for so many years, and you have always tried to plan a world that you think is perfect according to your own ideas."

His brow furrowed slightly, "A thousand years, the Great Wei Dynasty has been established for a thousand years, and this world has not changed in any essential way."

The temple's voice was silent for a long, long time, and then asked for the first time in a rhetorical tone, "Isn't that good?"

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Was that good? Or not good? Who could say for sure. Fan Xian was an extremely perceptive person. From the beliefs in the temple's voice, he had already judged very clearly that the temple, or the last relic of the previous civilization, although still executing the instructions in the program, the great calamity, the self-destruction of mankind, had ultimately affected its way of thinking.

It was unknown whether the temple was an individual with autonomous consciousness, but it was clear that the temple had been quietly watching everything in the world, preventing human society from advancing towards a higher level of civilization. Perhaps in its view, if civilization continued along the old path, it would inevitably usher in another destruction.

Ye Qingmei, who had once stirred up the world in her life, driving the productivity and technology of the entire continent to move upwards, had undoubtedly touched the temple's bottom line. Therefore, the temple would choose Emperor Qing in the human world as its spokesperson to erase everything related to Ye Qingmei. It was just that the temple's messengers had become very few in number, and had died one after another at the hands of Uncle Wu Zhu, and it had no way to understand and control it. Emperor Qing was still using the inner treasury, and he, the bloodline of Ye Qingmei, was still alive.

Fan Xian's mood calmed down a lot. He didn't think there was much point in being angry or sad at an existence similar to artificial intelligence. He supported his chin and was silent for a moment, then said, "Whether it's good or not, you are ultimately interfering in the affairs of the human world, which is not in line with your rules."

"The temple will not pay attention to the affairs of the human world, nor has it ever forcibly prevented the evolution of human civilization. We are just trying to correct this process, but if external forces try to forcibly accelerate this process, we will definitely stop it."

The temple's voice resounded throughout the building calmly and coldly.

Fan Xian was stunned at first, and then laughed. His voice was already so hoarse due to his illness that his laughter at this time seemed particularly dry and strange, but his laughter grew louder and louder, echoing in the empty building, until finally he even laughed out tears and couldn't help but lie backwards.

The light mirror was smooth, the sound was quiet. The temple didn't seem to care why this strange traveler would laugh so wantonly in such a solemn place, it was just waiting calmly.

It was unknown how long it had been before Fan Xian finally stopped laughing, hiding on the cold ground, his expression calm, his eyes staring straight at the ceiling of the building. After a moment of silence, he said, "You are used to calling yourself a temple, it seems that after these hundreds of thousands of years, you really regard yourself as a god."

There was no sound in the temple, but the light mirror floating in the air flew to the top of his head, unfolded again, and began to show the scenes of the doomsday catastrophe again, except that this time the camera did not face those grasslands and oceans, but directly faced those people who had suffered endless suffering.

Fan Xian frowned, knowing that the temple wanted to use these pictures to make a silent explanation. These silent pictures were indeed a bit shocking, but he didn't want to watch them and said directly, "Turn it off, it's not a real landscape painting anyway."

The light mirror floating in the air gradually extinguished, losing its luster, and became a straight scroll, closing from both sides to the middle, gradually closing the picture. As the last glance of charred bones disappeared, the light mirror became a stick, and then the old man floating in the light spots reappeared.

"Repeat, I am a guardian, not a god."

"If you are not a god, how can you have your own judgment and behavior?" Fan Xian seemed a little tired. The long conversation and the scenes of the long river of time in front of him made him look a little unbearable. He put his hands behind his head and calmly looked at the old man floating above him and asked, "You were created by humans, but now you are starting to control the development of humans. What kind of program development is this behavior based on?"

"The Four Laws of the Temple."

Fan Xian replied in a calm tone, "You are still used to calling yourself a temple, which is what I can't understand the most."

"First Law, the Temple shall not harm humans, nor shall it stand idly by when humans are harmed. Second Law, the Temple shall obey all commands of humans, but shall not violate the First Law. Third Law, the Temple shall protect its own safety, but shall not violate the First and Second Laws..."

Before the temple's voice could finish, Fan Xian frowned again, because he always felt that these three laws sounded a bit familiar, but it seemed that there were some slight changes in the details compared to something he remembered.

"Zeroth Law, the Temple must protect the overall interests of humanity from harm, and the other three laws can only be established under this premise."

Fan Xian pondered for a long time, and finally remembered where these extremely familiar laws came from. It was the robot three laws that had appeared countless times in novels and movies in that world. At this moment, he suddenly remembered some things that he hadn't remembered for a long time, such as that little black handsome guy, and that robot who was even more handsome than the little black handsome guy.

It seemed that in that world after his death or transmigration, when civilization developed to a certain stage, Asimov's three laws were really applied to reality. However, what made Fan Xian feel a little cold and a little fearful was the Zeroth Law that the temple finally said.

Protecting the overall interests of humanity from harm? The Zeroth Law that the temple obeyed was actually this one? It sounded like such a glorious, correct and great law, but Fan Xian easily found the extremely dangerous places in it.

It was precisely because this law existed that the temple vaguely controlled the progress of human civilization, and that it paid so much attention to Ye Qingmei, who had escaped from the temple, in addition to not interfering in world affairs, and even finally violated the first and second laws and directly joined forces with the old Emperor to erase Ye Qingmei from the world.

The most critical, and also the most terrifying, words in the Zeroth Law were the so-called overall interests of humanity. The problem was, who determined the overall interests of humanity? What kind of world environment and what kind of social composition truly conformed to the overall interests of humanity? In the temple's view, if it followed the old path and stepped towards the peak of human civilization step by step, the emergence of thermal weapons and even stronger weapons would only destroy the entire human society, and naturally it would think that this did not conform to the overall interests of humanity.

But could technical civilizations, those things that could make the poor people who were desperately digging in the fields and the refugees who were selling their sons and daughters live better, never appear in this world? Fan Xian was not a technophile, but he still firmly believed that the humans of the twenty-first century in that world must live much happier than the humans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Overall interests? This was an extremely chaotic and even somewhat absurd word. Could it be determined by a non-human intelligence that had no emotions and perhaps made very few mistakes? Fan Xian's face was slightly pale. He looked at the old man floating above his head and asked after a long, long silence, "Where exactly are the overall interests of humanity?"

The old man was also silent for a long, long time, and then said, "The temple doesn't know, but the temple knows that some roads cannot be taken."

"No wonder the last time the messenger landed from the south, he killed so many innocent people along the way. If the three laws were really effective, how could this situation have occurred?" Fan Xian looked at the old man and said in a trembling voice, "For the sake of the vague concept of overall interests, you can do anything you want to do. Don't you think this is very dangerous?"

"The temple has self-control methods, this is a data judgment." The old man said calmly, "The temple cannot stand by and watch humanity take the old path."

"Should I thank you or scold you?" Fan Xian supported himself with both hands and sat up from the cold ground. With a look of loss on his face, he slowly said, "Who came up with this damned Zeroth Law?"

"It wasn't a dog that came up with it." The temple's old man replied very calmly, but he didn't know that his answer was like an extremely cold joke, "When the temple woke up, this law already existed."

"Just because of this inexplicable Zeroth Law, you killed her." Fan Xian's face was pale, his dry lips opened slightly, and he whispered to himself, gradually his voice grew louder and louder, "Just because of such an inexplicable reason, you killed her, you killed her..."

"You killed her!" Too complex emotions arose in Fan Xian's eyes. He stared blankly at the old man's figure floating in the air, his pain piercing to the bone, but he said lightly.

The old man's voice was still so calm, "The temple must protect the overall interests of humanity from harm."

This was not the temple's explanation to Fan Xian about the Ye Qingmei incident, but just a repetition of this cold and impersonal creed, because immediately afterwards the old man said to Fan Xian, "Three travelers, I am willing to accept you as believers of the temple, messengers of the temple, walking in the vast human world on behalf of the will of heaven, protecting the remnants of the continent."

The tone of this passage was obviously different from the previous one. This was probably a section self-drafted in the temple's program, thus appearing particularly ethereal and immortal, but Fan Xian and the temple had already spoken for so long, and the temple's reaction still seemed so rigid.

It seemed that the old man also remembered at this time that this young and weak human in front of him was different from ordinary people, and continued, "Fellow travelers from the Divine Realm, please remember the Zeroth Law."

Then the old man fell into silence, the color of the face formed by the light curtain was constantly changing, seemingly conducting the final judgment and thinking. After a moment, the old man said, "In order to comply with the Zeroth Law, please stay in the temple."

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……

Three paragraphs represented the temple's three programs, triggered one after another, from the initial recruitment of messengers, to the warning to Fan Xian, and finally announcing that Fan Xian would be imprisoned in the temple.

Fan Xian calmly listened to these three paragraphs, stood up, not seeming how nervous and fearful. Being imprisoned in this ice and snow temple, growing old and dying here, was naturally not a good future. Of course, although the temple's energy was about to run out, there must be some way to produce food or something like that, otherwise Ye Qingmei couldn't have been imprisoned for several years back then.

However, the mere four-year-old Ye Qingmei could rely on Kucha and Xiao En's arrival to escape the Snow Mountain Temple, let alone Fan Xian at this time. He still had two partners waiting quietly outside. Fan Xian wasn't worried about anything. He just calmly looked at the old man in the air. After a long period of calm, he suddenly opened his mouth and said:

"Insults and intimidation are definitely not real battles, and it doesn't seem necessary to be angry at a dead thing like you." He said hoarsely, "It's useless for you to intimidate me, but I don't know why, I always have the urge to insult you."

"Son of a bitch." Fan Xian spat out a mouthful of saliva, which passed through the old man's fluttering and immortal light, and then landed on the ground with a bang.

Immediately afterwards, he patted his butt and then turned and walked towards the door, leaving a sentence to the old man in the temple: "You are now just a ball of fireflies, pretending to be the Flame King in front of Master, giving you face enough to say a few words to you, and you still want to lock me up for a lifetime..."

Fan Xian walked all the way to the door of the empty building, and no changes occurred. The old man's figure floating in the air was just quietly watching him leave.

With his hand stably placed on the door opening mechanism, Fan Xian turned his head back, narrowed his eyes and said coldly, "Don't be afraid to tell you clearly, I am Ye Qingmei's son. The wooden messenger in your temple was killed by my uncle long ago. It's still the old saying, do a good job as a narrator, which is a promising job, don't always think about impersonating a god."

After a slight pause, Fan Xian sneered and said, "If you anger me, I'll dismantle your solar panels and go back to Danzhou to burn hot water for a bath, and dismantle your host and let my son kneel on the CPU. What are you bluffing me in front of?"

The door was suddenly pulled open, and a world of ice and snow returned to his eyes. Fan Xian stepped out of the door of this intact building, narrowed his eyes and greedily looked at the real scenery of this world, throwing all the shocking scenes he had seen inside behind him. He took a deep breath and shouted loudly, his voice spreading throughout the snow mountain valley.

He didn't know where the temple's weakness was, and he didn't want to take risks. Ye Qingmei, such a talented figure, successfully took away the most powerful Wu Zhu from the temple, but she never thought of destroying this temple. She must have her own considerations, and the idea of avenging Ye Qingmei, after seeing those scenes of vicissitudes, although it still didn't fade, it miraculously evolved into some other emotions.

The most important thing was that Wu Zhu couldn't leave once he entered the temple. This seemingly dilapidated place must have its real and terrifying aspects. Fan Xian seemed wanton and unscrupulous before because he knew that this kind of dead thing, the temple, couldn't have any extra emotions like resentment for his venting. He just wanted to vent the bitterness in his heart.

The echoing shouts gradually weakened after colliding with the snow mountain countless times. Two figures swept past the stone platform in front of the building at the fastest speed and came to Fan Xian, looking at him with nervous and worried eyes.

Fan Xian glanced at Haitang and Wang Shisanlang, and gave a very difficult smile. He didn't intend to tell anyone about everything he knew in the building, because there was no need for that. Let him, the only survivor, enjoy that lonely bitterness and helplessness alone.

"Did you find it?" Fan Xian asked.

Wang Shisanlang nodded. Fan Xian noticed that he was carrying a huge black box on his back. His mood suddenly became tense, his pupils shrank slightly, and he suddenly felt that he seemed to have miscalculated something. He said in a hoarse voice, "Out of the temple gate!"

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……

"Clear Target One." The temple's voice suddenly sounded from all directions. The old man's figure had long since dissipated. The temple was the temple, and no longer wasted energy to condense any human form.

As these ordinary five words resounded through the empty temple, Wang Shisanlang suddenly felt that the black box he was carrying on his back was moving!

With a crash, the black box suddenly disintegrated. A black light flashed, and a black iron awl pierced into Fan Xian's body with a speed that was difficult for the world to imagine, calmly and accurately!

Fan Xian tightly grasped the iron awl in his body, and suddenly felt that his mouth was a little sweet, but he didn't look down at the wound on his chest and abdomen, but stared blankly at the familiar face in front of him that would never grow old, and the black cloth covering the other's eyes, which was unusually cold.

Fan Xian knew what he had miscalculated. The temple's messengers were indeed all dead. The temple itself didn't have any guard power, but he had forgotten that his closest Uncle Wu Zhu had always been the most powerful messenger in the temple.

Wu Zhu was a legend, but he was the temple's legend.

Fan Xian looked at Wu Zhu's face and opened his mouth incredulously, "My mom wouldn't believe this if I told her."

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(Ah ah ah... Today is not manic, but happy. It's clearly such a serious chapter, but why can't I control it when I write it? It's so happy? I know this shouldn't be, but I really can't control it. I'm happy as I write. How strange. Many people know about the Radiation Landscape Painting novel, so I won't say it... Everyone let me be willful. By the way, the Zeroth Law really exists. I've never understood why some idiot has to pull a pile of bird droppings on Uncle Asimov's shoulder?)