242 I Am Sorry, I Have Someone Else That I Like (1/2)

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.