Chapter 622: Chapter 358, Heart of Stone_2
That year, Thomlison was twenty-seven years old when Imperial Tax was levied upon him. His life had just started to improve, having formed a family with his wife, with a three-year-old son and a newborn daughter. He was working hard, with a chance for promotion in sight. But the Imperial Tax was supreme, and he had no choice but to comply.
He could only console himself: having paid the Imperial Tax, his family could be partially exempt from subsequent taxes; they would also receive a subsidy.
The fourth scene depicted him lying in a battlefield hospital.
By then, he had become an officer. Drafted by the Imperial Tax, he boarded a starship and was sent to the Golden Pass Star Sector to join a logistics team of slave workers in the Star Realm Army. After 29 years of war, he first earned his stripes on the battlefield, then repeatedly distinguished himself and rose to the rank of officer. At the same time, he had spent half of his life transitioning from a young man to an old one on battlefields against the Green Skin Orcs.
Compared to the comrades around him who perished and were replaced over and over again, having survived for twenty-nine years, he was considered lucky. But today, his luck had run out; he lost a leg and an arm on the battlefield.
But his life was tough enough to be saved back at the battlefield hospital.
…
His achievements and medals afforded him a choice—either to settle down in the rearmost areas on New Colony Star for the rest of his life or to return to his hometown.
He chose the latter.
Traveling on a supply transport ship, he was among the rare few who could return to their hometowns as part of the Imperial Tax. He had many hard-won medals, the most distinguished among them being a Warrior’s Medal, which still held much value.
Upon his return home, at his request, he was assigned a government position in his hometown of Fino City. The first thing he did upon his return was to look for his family.
This was the fifth scene, still a naked corpse, but just an old photograph.
It was his daughter, found dead in the streets at the age of seventeen, purportedly attacked by thugs, her death bearing an uncanny resemblance to her aunt’s. The photo was case information preserved by the police at the time.
His eldest son, twenty-two years into Thomlison’s departure from Korolya, had been drafted for the Imperial Tax and was gone. Just three years later, a death notification was sent back home. His wife, worn down by years of toil and the loss of loved ones, succumbed to melancholy two years prior.
All of this broke him.
He had never held any fondness for the so-called empire; his youthful family had been shattered by the Imperial Tax; his own family, too, had been destroyed by it. After joining the military, for a time he believed in the propaganda of the political commissars, the Military Priests, thinking The Emperor supreme, a protector of humanity; believing he was fighting for the empire, for all of humankind, for a higher purpose, a greater good, sacrificing his life without regret or resentment.
But upon returning to his hometown, the disillusionment was so profound he couldn’t move past it.
And so came the sixth scene: he shattered his Warrior’s Medal with relentless force. It was from this moment that he began to hear the tender call of the heavenly Father.
The lies of the false emperor, the rotten and filthy system of the empire, made him sick to his stomach.
He wholly devoted himself to the divine Father, secretly preaching as a low-level official, and established the Eternal Life Sect.
He sincerely believed that Korolya needed change, that things could not go on like this, that the common people would never have peace.
He also sincerely believed that eradicating the false emperor’s faith, dissolving the empire’s governing system, and leading everyone into the warm, immortal embrace of the Father was a beautiful endeavor.
He tirelessly advanced this cause for fifty years.
Now, at last, his efforts were about to bear fruit.
But then he encountered Gu Hang, the terminator.
…
Thomlison’s life did seem quite tragic.
But in this situation, Gu Hang was heart of stone.
No matter how many illusions flickered before him, his attitude did not change in the slightest.
First of all, Thomlison’s experience, while horrible, wasn’t unique or representative of Korolya. Not because it wasn’t tragic enough, but rather because he was quite lucky, comparatively.
Both parents dead, a sister brutally killed—tragic, yes, but many on Korolya have experienced this and worse. Moreover, most of them never reach the stage of marriage, having children, promotions, and pay raises that he did.
The population drafted as Imperial Tax, 99.99% never make it back alive. Not only did he survive 29 years of war, making it to officer rank, but he also lived to retire and return home… his luck could be considered staggeringly good.
His wife lived past fifty, well beyond Korolya’s average life expectancy of thirty-six; his daughter’s death was unquestionable; his son drafted as Imperial Tax—Korolya had about seven to eight hundred million people taken every two years, so that was no surprise.
If even he could claim tragedy, then no one on Korolya was free from it.
But then again, if someone who was considered very lucky ended up like this, what about those whose luck was just average?
No wonder the Eternal Life Sect grew in strength; no wonder every Nest Capital on Korolya, with its Bottom Nest Districts, experienced periodic mass riots and rapid spread of plagues.
If Gu Hang had been born into such an environment, his mind would certainly be filled with thoughts of rebellion.
Individual tragedies are moving, but for a ruler like Gu Hang, he could see that what they reflected was a systemic issue.