Virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless
by M1zushithank you for the ko-fi donation AC!
On major news platforms, anchors held the same press releases, doing their utmost to sensationalize the “terrorists'” depravity.
Bai Ling was unfazed. Back when he was leading the revolution, he’d been slung with mud by those noble-controlled unscrupulous media more times than he could count. He’d heard things ten times uglier than this.
His ears had grown calluses.
The news even included street interview segments like: “What do you think of the Golden Eagle Marshal’s rescue operation? Do you believe it will succeed?”
A passerby casually replied: “I think he should just do his best. Those terrorists are so brutal. The news said they slaughtered the palace and killed all the innocent omega concubines. People like that might just kill the hostage anyway.”
“What about you? What do you think?”
Another passerby: “Sorry, I’m in a hurry to buy flowers. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. If the nation goes into mourning today, flowers will definitely sell out.”
The reporter was shocked: “Buying chrysanthemums?”
“Yeah, my wife likes them. Let me tell you, he has all kinds of quirks…”
A whole round of questions, and the answers varied wildly—but not a single person cared whether TGK would make it back alive.
Bai Ling brought the mineral water bottle over, allowing the Tyrant to immerse himself in the public sentiment.
The octopus slumped at the bottom of the plastic bottle, completely devoid of its former arrogance.
He’d seen it clearly now. By this point, matters had developed to an absurd degree. Every faction only wanted to save themselves, and not a single one cared about his life or death.
He, the “Great King,” had truly become a joke. Strip away the emperor’s crown, and he was nothing.
In the pilot’s seat, Sava leaned back with a tactical recline: “Now that’s what I call ‘true feelings revealed in adversity.'”
The octopus retracted its suckers, letting out something that sounded like strange, choked sobs.
The news feed shifted. On screen, a battleship studded with cannons took off from the spaceport. Its weaponry was so dense that from a glance, it looked like a straw bundle covered in candied hawthorn skewers.
The anchor excitedly introduced it: “That is the ‘Annihilation-class’ battleship of the Grand Duke Swordfish’s fleet, equipped with the latest condensed hydrogen bombs capable of firing ten consecutive rounds, destroying enemy armor in a single strike! The terrorists will have nowhere to hide!”
Sava’s temper flared. He started fumbling for the launch button on the console: “Who says we don’t have hot weapons? Bring it on, let’s sniper duel in the mid!”
While they sniped bullets, he’d snipe missiles.
Bai Ling whacked his chicken head: “Stop. We’re not firing.”
Sava didn’t understand: “Why? You scared?”
Bai Ling wasn’t joking. He pointed at their flight path and said seriously: “We’re passing over the continent’s center. If this ship drops even one shell, how many people would die?”
Civilians are innocent.
“You should tell them that.” A low voice suddenly came from behind.
Bai Ling turned to look. Yu Chen was walking through the kitchen’s secret door into the expansive cockpit. Standing at the highest step of the staircase, he smiled at them and asked:
“Mind if I observe the battle, generals?”
Sava’s mouth dropped into an “O” shape. He flailed his fingers in confusion and stammered: “Is that, that… the Big One?”
Bai Ling: “…”
Sava rubbed the back of his head sheepishly: “So young… I thought he’d be an old man.”
The moment the words slipped out, his face went pale with terror. This was Izsu Paraiso, by calling him an old man, did he have a death wish?
Sava scrambled to his feet, chest out, chin up, and gave a crisp salute upward: “H-hello, Your Majesty. I’m sorry, I misspoke.”
Yu Chen walked down, patted Sava’s stiff shoulder, and said gently: “Don’t be nervous. I won’t dine on little bird livers like the rumors say.”
Sava couldn’t help relaxing the corners of his mouth, the tension in his heart dissipating considerably.
Facing Izsu Paraiso, it was impossible not to be afraid. After all, the old emperor’s iron-fisted, fierce reputation was well known. Even his grandfather spoke of him with a guarded, evasive manner.
But whether it was because Izsu Paraiso had deliberately reined in his aura, Sava actually felt the Old Emperor seemed rather approachable.
He slung his arm over Bai Ling’s shoulder and lowered his voice:
“Stinky bird, you scored. Sleeping with him is not a loss.”
Bai Ling brushed Sava’s hand away expressionlessly: “Shut up, stinky chicken.”
He steered the conversation back on track, his grey eyes turning to Yu Chen: “You said earlier, tell them. I’ve already sent a message to the public radio channel. The military should know by now that I’m not willing to open fire within the atmosphere.”
“No. I mean, tell the people on the ground.”
A flash of inspiration struck Bai Ling: “You mean, give a speech?”
Yu Chen nodded approvingly. But Bai Ling thought for a moment and immediately rejected the idea: “But there’s no time. I haven’t prepared anything.”
For a speech, at the very least, one should write a draft beforehand, or else fumbling in front of the camera would severely undermine its effect.
“Content doesn’t matter. What matters is sincerity. Sincerity is your most invincible weapon.” Yu Chen earnestly instructed him. “Don’t treat your people with that politician’s routine. Treat them like the people you’d run into on any street corner. Pour out your heart to them.”
“Tell them what you’ve always wanted to do.”
“Move them with your true heart.”
The merman’s deep green eyes shone with encouragement and hope.
Bai Ling took a deep breath. When he opened his grey eyes again, they had become resolute: “I know what to do.”
The speech was filmed right inside the cockpit.
The little robot was adjusting the equipment with a professionalism rivaling a lighting technician. It would turn off one spot, turn on another, ensuring the ambient light was perfectly layered and the mechanical bird looked sunny and healthy, resolutely avoiding any BBC-style grim lighting.
“OK, OK, this angle.”
Only when the frame was fixed in a golden-ratio composition did the AI’s perfectionism feel satisfied.
It instructed: “Next, I’ll take over the screens across the territory. The time window should be around 15 minutes or less.”
Bai Ling inexplicably felt the thrill of a thesis defense.
He nodded, and asked: “How wide of a range can you hack?”
The AI smiled mysteriously: “The entire territory.”
On the 5K high-definition floating screens, the “Annihilation-class” battleship’s grand chase was playing out, accompanied by stirring music that set hearts racing.
But just then, the broadcast cut out. Every screen in the capital star flickered.
People cooking dinner, commuters watching their phones on the subway home, high schoolers organized to watch the news at school. All the screens before their eyes all flickered for an instant. The massive light-pollution displays on skyscrapers, the televisions in electronics malls, cinema screens—all those countless, varied screens, big and small, uncontrollably turned to static.
The media stations realized something was wrong and frantically called their directors. But the next second, their own monitors were hijacked too.
They screamed and threw their headphones aside.
On the screens, antique white noise static danced. The kind of static that appeared when television signals were lost in the last century. But soon, it cleared to a solid color, shifting to a moon-white tinged with blue.
Serene. And solemn.
Above that white, a cross appeared. A horizontal blue line and a vertical red line. They grew little by little from the left and the top center, making people’s hearts rise to their throats, as though they were the progress bars of life itself, symbolizing how much time they had left.
That familiar opening.
So familiar it was etched into the memories of three entire generations.
The whole world fell into dead silence, until someone pointed at the screen and shouted, trembling: “He, he’s back!”
The sunset trembled. The earth groaned.
“He’s back, it’s him! That’s the old Empire’s opening!”
Izsu Paraiso, the blue specter that haunted this land, was once again looming over the Empire.
But contrary to expectations, after the opening sequence, what appeared on screen wasn’t Izsu Paraiso’s blank symbol and mechanical voice, but a face that could be called familiar.
Familiar, because earlier that day it had been scrolling across death-row lists.
Prisoner, who had been lying in bed, suddenly sat up, staring in shock at the screen on the wall. That face, that person, had once said to him in the arena:
Prisoner, you are free.
“Freedom. What is freedom?” The high-definition camera lens reflected in his eyes, clearly capturing the crystalline gleam in those grey pupils. “Perhaps you’ve all had that question.”
“In truth, freedom is an empty, grandiose word. The answer I want to give you is cheap fruit, affordable housing, free healthcare.”
“We need time off. We should have our wages raised. We must get proper rest. Why do we work six days and rest one, yet still owe gratitude to the capitalists? Why do we work day and night, only to have them take 90% of the profits? Why is the Capital’s winter so cold, yet we go bankrupt from the exorbitant heating bills, ending up homeless and freezing to death on the streets?”
“Because they exist—the noble class. They’d rather spend a billion on a birthday banquet, tear money into shreds and scatter it into the air, turn it into wine poured down the sewers, than spare a single glance at your situation.”
“Think back. Ten, twenty years ago, we still had potatoes to eat, milk to drink.”
“Now, what do we have?”
The people before the screens felt ashamed, yet tears welled in their eyes. It seemed that after so long, someone had finally stood up and told them—
I see the suffering you’re going through. I want to reach out and help you.
“No matter where we come from, in the end we all walk the same road.”
“This is not a insurgence. It’s about building a new nation.”
Bai Ling looked into the lens, and at the same time toward Yu Chen behind the camera. His gaze was resolute as he told the entire world:
“Tyranny must die, because the motherland must live.”
Yu Chen gently applauded him. The sparse clapping rang out in the live broadcast, reaching through the signal to the people. Then, from in front of the screens, more responses rose, wave after wave, roaring past like an avalanche.
People couldn’t hear their own voices. They only knew their mouths were wide open, shouting wildly along with their neighbors in excitement.
“I want to tell you. Before we leave the atmosphere, no matter what attacks we come under, we will not fire back. We are unwilling to harm a single civilian.”
“Next, I will have the current Emperor Kaide appear on camera to apologize to you.”
“I promise I will not harm Kaide. Once the ship jumps safely, I will release him immediately.”
What is justice? Justice is having the power to harm, yet choosing to act fairly.
Whether Bai Ling was the “terrorist” the media claimed, everyone now had their own answer. As for those fabricated rumors, they crumbled under his frank and open words, refuted without a fight.
“After that, however, we will still use weapons to defend our safety.” Bai Ling had been in a state of high excitement and tension throughout, and at this point, he faltered slightly.
He came from a military background and had always spoken bluntly. What he wanted to say was that the battles that needed fighting would still be fought, but… for a moment, he couldn’t quite organize his words.
Bai Ling’s gaze shifted, seeking help by looking toward Yu Chen.
Yu Chen parted his pale, bloodless lips and mouthed the words to him, one by one, offering live guidance:
Virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Bai Ling read his words, and an infinite confidence surged in his heart. He lifted his eyes and gave his reason with conviction:
“Because virtue must be accompanied by a sharp blade. Kindness without teeth is useless.”
Yu Chen slowly turned the gem on his thumb, his eyes lowered, yet the corners of his lips faintly curved upward.
Ten years ago, I lost the people’s hearts.
Now, ten years later, I will help you win them back.
The author has something to say:
“Tyranny must die, because the motherland must live” is adapted from “Louis XVI must die, because the motherland must live,” from Robespierre, a statesman during the French Revolution and the de facto supreme leader during the Jacobin dictatorship.
Virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless, a line Robespierre spoke at the National Convention in 1794. The original was in French, of course; English is used here to evoke that context.
Little Bird: At my thesis defense, my dean/supervisor literally gave me a cheat code on the spot.
Old Fish is going to teach Little Bird how to be a leader hand by hand, hehehehe. Savor this forbidden pairing of Emperor x non-biological heir.
Translator’s note: now that i have my own website i can search and replace isu paraiso for izsu paraiso… at some point in the story i just got too lazy to add the extra s….
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