Since the birth of the so-called civilization and kingdom of mankind, spiritual beliefs and other things have never been extinct.

Most of the time the word is directly linked to religion, and almost any sufficiently large human civilization will have its own religion. It is a kind of identity, and it also plays a role in unifying the country or nation to a certain extent.

Rather than a more ambiguous concept, spiritual beliefs do not necessarily have to be linked to religion. The dogma of personal life, the persistence of a certain cause, can all be classified under this concept.

What it is, it's hard to sum it up in one or two words.

"Tangible things are fragile" Nothing can last forever, and no person can live forever.

But the spirit is different, the national spirit, the family tradition, the inner strength of the beliefs, thoughts, and spirits of a group of people passed down from generation to generation will still live on even after death.

And when the material conditions are not sufficient and the conditions are difficult, it is this spirit that often allows people to survive through difficulties.

If you have tens of millions of assets in your hands, then anyone can take out a drop of their vast wealth and give alms to the poor. But when it is difficult to protect themselves, how many people can give up the materials in their hands to give to others.

Turn the tide in seemingly desperate situations and face the enemy as everyone else turns and flees. Heroes who are indispensable, or virtuous kings of the ages, those who are superior to mortals always have their own creeds that are higher than material and higher than the present.

It is this that makes human beings unique from other races as a short-lived race.

- So.

What if the so-called faith and spirit have only become some kind of dogma and some kind of rigid rules, and the people who do it just draw gourds in the same way and do not really inherit the true essence from the hands of their predecessors?

If the spiritual power is long gone, all that remains is an empty shell on the surface.

It's as if a ship that is too large has been reduced to bones when the wind has stopped, and the sailors who have taken the helm and gone have died, just going with the inertia of the past.

Everyone does this not because it should be so, but because it was so.

Is it still in the right direction?

Words go back to square one.

Thanks to Tomitia, the departing party was able to bring back enough water for everyone to use for more than two days.

The mountain road is difficult to navigate, and it took nearly two hours to go back and forth. In particular, pots and pans become heavy after being filled with water, and they are not easy to spill on steep and rugged mountain roads without being closed containers. In order to fix them, the sage used local materials to sharpen some frames of wood and strengthen them with ropes, but this became the reason for Ah Yong and others, who were lying on the ground after his return, and only his voice was still loud.

"Why is it delaying for so long? Don't you see that we are suffering. ”

After the group of people who carefully took care of the water equipment all the way and were worried about spilling it came back, Ah Yong's direct words made everyone feel like cold water.

Even Yajiro couldn't hold it back, he felt more and more disgusted with this person who was originally like a brother, but deep down he couldn't tell if this was a projection of self-loathing onto Ayong's body.

- because before this their life trajectory was almost the same.

Growing up in a traditional Japanese-style martial arts family, he learns martial arts and the book knowledge that a samurai should learn. All he could think about was how to fight, how to serve his Lord, how to do his duty.

He was full of thoughts that he would find a virtuous Chinese in the future and become a famous warrior under his command, and in Yajiro's imagination before, every battle he fought was naturally in line with the spirit of the samurai, a glorious and capable head-to-head duel, and there would be absolutely no imperfections.

Perfect, rigorous, like a good craftsman's craftsman's craftsman, when the lid is closed, it fits like a piece.

Perfectly follow the life of a warrior, be loyal to your duties, strict self-discipline, and every battle is dignified, and finally usher in a gorgeous death like the cherry blossoms of the Moon Country.

This is the so-called "way of the samurai".

Imperfection cannot be tolerated, "I tried my best" cannot be tolerated. Either you get the perfect result or you fail. If you fail, you should apologize for suicide, so that you can clearly draw the shame you have received.

This strict rule is not only directed at oneself, but also spreads to others around it.

This is the reason why the ashigaru have always been unable to hold their heads up in front of the high-ranking samurai, and no matter what they do or do, in the eyes of the samurai, these vulgar subordinates will always have countless "imperfections".

So Ah Yong opened his mouth to accuse, bitterly sarcastic and mocking, because in his eyes, Henry and others, who had spent time working on this framework, were deliberately making things difficult for him.

His attitude towards Henry and his party was the same as he had with Ashigaru before, and in the past he didn't do it because of how polite he was, but because of the status of the Sage and his party as the honored guests of the Qingtian family and the respect that Narumi and others, the leader of the team, respected him.

But the hostility has become more and more serious for a while, and although Henry has not done anything to him, the so-called noble children are still like this.

When people are sick, as their bodies feel uncomfortable, negative emotions often become worse, and most of the original Japanese samurai feel that they are the pride of the sky, and other people serve them as a matter of course, and it will become like this, and it is only natural to yell at others as servants.

The young Luoan girl frowned, and Yajiro and Old Joe became more and more irritated when they encountered this kind of thing after returning from a summer trip.

Even the always cheerful old Joe lost his smile, but Henry just waved his hand and signaled them not to care, because this was not the most important moment for personal emotions.

He has passed the age of impulsive behavior due to personal mood swings a long, long time ago, and it is largely because of the broken jar and the moment of emotional venting, and in the end it is still himself who cleans up the mess.

This may be the sadness of the so-called sages.

When you become the one who is admired, the respect and glory you receive is certainly a source of pride, but this attention also means responsibility, which means that many people will expect more from you than you can do.

When "heroic deeds" become "taken for granted", then the voices of gratitude will become smaller and smaller, until finally doing these things becomes a matter of course and not doing these things, or it becomes a sin to do these things imperfectly.

The most important emotion of human beings is gratitude, but the most weak emotion of human beings is also gratitude.

Ironically, gratitude was an important component of samurai culture, tied to loyalty and written into the dogma. But this gratitude could only come from the bottom up, and only the samurai offered to the monarch they served, and there could be no samurai gratitude for the actions of those they considered to be below them.

If a commoner offered a bowl of water to quench the samurai's thirst in the summer heat, it was not something to be thankful for, it was just what they should do - and the same is true for now, although the current situation of Ah Yong and the others is due to their own impulsiveness and ignorance, they feel that others should take care of them, and they will scold at the slightest dissatisfaction.

In an already rigid and solidified class, virtue is also triggered. They did not really learn what is called morality, because the dogma only told them to be loyal to their future Lord and to keep the Lord's knowing grace in their hearts at all times.

When they first met, Mira thought that the samurai of Wato were superior to the Rigal knights.

Because of their conversation, clothing and daily cultivation, they are really worthy of the name of elite, unlike many knights who are just bandits and robbers in bright armor.

But as she traveled for several months and saw and heard during the period, she became more and more aware that these people were not much different from the same social class on the other side of the ocean. They are meticulous in their conversation, focusing on how to maintain their swords with standard movements, and their every move is full of ritual and superficial work.

But the inside is already empty.

Fleeing from the battle, shirking responsibility.

Treating recklessness as heroic, without seeing the big picture, and not repenting even when the price of impulsiveness implicates others, instead takes it all for granted.

The samurai pattern of Japanese people is very small, because the purpose of their existence is only to pursue personal honor.

And the reason why they pursue personal honor is because they are so informed by the dogma they have studied.

Ah Yong and these people are like rebellious teenagers who have not grown up, eating their parents and spending on their parents' flowers, and then thinking that they have taken the things at home independently and went out, but they were beaten to the head because of their lack of experience and knowledge.

Then when he was injured, he went home and asked for help, and he also passed the blame, believing that it was his parents who did not teach him well or did not give him enough support to lead to failure.

They are not able-bodied adults, but a group of teenagers who have grown up with only martial arts and the knowledge of how to be faithful to their duties, but they are always mentally immature.

Over time, after the wind and rain, the waves and the sand, maybe some of them will be able to transform into different existences.

For a sage who has gone through a long life, patience is probably the least lacking thing.

Therefore, Henry ignored the shouting and cursing of Ah Yong and the others, and he just silently used the charcoal and other items left over from boiling water to make a temporary potion that had some effect on diarrhea.

After taking the warm potion, the slightly more comfortable Ayong and the others finally became relatively quiet.

The dehydration caused by the diarrhoea had made them tired and dizzy, and they had been so energetic from excitement and dissatisfaction that they were lying there half-dead like dead fish.

Henry was only in charge of mixing the potion, and the care ultimately fell to the ashigaru. These subordinates, who have always been responsible for serving the samurai, work hard and complain, and even if they have grievances, they will not express them in their hearts.

After witnessing the change in his state of mind from the deserted fields and the waste-like young samurai on the side of Ziyun, this scene in Yajiro's eyes began to change subtly.

Ashigaru served the samurai, and the people cultivated to support the samurai, and all these things were taken for granted.

But is it really a matter of course?

The fields are deserted, the people are not able to make a living, Ashigaru sleeps less than 4 hours a day, and he still has to do so many chores after fighting, just for what?

Can the young samurai children waste their lives by drinking and having fun - no, even if they don't mention the shame of those warriors, the honor of being a warrior is the personal they are pursuing.

Is it important to pay the price of abandoned land and the difficulty of many civilians to make a living?

He used to be a great believer in this, believing that there was nothing more important in the world. But now Yajiro is getting harder and harder to be sure.

In the past, conviction stemmed from ignorance, but after more contact, enlightenment brought about not a clear future, but confusion.

But it's still a good thing.

Distress, confusion, thought, and desire.

Only in this way can you truly find your own bright path.

It's never a good thing to be closed in a small environment, to hold on to the creed of an empty shell as the whole of life, and to have a clear goal because of the singleness.

Ignorant of the suffering of the masses in the world, and just bent on chasing the honor of being a warrior, that kind of life is of course clear and single-minded, with a clear goal, even easy.

But now the disaster is in the north, and the Padrossi Empire on the other side of the ocean is also eyeing the tiger, and the more than 4,000-year-old country is no longer as stable as they would like to believe.

When I woke up, I saw a crumbling country, as if I was trapped in a burning house with nowhere to escape, and I was full of confusion.

Then it is better to die in your sleep, so that there is less pain.

Most people would probably still choose the latter.

But he took this step and began to confront what he had neglected in the past.

This may be what the first samurai who pioneered the Moon Country thousands of years ago wanted to emphasize, but it has been lost for a long time.

"There's movement. The sage suddenly spoke, breaking the thoughts of Yajiro and the others in a flat and undulating tone as always.

There were twenty or thirty people gathered, and it only took one glance to understand that they were the accomplices of the gang next to the well before.

The same tattered equipment, the same emaciated body.

Different, only this time they brought rusty but shiny iron with them.

"Can you still keep your hand, I don't really want to ......." Yajiro stopped talking, his current state of mind changes made him a little unable to do anything to these hungry people.

"As much as possible. But Henry only said that, and did not give an affirmative answer.