Chapter 63: 145 chapters, Liu Guozong and the Bei Fang people chat a few words about heaven

145 chapters, Liu Guozong and the Bei Fang people chat a few words about heaven.

145 chapters,

Liu Guozong and Fang people say a few words about heaven.

I asked a friend who returned from touring Jinan: "Is what you saw in Jinan "every home has spring water, every household has willows"?"

Or "four sides lotus, three sides willow, a city's mountain scenery half a city's lake"?

The friend sighed and said: "There's nothing worth seeing. I only saw that along the railway's both sides, the fields were scattered with cement-made tombs everywhere. Those tombs were exquisitely made, some even rising one or two meters above ground."

Hearing the friend's words, I also felt regret for him: such a good holiday, spending thousands of yuan, and what I saw were actually tombs? How bewildering! After feeling regret, I also sighed: what era is this, that the people there still value the dead so much?

Those who build tombs, could they be like what Lu Xun said: "I sought to connect with immortals, but finally saw none, and suddenly had some doubts. So I wanted to build a grave to preserve the corpse, wishing to use my own corpse to forever occupy a piece of land"?

A few years ago, media reported that in the south, many wealthy people on the mountains built luxurious tombs for themselves, ruining the good mountains into a mess, ugly and hideous. This disappointed many travelers to the south; now the Bei Fang people have also become wealthy, so how did those who became wealthy in Bei Fang think to build tombs for the dead?

Is this the dead wanting immortality? Or is it a form of the living's memorial for the dead? Or is it "wanting to use one's own corpse to forever occupy a piece of land"?

It is said that anyone who has been to Egypt knows that they cannot avoid discussing the big and small pyramids by the Nile River in Egypt. Those pyramids are the crystallization of the peculiar idea of Egyptian historical pharaoh nobles who "wanted to use their own corpses to forever occupy a piece of land".

Among those many big and small pyramids, there is one that reaches the height of the largest pyramid, which is Pharaoh Khufu's. This is the world's tallest tomb. Khufu was a pharaoh; in Egypt's four or five thousand years, he held supreme power in life, and after death he naturally did not want to give up those enjoyments he had in life.

Just like China's Qin Shihuang, his bearing in life was how great? Tang dynasty poet Li Bai evaluated him thus:

"The Qin king sweeps **, how mighty his tiger‑like gaze!

"Wielding his sword, he cleaves the floating clouds; all the feudal lords come westward."

This king of great talent and unrivaled martial prowess, amid the chaotic situation like drifting clouds, raised his arm and made all the feudal lords submit to him in awe. When his power reached its peak, he naturally thought of immortality, so that the world's wealth and honor would forever belong to him.

Thus he built the E'fang Palace. Look how splendid the palace is: "five steps a tower, ten steps a pavilion." "It overwhelms three hundred li, blocking out sky and sun." What grandeur! Those countless towers, layered like scales, like a "prostrate rainbow on waves," and moreover the palace housed beauties from all over the world like clouds.

But when Qin Shihuang knew he had to leave all he had created, he also wanted to take everything from his life into death.

"Seven hundred thousand convicts,

Heaping earth at Mount Li's foothills."

The Qin emperor mobilized seven hundred thousand artisans from all under heaven to build his mausoleum at Mount Li. But no matter what, that tyrant still died; when people two thousand years later excavated the Mount Li tomb, they did not see the domineering Qin Shihuang. Li Bai, using a poet's imagination, said:

"Only see the three springs below,

A gold coffin buries the cold ashes."

Now even the "cold ashes" have turned to dust and vanished.

As for the world‑class grand burial chamber of the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu, there are only the "tomb **", "imperial quarters", "royal quarters"; the one who wanted eternal immortality, Khufu, is not seen; inside the tower only mummified remains of dead cats and dogs can be seen. Thus, anyone in this world who wishes for eternal immortality is indulging in foolish fantasies.

Even Qin Shihuang and Pharaoh Khufu couldn't achieve it; who in the world could?

It is said that Americans think that the earth cannot make people "eternally lasting", "ten thousand years without end"; so they turned their attention to the sky.

They established the "Sky Burial Company" (nowadays it's a money‑first era; whoever can make money will have all sorts of bad ideas).

It is said that the Sky Burial Company consists of retirees from the American Space Agency and the Space Center.

These are all high‑IQ people; they might not have earned enough money while employed, their money‑making addiction not satisfied. Or perhaps, having idle energy with nowhere to use, talent with nowhere to display, they stir up trouble out of boredom.

Can't we do some good for humanity when idle? Must we engage in this harmful act? According to the media, this Sky Burial Company (which should be called the Boring Pit Company) has, since its establishment, business still relatively "booming"; those in the world who want "eternally lasting", "ten thousand years without end" still linger, and there are many of them.

It is said that "many wealthy families in Japan, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, etc." have eagerly applied to American companies for the "business". Now several thousand boxes of ashes have been sent into space, and the company also decided to launch each year ten sky‑burial satellites to earn money from those who wish for "eternally lasting", "ten thousand years without end".

This idea is absolutely brilliant.

As for the friend on the journey, seeing those big and small cement tombs along the railway from Xuzhou to Jinan, compared with Qin Shihuang, the Egyptian pharaohs, and the American Sky Burial Company's "satellite burial", what does that amount to?

What is this? Could it be that the Bei Fang people learned from Qin Shihuang? Or from the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu? Bei Fang people, do you want others to see civilization, or ignorance?

I have thought it over three times and still cannot understand!