Chapter 258 - Invoke.
Yang Dao asked the people who supported him, and the majority yelled yes in favor. The boy kept on talking about different laws and making amends with them. The voices kept growing. Laohu Bai was getting more and more agitated.
She was happy that Yang Dao was restoring the balance of the people, but she was worried too. You cannot salvage everything after damage. Destruction leads to construction and vice versa. So her fear was not out of place in this situation. Rebuilding a monument has its own risks.
Suddenly, Yang Dao stopped speaking, and he asked, “Do not just follow whatever I tell you is right. If anyone thinks that you have something to add to my suggestions, then do it. The society is run, not only by the ministers and the royalty but by the civilians as well.”
His words made the people respect him even more. They did not think that the fabled child of chronicles will actually ask them for their advice. Suddenly, a shout echoed in the crowd.
“Lord, by doing all this, you will change our ways. These ways are all set by our and your predecessors. Do you not think it will be disrespectful to them?”
Everyone turned to the source of the noise and found a middle-aged man. This man had a scar on his face. The aura emitted by him was baleful. Yang Dao guessed he must be a soldier in his posture.
He smiled and shook his head. Then he replied, “This process is an improvement. The day we stop improving is the day the world will perish. Do your parents not want you to excel and become better than what they were in their youth? Do they not instill their learnings to us since childhood to make us grow more? The same is with the laws.
None of you can read the chronicles otherwise you would know that only the first page itself says, if you think that the change you will do can bring out a better outcome, then change it. Sir, the past is history, the future is a mystery. However, the things we do today, in the present, will determine if the future will be a gift or misery.”
His words shook the man, and he nodded. He calmed down and believed in what Yang Dao said. The people all came forward and make contributions to the discussion. Glow also did not shy away from this. She accepted some and denied some. After all, not everything was suitable to be seen as an improvement but just as she was afraid of making the people unhappy.
Yang Dao came to her rescue. What he did was to point out the loopholes in the rejected suggestions and then he improved them and had a separate law established accordingly. However, not everything was strawberries and rainbows. The boy declared punishments for the crimes of corruption, infidelity, and inhumane acts. The punishments shocked the people. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
They were scared from just hearing it. Since he preached balance, he also introduced the concept of equity. He told them how equity is better than equality. The people were skeptical at first but as he kept on talking, the people all accepted his suggestion. It was not all that easy after all the counter questions were hard to say.
Yang Dao used pure logic to make the people accept why equity was better than equality. The sun was about to set when he said, “Now we come to the final law. This law is actually only known to the royalty and the ministers. However, I would say that this law is should be known to the people. They should know what sacrifices have been made by their queens in the past.”
Before he could continue, he was interrupted by Orion. “Lord, please don’t do this. This law must not be unveiled.”
Yang Dao shook his head and said, “Minister Orion, do you wish your daughter to suffer the same grief and pain as her mother?” his voice was low but the people have all been paying attention to what he would say so they naturally heard it. To the civilians, Orion was a hermit who has never married, so how can he have children.
Orion was shocked to hear these words. None knew about this, except for the queen and him. The two have never even met after that night. The man dedicated his life to helping her run the kingdom to the best of his abilities. They would always act like colleagues and nothing else in front of the world and even after the courtroom is adjourned, they would stay like this. However, they loved each other from the depth of their hearts.
They were both classmates when they were being trained in the institution until Glow’s mother was sent to the palace as the daughter of the king and queen. The love story was not short. Orion was shocked and Yang Dao said, “The queen is a human being and she also needs to be loved and taken care of. In the annuls of the past, I found out that the people glorified their queen as a goddess of light.
The goddess was a maiden and she could not be touched by the mortal men. However, she could still bear offspring. Have you never thought about why the offspring is a woman? Earlier, when this law was established, the queen was a maiden, but one queen thought this law was unjust and she changed this law.
Her reason was, “As a woman myself, if I take away someone else’s child. I cannot live with myself.” So, she made a few changes. She married a man secretly and the two people came together to bear a child. After the queen was confirmed to have become pregnant. She ceased all connections with the man.
She sacrificed her own child to make the law equal. That same sacrificial act is being followed over the ages. A queen is also a human like you. She is not a goddess. However, the people who deprived her of her humanity sure look like demons to me.”
His words set off a storm among the people. Yang Dao said, “I ask you, why is the queen deprived of humanity? Why is she not allowed to fall in love? Why can she not have a family and still be the queen? Are all the gods above celibate? Tell me.”
The last two words were a shout, and with his shout, the wind blew around, shaking the people a little. The Dao Child could invoke the light, but he can also invoke the darkness of destruction.