Chapter 227: The Gougle Civilization Ends Here

The two asked everyone they met in the Grand World, and the answers were almost all the same—everyone believed they had no regrets about entering the virtual world.

“The Euthanasia Plan… Feitian Corporation had it in place since the day it was founded. Its founder, Xiang Gu, created the company precisely to carry out this plan!”

“We just don’t know what Xiang Gu’s goal was. Shame he lived more than a thousand years ago and has long since died.” Bai Hongtu sighed with regret. If he could find Xiang Gu, he really wanted to ask this b*stard just what angle he was coming from, dragging an entire civilization into its grave.

“There’s definitely something off about Xiang Gu. He might not even be dead.” Bai Hongtu was firm. It was a gut feeling.

The two returned to the real world, swept their divine senses across the five major galaxies, and found only Xiang Gu’s grave.

Bai Hongtu was unwilling to accept it. He used the “Rewind Flame Technique” to restore Xiang Gu’s remains to their original appearance—exactly like his old photos.

He’d heard that technological civilizations liked using DNA to verify identities, so he ran a DNA test and compared it to the database. The results confirmed this person was indeed Xiang Gu.

“Could my intuition be wrong?” Bai Hongtu was suspicious, starting to doubt himself.

“No, just using Rewind Flame and DNA testing isn’t enough.” Jiang Li frowned. “Don’t forget the first step of the Euthanasia Plan mentioned ‘using divine revelation to develop technology.’ If divine revelation were a physical object, we haven’t seen anything that surpasses its era, so divine revelation must have been words spoken to Xiang Gu by some powerful being.”

“There’s only one civilization in this world—the Gougle Civilization. Where would a god come from? The Dao Ancestor had already passed by then. That powerful being must have come from another world.”

“Either it was a Celestial Immortal from the Celestial Realm who happened to pass by, found Xiang Gu pleasing, and gave him knowledge of science and technology—or it was a Celestial Immortal-level Outer World Demon that came to destroy the Gougle Civilization.”

“I’m more inclined to believe it was the Outer World Demon,” Jiang Li analyzed. “Even though the Gougle people chose to die willingly, from a broader perspective, their civilization has indeed vanished. That fits perfectly with an Outer World Demon’s agenda.”

There were some things they couldn’t say earlier in front of Du Ming.

If they had told Du Ming the holographic simulator was a scheme by Outer World Demons, he might’ve actually thanked them.

“And the nutrient solution—at the cost of sterility and body-mind separation, it lets people live for two hundred years. That’s basically a deliberate move to ensure no more offspring for the Gougle.”

Originally, Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu had thought the nutrient solution was truly heaven-defying. If it could extend lifespan beyond mortal limits, maybe they could bring it back to the Nine Provinces for mortals and low-level cultivators.

But after hearing from Du Ming and studying the nutrient solution in detail, the two of them wanted nothing more than to destroy every last drop of it.

The price of the nutrient solution was just too high.

For a civilization, it was a dangerous substance.

Long-term immersion in nutrient solution would cause a gradual separation of body and consciousness. Short-term soaking only caused loss of fertility.

And the earlier one started soaking, the better the effect—the maximum lifespan could reach 230 years.

To live to 200, the cost was sterility. How many people would choose to soak in the nutrient solution?

They couldn’t guarantee that people would only soak after having children.

Some might choose to soak early just to get those extra 30 years.

“What kind of warped mind would even think of something like this?!” Bai Hongtu cursed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t imagine creating something as harmful as the holographic simulator and nutrient solution.

“The Outer World Demon understands human nature too well. It pinpointed the conflict between individual and collective interests.” Jiang Li used his knowledge from his past life to explain to Bai Hongtu.

“How could someone raised by an Outer World Demon only live to 130?” Jiang Li sneered.

Historical records showed Xiang Gu only lived to 130. The nutrient solution was invented after his death, specifically during the time of Feitian Corporation’s tenth CEO.

“It took four hundred years for Feitian Corporation to get the entire civilization into the virtual world. Ten CEOs. If this plan to wipe out humanity wasn’t personally overseen, are we really supposed to believe Xiang Gu trusted all the future CEOs to think just like him?”

“I suspect Xiang Gu faked his death. The CEOs after him were just his puppets. Otherwise, in a civilization where lifespans can’t be extended, someone living over four hundred years would stand out way too much.”

“Then how do you explain that face? And what about the DNA test? Isn’t that supposed to be reliable?” Bai Hongtu pointed at the restored body of Xiang Gu—a perfectly ordinary old man. No one would believe he was the culprit behind the fall of a civilization.

“Cloning technology.”

Bai Hongtu suddenly understood—right, tech worlds had that too.

He started wondering if he should take some time to study under Mingzhong and get familiar with this kind of technology. Otherwise, even though he and Jiang Li knew the same stuff, Jiang Li always reacted quicker, which made him feel humiliated.

Though he’d embarrassed himself in front of Jiang Li plenty of times, it was still better to minimize it where possible.

“If Xiang Gu is still alive, that means he’s like, what, fourteen or fifteen hundred years old? He’s at the Fusion Stage?”

“What’s so hard about that? Outer World Demons used pills to push the Twelve Heavenly Kings into the Soul Formation Stage. Why wouldn’t they use pills to get Xiang Gu into the Fusion Stage? If I had Celestial Power and paired it with the Ninefold Immortal Pill, I could make someone ascend.”

“Then where is he now?” Bai Hongtu hadn’t found any Fusion Stage remains across the five galaxies.

“Who knows? The universe is huge. Maybe he’s drifting through it, or maybe, after completing his mission, the Outer World Demon took him away.”

Too bad the system wasn’t a human trafficker, and the shop didn’t sell people—otherwise Jiang Li would’ve bought Xiang Gu and brought him right here.

The server containing all the people of the Gougle was like a mountain, towering into the clouds, flickering with countless lights. It ran on stellar energy, with nuclear energy as backup, ensuring the server wouldn’t lose data even in a blackout.

The Gougle Civilization now existed entirely within this server.

This was how the two had found the Gougle Civilization.

Unfortunately, they were a thousand years too late.

“What now? Just leave it here?” Bai Hongtu felt uneasy about that. But if they brought it back, the problem would be even bigger.

Even though virtual personas weren’t real people, and the server was technically just a data device, with hundreds of billions of virtual personas inside, Bai Hongtu couldn’t emotionally treat them like lifeless data.

He wanted to do something—but didn’t know what.

“We don’t have to worry about the energy. Stellar energy can power the server for hundreds of thousands of years. You set up a formation to protect it from meteors.”

“And black holes—check if any within a thousand light-years might pose a threat. If so, eliminate them. I’ll take care of that. I’ll come inspect it once every thousand years.”

Jiang Li handled the assignments, and Bai Hongtu agreed.

Black holes were among the most powerful astronomical phenomena. Fusion-stage cultivators weren’t afraid of them only because of their three-in-one nature. If they relied solely on their physical bodies, they couldn’t withstand black holes.

Only Celestials could tank a black hole physically.

Bai Hongtu did have a method to destroy black holes, but it was time-consuming and exhausting—better to leave it to Jiang Li.

After finishing everything, Jiang Li erected a stone stele.

They didn’t acknowledge that the Gougle Civilization was dead—so they didn’t call it a tombstone. They just called it a commemorative monument.

So on the stele, they wrote: “The Gougle Civilization Ends Here.”

The two bowed deeply, then left the Gougle Civilization.