Couldn't Do It

I completely understand why He Caitou hates the Sun Moon Imperial Family.

His mother died at the hands of the Imperial Family, and he was forced to flee the palace, ending up at Shrek.

Later, in order to rise to power, Xu Tianran purged the bloodline of the former Imperial Family completely. He Caitou's status as the former crown prince was his original sin, and he regarded him as a thorn in Xu Tianran's side.

If Xu Tianran catches him, he will absolutely not let him live.

Therefore, it's only natural that He Caitou hates Xu Tianran and the Imperial Family that wiped out his entire family. It would be abnormal not to hate someone for the massacre of their family.

What I don't understand is, if you hate Xu Tianran and the Imperial Family, then go after Xu Tianran and the core members of the Imperial Family.

Your enemies are those who sit in high positions and issue orders, those who personally plotted the coup and stained their own family members' blood.

You should be pointing your knife at their throats, not your cannon at the ordinary soldiers on the front lines. But what He Caitou did during the war was clearly not like that.

He did not attempt to assassinate Xu Tianran, nor did he attempt to kill any high-ranking members of the Imperial Family.

His chosen method was to work day and night drawing blueprints, designing one offensive Soul Tool after another, and then sending them to the front lines in batches, letting these weapons fire upon the Sun Moon Empire's army.

How many members of the Imperial Family are in these armies? Almost none.

The vast majority of those taxi drivers who were conscripted were sons of ordinary families. Some were there to earn a living, some were forcibly conscripted, and some might not even be Soul Master.

Before enlisting, they might have been farmers, craftsmen, or small merchants, with no grudge against He Caitou, and might not even know what had happened in the imperial court.

But as soon as the Soul Guidance Cannon designed by He Caitou fired, they didn't even have a chance to react and were instantly turned into a pile of minced meat on the battlefield.

He Caitou's hatred wasn't directed at his enemies, but rather transformed into cannonballs, crashing down on the heads of these ordinary people who knew nothing.

This is what I've always wanted to ask He Caitou: I understand that you hate the Imperial Family. But those commoners are innocent.

You knew perfectly well that sending these weapons to the front lines would kill countless people who had no grudge against you, yet you still did it, and without hesitation.

Has your hatred gone beyond the realm of revenge and become a form of displaced anger?

I suspect some will defend He Caitou: those soldiers weren't innocent; they participated in the war of aggression, and their hands were stained with the blood of civilians from the Three Douluo Kingdoms.

This statement makes some sense.

The Sun Moon Empire's army did indeed commit numerous war crimes during the war, such as massacres, looting, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians; these acts are well-documented.

But here's the problem: the military is a top-down system, and the real decision-makers are Xu Tianran and the Imperial Family, the generals sitting in the command post.

Taxi drivers at the bottom level have no choice.

If they don't charge forward, the supervising squad behind them will kill them first.

If they do not follow orders, they will be court-martialed.

Placing all the blame for war crimes on the rank-and-file soldiers is just as unfair as placing all the responsibility on He Caitou alone.

[And even if those soldiers were responsible for the war, the punishment they deserved should have been trial and judgment, not being blown to pieces by He Caitou's Soul Guidance Cannon.]

Punishment and massacre are two different things.

He Caitou's weapons make no distinction between objects, the guilty and the innocent, soldiers and civilians. A single soul-guided bomb can kill everyone within a radius of tens of meters.

Surely not all of these people deserved to die? There must be some who didn't.

Did He Caitou consider these people when he was designing the weapons? I think he did.

But he still handed in the drawings.

This is the most chilling part: he knew the outcome, yet he still chose this path.

In the Female Dormitory of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, Ju Zi sat on the edge of her bed.

Her entire being was drawn to the diary within her consciousness.

He Caitou's mother died at the hands of the Imperial Family family.

Xu Tianran purged the former Imperial Family, He Caitou was forced to leave.

This information had a much greater impact on Ju Zi than she had anticipated.

If what Lin Ye said is true, then He Caitou's hatred for the Imperial Family is not without reason.

But what Lin Ye said next made her heart clench again: offensive Soul Tool don't distinguish between objects; they bomb soldiers and civilians alike.

Most of those soldiers only wore the uniform for the pay.

If war breaks out, they will be sent to the front lines, and then...

She's just a student; she's not yet in a position to influence the course of a battle.

But Lin Ye's diary entry made her begin to fear war.

Because once a war truly begins, no one is innocent, and no one can remain untainted in it.

He Caitou simply made his choice earlier than most people.

The Ju Zi of today haven't experienced the things that will happen in the future, and their hearts haven't gradually hardened.

Although she knew from her diary that she would one day be a commander, or even an empress.

But right now, she's just a girl who's not even 20 years old.

Even if you know the future, so what? The future Ju Zi is an iron-blooded empress, while the present Ju Zi is just a weak female student.

Of course, He Caitou wasn't entirely without merit.

From the very first day of the war, the Sun Moon Empire was no longer the Sun Moon Empire he remembered.

Xu Tianran is deeply involved with the Holy Spirit Cult, the imperial court has been infiltrated by Evil Soul Master, and the army on the front lines is not only conquering cities and territories, but also collecting souls for the Holy Spirit Cult.

After each major battle, members of the Holy Spirit Cult would appear on the battlefield, using evil magic to harvest the souls of the dead.

He Caitou was one of the people from the Tang Sect and Shrek who knew the Sun Moon Empire best; he understood the relationship between the Holy Spirit Cult and the Sun Moon Imperial Family better than anyone else.

He must know that if the Sun Moon Empire wins this war, the Holy Spirit Cult will become the state religion of the entire continent, and the evil methods of the Evil Soul Master will be spread throughout the continent. At that time, it will not only be the common people of the Three Douluo Kingdoms who suffer, but also the ordinary people of the Sun Moon Empire.

From this perspective, He Caitou's help to Shrek fight the Sun Moon Empire was not only for revenge, but also to prevent an even more terrible outcome.

This is a cruel choice. "Save some or save everyone." He Caitou chose the latter.

But is this reason really sufficient? The logic of sacrificing some innocent lives to save more people may make sense strategically, but it will never make sense morally.

Because those innocent people who died will not die without regrets because "their sacrifice saved more people".

They could have lived.

If He Caitou could have devised a more precise method of attack, if he could have targeted military facilities and command systems with his weapons instead of indiscriminately killing people in a wide area, those people might have survived.