Chapter 17 - Wan Shou's Thoughts

　　Saying goodbye to the exuberant Oak-Sorin, Lily and Wanshou returned to the hut, where Kiki and Anna had already prepared a meal, and Lily tried to keep the two for dinner, but was refused.

　　"Master, do things really attract each other in this world?" Lily asked as she took a bite of her food.

　　"I think there is."

　　"But why? It's so strange that two people or things that have never met each other are attracted to each other?" Lily was even more puzzled as to why and what made them meet, just because of feelings?

　　"How do I explain this to you?" Mansou stopped his chopsticks and held his chin in thought for a while, "Let's use Devil Fruit to explain it to you, you know that animal-based Devil Fruit picks the owner they want."

　　"This I have heard you say."

　　"That's just it, why is it that animal type Devil Fruits can pick their masters? I'm actually not sure, but I have a guess, probably because the animal line Devil Fruit has the most complete consciousness of all types of Devil Fruit, even if it's the consciousness of an animal, but it's often this animal's consciousness that's the most accurate, when they don't like you, even if it's right at your feet, you won't notice it at all, but when they like you, it's always because of all sorts of strange reasons Come to you, everything in this world is sometimes unexplainable, we don't know enough about this world, and a good weapon has a complete soul, and it's only natural that two people or things with similar souls will attract each other, right?"

　　"Perhaps, but one day when I do find that demon sword Akatsuki, I'll be sure to hear what he has to say." Lily once again bowed her head and put her meal together, and before long the two had finished the table.

　　Simply cleaning up the dishes, Lily picked up the book to study, in the past few years Wanshou had taught her more about books than just martial arts, from character histories of various places, to various policies of governance, from animal manuals, to various myths, although she was curious as to why the magical creatures featured in the book called Shan Hai Zhi had that point about the consequences of consuming them at the end of the book.

　　"Master, what kind of ruler do you think is qualified?" Lily asked, holding the book in her hands.

　　"A qualified ruler? That's a very unified question, first of all, what kind of ruler do you think is good?" Instead of answering the question head on, Mansou asked Lily in return.

　　"Hey, hey, hey, master, I'm obviously the one who asked you, okay?" Lily grumbled, but touched the horn on her head and began to think.

　　"If I personally think so, being able to feed and clothe the populace, teach the young, and provide for the old should be considered a good ruler."

　　"Ahahahahaha, you're looking at things from a populace's point of view, while a good ruler has to look at things from two sides, the populace's side and the ruler's side." Wanshou smiled and stroked his beard

　　"First of all the people's side you are right, of course I can add to that, to give the people indoctrination, let them know what is good and what is wrong, and the ruler should always go to the grassroots, to understand what the people need, not to be high up, self-motivated to work, otherwise it's all useless."

　　"Then comes the second point, the ruler's side, a sound legal system is a must, remember, it's a sound legal system, not a law, there is a time for manpower to run out, the law that is made in the beginning can't be completely comprehensive, it has to be modified according to the times, according to the specific situation, on top of that, there has to be a certain amount of freedom given to the people, it's never possible to use the law to fix everyone to death, the The result of that would be that the whole country would become a pool of stagnant water, and in time corruption and monopolization would breed wildly, like mosquitoes and insects in stagnant water."

　　"That is to say, the ruler has to make a suitable law that is neither too strict nor lose its deterrent power right?" Lily asked again.

"That's right." Wanshou nodded, suddenly painting a different picture, "Let me tell you a story."

　　"Legend has it that there's a world, there's a ruler in this world, he rules this huge kingdom with a group of people, the king is shrewd and willing to do his job, he makes very detailed laws, and the ministers under him are constantly praising this king for being so loved, this makes the king very happy, he likes to see everyone's smiling faces, but he's so busy with work that he doesn't have time to go out and to see the people, he quite wanted to go and see the people."

　　Wanshou was a good storyteller, and Lily was instantly captivated by it.

　　"Sometimes a thought is like a seed, the idea of the king wanting to go out and have a look grew a little bit in his mind, finally one day the king ran out in the night, making sure that no one had noticed him, he stood on the hill and let loose with a big laugh, he had always wanted to do this, but in order to keep the majesty of the king, the previous one wasn't allowed to do so, and now he was finally able to let loose with a Now he could finally laugh.

　　The king ran out of the castle on the hill to one of the villages under his rule, he expected to see a smiling face, but unfortunately he was wrong, what he saw was the people who had nothing to eat and the walking dead, the king was shocked, he didn't understand why? The king was shocked, he couldn't understand why. He had worked hard, the ministers said that everyone was well fed and clothed, and they said that everyone was happy.

　　The king couldn't believe it and looked at the villages one by one, he found that most of the villages were not doing well, except for the villages of the home towns of the ministers under his command, the king couldn't help himself any longer, he asked the people of the villages why this was so, and the people told him that it was because the king had said that he would raise the taxes, and that the current taxes were so heavy that everyone couldn't live.

　　But the king knew that he had never raised taxes, in fact he had set extremely low tax rates and had prepared all kinds of regulations for all kinds of natural disasters, but the fact that these people were being exploited was also true, so where was the problem? It could only be the ministers under his own command.

　　The king was angry, he took the initiative to show up and found his guards who were looking for him all over the world, he found his ministers surrounded by his guards, he angrily questioned his ministers who were silent, just as the king drove his ministers away, this time the king went from one extreme to another, he was ready to set the people free, the king collaborated with a kingdom that was good at researching science and technology, and they invented a lot of things, he was ready to make the people free, he was ready to make the people free, he was ready to make the people free, the king collaborated with a kingdom that was good at researching science and technology, they invented a lot of things. He was ready to make the world a better place through these inventions, but just then, rebellion came, those ministers who were expelled by the king rebelled against the king, and they stole the king's inventions, and a big war started, many people supported the ministers, because of the king's freedom policy, although there were no more original taxes, but all kinds of civil riots came out, and the society became more turbulent, when those original ministers appeared with the When the banner of restoring order appeared, many people responded, the great war ended, the king lost, the once tyrannical policy and the later haphazard, two big hats were put on the king's head, although the second one was indeed the king's doing, the nobles became the new king, and the original king was nowhere to be found."

　　Wanshou finished his story and took a sip of his teacup from the table to moisten his throat.

　　"Well? Did you hear me?"

　　"The king designed the law, but the law was controlled by the minister and turned into a tool for the minister to enrich himself, and then the king canceled the law and started a riot, in short this king is an overly naive guy, stupid and cute." Lily shook her head and commented on this stupid king.

　　"Yes, this king is a naive fool, I admit that his intentions are good, but sometimes stupidity hurts more than brutality."

　　"This king is capable incompetent, having grown up in the palace, he has no idea what the people need or want, all of it is just wishful thinking on his part." Lily shook her head once again and stopped discussing this stupid king and continued to bury her head in her book.

　　And once again, Wanshou took a sip of tea and smiled mysteriously.