"Secretary Li, why are you driving us away?" Ji Ye questioned Li Shouxian in a huff.

"No one is driving you away. We are just asking you to escort the masses from West Zhejiang to a safer place," Li Shouxian explained.

"Don't lie to me. Sending us to the border of Anhui and Jiangxi is clearly driving us away from the front line." After learning the skill of reading maps, Ji Ye discovered that many things did not need to be done personally; one could know the true face of many matters just by looking at a map.

Seeing that Ji Ye already had a relatively correct idea, Li Shouxian simply spoke the truth, "A battle is about to start. Leaving you in a place so close to West Zhejiang... I can't guarantee that you won't want to counterattack today or settle scores tomorrow. Moving you to the Jiangxi side is good for everyone."

Ji Ye never expected Li Shouxian to look down on them so much. A look of anxiety immediately appeared on her face. Li Shouxian raised his hand to stop Ji Ye's impulse to speak, "Don't explain, don't explain! In war, one must obey discipline. You can say that you are not afraid of death, but we still value your lives."

Even though Li Shouxian expressed sufficient goodwill, Ji Ye obviously did not appreciate it. After Li Shouxian finished speaking, Ji Ye said angrily, "You just don't trust us!"

Facing Ji Ye's anger and grievance, Li Shouxian was not moved at all. He said seriously, "Comrade Ji Ye, you have also received education in the Party School and the Military Academy. Can we not say hurtful words like 'trust'? We are here to fight a war, and you are full of desire for revenge. Everyone holds two completely different starting points and attitudes. Can this work?"

"Seeking truth from facts" was the core concept of the People's Party. If it didn't involve herself, Ji Ye could manage to "discuss the matter on its own merits" to a certain extent. However, once it involved herself, even if she knew that what Li Shouxian said was completely correct, Ji Ye still could not accept the People's Party's arrangement. "We will just fight properly. Please do not drive us away."

How could Li Shouxian not see Ji Ye's mood? He could only treat it seriously, "Comrade Ji Ye, I hope you can obey discipline. Strengthen discipline, and the revolution will be invincible. Comrade Ji Ye, this place is about to become a battlefield. Why has our People's Party always been able to win militarily? Because on the battlefield, we only want soldiers. Soldiers advance when told to advance and retreat when told to retreat. If we leave you here and send you to the battlefield, can you wholeheartedly engage in military work? I don't believe it. Whether it's your goal or your means, they are all for revenge, not just for completing combat missions. Sending people like you to the battlefield is irresponsible to you and irresponsible to the war. Moreover, if you want to prove that you are disciplined, then arranging for you to escort the masses to a safe place right now is also a revolutionary task."

In the People's Party, organizational construction and personnel arrangements were very different from other political forces. The People's Party considered issues from the perspective of whether the work could be completed. In order to complete the work better, personal emotions were taken into consideration. If personal emotions were harmful to completing the work, the People's Party would not hesitate to transfer these people away from these posts. "Trust" was an extremely serious topic in the People's Party. If a comrade could be recognized as "trustworthy," it meant that everything he said could be fulfilled. At the very least, such a comrade would absolutely not take his personal thoughts and will as the goal of doing things when working.

The comrades of the Guangfu Society's West Zhejiang Branch were undoubtedly far from the requirements of the People's Party.

Ji Ye had at least received systematic training in the Party School and the Cadre School, plus she had a lot of practical work experience. Even in the current emotional state, she finally maintained a certain degree of calm. In order not to be driven away, Ji Ye suppressed the dissatisfaction in her heart and said as seriously as possible, "We won't mention revenge!"

"You don't mention it with your mouths, but you are always thinking about it in your hearts. And since you think you are obedient to discipline, then the organization asks you to escort the West Zhejiang masses to retreat. Please obey the organization's arrangement." Li Shouxian's attitude was very firm.

"..., Secretary Li, the organization cannot be unreasonable!" Ji Ye was pissed off by Li Shouxian.

Li Shouxian replied calmly, "The organization is not a place to talk about personal feelings. The purpose of establishing an organization and improving the system is to do things. Why ask you to escort? I didn't ask you to escort the masses just to make things difficult for you. Because you are also comrades from West Zhejiang, the masses of West Zhejiang will definitely feel uneasy when they arrive in Anhui! With you acquaintances present, everyone will naturally feel at ease. Everyone can't just think of the interests of the masses first when shouting slogans, but let their own emotions dominate their actions in actual work. This is a manifestation of lack of organization and discipline."

Ji Ye didn't expect Li Shouxian to come up with such a "raising to the level of principle". Her wholehearted desire to fight turned out to be "lack of organization and discipline". Just as she wanted to continue to argue a few words, she heard Li Shouxian say seriously, "Comrade Ji Ye, I emphasize again, we are doing work, and our purpose is to complete the work. Whether to obey the organization's arrangement or insist on revenge, you go back and think this matter through before talking to me. I am very busy now, you go out first."

After "driving away" Ji Ye, Li Shouxian felt very tired. It was really better to have a fight with a sensible person than to say a word to a muddled person. Once the starting points were different, various contradictions were destined to arise in the process. What drove the West Zhejiang Branch was a kind of personal emotion, while what guided all the actions of the People's Party was the extremely rational scientific socialist program. Facing the continuously aggregated information about the massacre that was happening, Li Shouxian was first extremely angry, and then felt a kind of confusion. And what Li Shouxian felt now was a kind of sorrow.

Chen Ke, as always, had "predicted" the occurrence of this event before the massacre broke out. At the beginning of the massacre, he explained the true face of this massacre to the comrades of the People's Party. Li Shouxian could almost recite the document issued by Chen Ke in full.

"...Comrades, human thinking patterns must have a base point. Facing a strange environment, we all inevitably feel at a loss and uneasy. Overthrowing the Manchu Qing is a huge change in China, and the emergence of our People's Party is the biggest variable in this change. We have not only established a new system, but we have also made China inevitably see a brand new future and a brand new social structure. Since our People's Party is an alliance of laborers, anyone who relies on labor to settle down and get on with their life will feel rejoiced and feel that a bright universe has descended..."

"..., and those who think that owning land and capital is everything naturally cannot imagine what a world composed purely of laborers looks like. Considering these things according to their thinking of taking land acquisition as the highest goal, they naturally feel that the end of the world has come..."

"...At the moment when the world is undergoing earth-shaking changes, at the moment when those landlords and gentry feel that the end is coming, their first reaction is to restore the surrounding world to the track they are familiar with. But this world is material. Even the most idealistic guy will see the actual world when he opens his eyes. So these people are not crazy. They think that as long as they completely destroy the people and things that did not exist in the old world around them, the world will return to its old appearance, and the world will return to its previous track..."

"...I emphasize again, the world is constantly changing. Everything that happened in China is not because of the appearance of certain people and certain new things, but because of the complete change of the social system. It was these system changes that appeared first, and then new people and things appeared. This sequence relationship must absolutely not be mistaken..."

"...In this massacre, those butchers and all those facing the threat of massacre were shrouded in fear. They were all blinded by the things in front of them. These people either thought that crazy killing and crazy destruction of new things could stop historical progress, or they thought that some people had become bad people, and the world had changed. As the vanguard of Chinese laborers, our People's Party must see clearly this irreversible change in social structure, and bravely go up to lead this change..."

"...In such madness, only the laborers are not crazy. Why? Because those who seem to be crazy are all frightened, scared silly, and scared crazy by the things they imagined in their own minds. And the laborers work at sunrise and rest at sunset, eat, work, and sleep. They can absolutely not go crazy. This is why our People's Party can get so much support and so many victories. Because we ourselves are also laborers. Our People's Party is the vanguard of Chinese laborers. Through labor, we will gain more and build a beautiful future that we cannot even imagine in our most beautiful dreams. That is a height that has never been reached in Chinese history..."

"...Workers of all China, unite!"

Thinking back on everything that had happened, and thinking of Ji Ye who had fallen into the emotion of revenge, Li Shouxian could not help but feel sorrow. Chen Ke once said that hatred is a place where people who cannot concentrate escape when facing sadness. And revenge is to sharpen a sword rusted by blood into a pool of blood. Sadness is to completely immerse the blade body named "heart" in blood in order to heal the chipped edge of the soul. The more it is polished, the more the sword rusts, and because it rusts, it needs to be polished even more. In the end, all that remains is a pile of ground rust powder.

Li Shouxian really wanted to tell Ji Ye, even if the butchers' nine generations were implicated and killed without a single one left now, what was the point? Such killing only satisfied personal emotions, and couldn't even heal the pain brought by sadness. If this was done, what was the difference between Ji Ye and others and those landlords and gentry who killed crazily? They were all just trying to restore the former world, and then trying to wipe out all people and things that changed the world in the name of justice. As for changing a person who devoted himself to social transformation, his initial motivation might come from hatred and the passion for justice, but his final attitude should be beyond hatred and beyond justice. Justice is a social emotion, and the most fundamental spiritual power engaged in social transformation must be super-social and must come from some ultimate ideal.

The success of the People's Party was never because they understood hatred and sadness better, or understood revenge better than others, or even understood revolution and justice better than others. The People's Party just understood labor better than other political organizations in China. And just this small step was the chasm between the People's Party and other political forces.

Li Shouxian found that he could not explain this matter clearly to Ji Ye at all, which made him feel extremely regretful.

PS: Starting today, I will try hard to update two chapters a day. I beg all dear readers to spend some time to look at the introduction of the latest monthly ticket delivery on Zongheng. Asking for monthly tickets, asking for subscriptions!