What a formidable opponent in debate he's found! Cao Pi is all in on this conversation, it's one of the more stimulating he's had around here since arriving. Ideas, thoughts, not practical matters - forgive him, everyone else, for pausing to indulge this for a moment or two.
"Perhaps, but they were also the ones to make the first mistake. To attack rather than wait." He nods toward Riku again. "Master Riku made a breakthrough, he managed to convince them that we meant no offense and only had to defend ourselves. They are trying to tell us something, but as with any difficulty translating between languages, they made some missteps. We had no choice but to dance with those missteps at the time. Now, we know a little more than we did. But next time..."
Zihuan would like to believe that just by making some kind of truce using the network, everything would be smooth sailing from here on out. But he's a pragmatist and doesn't think it will be easy at all. "They could be manipulated. Forced, as we were when we all hallucinated phantoms. It could be no fault of their own. But just as one cannot reason with a rabid wolf that has lost its senses, 'oh please Lord Wolf I am not your enemy do not bite me,' we will still have to defend ourselves. And that is what I would like to collaborate toward. I have no interest in continuing to talk about what might have been. Let us move forward, or else lay down here to die so that we don't offend the spirits any further."
His last sentence is said somewhat sharper than the rest, his usual mellifluous tone evaporating rather rapidly. He's entertained the philosophical long enough, it's time to talk concrete solutions instead.
no subject
"Perhaps, but they were also the ones to make the first mistake. To attack rather than wait." He nods toward Riku again. "Master Riku made a breakthrough, he managed to convince them that we meant no offense and only had to defend ourselves. They are trying to tell us something, but as with any difficulty translating between languages, they made some missteps. We had no choice but to dance with those missteps at the time. Now, we know a little more than we did. But next time..."
Zihuan would like to believe that just by making some kind of truce using the network, everything would be smooth sailing from here on out. But he's a pragmatist and doesn't think it will be easy at all. "They could be manipulated. Forced, as we were when we all hallucinated phantoms. It could be no fault of their own. But just as one cannot reason with a rabid wolf that has lost its senses, 'oh please Lord Wolf I am not your enemy do not bite me,' we will still have to defend ourselves. And that is what I would like to collaborate toward. I have no interest in continuing to talk about what might have been. Let us move forward, or else lay down here to die so that we don't offend the spirits any further."
His last sentence is said somewhat sharper than the rest, his usual mellifluous tone evaporating rather rapidly. He's entertained the philosophical long enough, it's time to talk concrete solutions instead.