"Since this fellow refuses to state the Emperor's name," Gao Yiye declared solemnly, "the Heavenly Lord is gravely displeased. Everyone—grab your sticks and beat him!"
Gao Chuwu was the first to snatch up a thick wooden club. The other young men tightened their grips on whatever sticks they held. Villagers scattered about, searching for anything that might serve as a weapon.
In the last glow of sunset, a whole crowd raised an impressive array of improvised arms—earthen jars, hoes, table legs, shoulder poles…
Seeing this deadly display, San Sier's face turned ashen. Before a single blow fell, he screamed at the top of his lungs:
"Zhu Youxiao! Zhu Youxiao! His Majesty's name is Zhu Youxiao!"
At times like this, taboos about speaking the Emperor's personal name ceased to matter. The mountain was high, the Emperor far away, and imperial dignity rarely reached such remote villages. Survival came first; propriety could wait. He even forgot to summarize his sentences—a habit he usually never neglected.
"Tsk. So it really is Zhu Youxiao," Li Daoxuan muttered, his expression darkening. "Yiye, ask him about the state of the realm."
Yiye quickly repeated the question.
San Sier, staring at the village's fearsome collection of weapons, trembled violently. He had no idea what she meant by "state of the realm," so he recited from memory the official bulletin he had seen earlier at the county yamen:
"On the eleventh day of the fifth month, the Jianzhou Mongols besieged Jinzhou. The court dispatched troops to relieve the city. On the twenty-eighth, the Jianzhou split forces to attack Ningyuan. Commander Yuan Chonghuan, along with Eunuch Liu Yingkun and Vice-Director Bi Zisu, directed the defense from atop the battlements, repelling them with artillery…"
He paused—everyone around him looked utterly baffled. No one understood a word, but no one had struck him, which reassured him enough to continue:
"General Man Gui, with You Shilu and Zu Dashou, marched to reinforce the city. A fierce battle followed outside the walls, both sides suffering casualties. Man Gui was struck by several arrows. The Jianzhou forces eventually withdrew, then concentrated their strength on Jinzhou again… but failed to take it. At the height of summer, they finally retreated…"
There he stopped.
He couldn't remember the rest. Cold sweat poured down his back.
This is it, he thought in terror. If I can't finish, will they kill me? Truly a moment of life hanging by a single thread.
But in fact, what he had said already told Li Daoxuan everything he needed to know.
The little people inside the mysterious diorama box weren't from some other world. They were from the Ming dynasty.
And not just any period—the darkest years at the end of the empire.
No wonder Gaojia Village was barren, its people starving. Ming commoners in those final decades lived exactly like this. Reading it in history books was one thing; witnessing it inside the box made the misery painfully vivid.
Li Daoxuan exhaled slowly. "Enough. Don't torment him any further. I've heard what I needed. The poor man looks exhausted and half-starved—give him some food."
As soon as Gao Yiye passed the order along, the villagers lowered their weapons, bowed respectfully toward the sky, and quietly dispersed to their homes.
San Sier let out a long, shaky breath.
Still alive…
These villagers were strange. They all obeyed that young girl, who looked suspiciously like a spirit-medium—exactly the kind of "divine messenger" used by every shady cult from here to the capital. If he had really fallen into the hands of some White Lotus–style sect, the outcome could be grim. Better to play along, survive first, question later.
This, he told himself, is called bending now to stand tall later.
Trying to imitate the villagers, San Sier knelt and kowtowed to the sky as well. He had no idea which deity he was supposedly honoring, but bowing cost nothing—and might save his life.
Gao Yiye beckoned. "Come with me. I'll get you something to eat."
San Sier followed close behind, whispering nervously, "Miss… your whole village worships a god, right? Which… which deity is it? This is what scholars call 'seeking the root of the matter.'"
"I don't know," Gao Yiye replied plainly.
"???"
San Sier nearly tripped over his own feet.
He had never heard of people who worshipped a god without knowing who the god was.
These villagers aren't just simple—they're dangerously simple.
"The Heavenly Lord is simply the Heavenly Lord," Yiye continued. "He's never told us his sacred name, and we don't dare ask. We only know his power is boundless, his temperament gentle, and he has protected Gaojia Village again and again. Without him, we'd all have starved long ago."
San Sier sneered inwardly.
Ah yes, another spirit charlatan and her made-up deity. Only fools believe such nonsense. I, San Sier, am educated in the classics—no trickster can deceive me that easily.
This, he thought proudly, is what they call clarity of mind and firmness of will.
He was still congratulating himself when they reached Yiye's home. She pushed open the creaking wooden door. "Sit for a bit. I'll cook you something."
San Sier glanced inside—and froze.
In one corner of the hut lay a mountain of giant white rice grains, each the size of a millstone. Leaning against the wall was a single piece of cabbage leaf—just a fragment of a leaf—yet it was as tall as the house itself.
Yiye casually scooped up a few "rice fragments," tore off a piece of the gigantic cabbage leaf, placed them in a bamboo basket, and walked into the kitchen to prepare a meal.
San Sier's jaw dropped so wide a bird could have nested inside.
What kind of rice is this?
What kind of cabbage is this?
What kind of village IS this?
Merciful heavens!
San Sier was a typical scholar of the old world: more educated than the average peasant, less gullible than most, yet still deeply superstitious. He didn't believe in White Lotus nonsense like "the Eternal Venerable Mother," but he certainly wasn't an atheist. He believed gods existed—he simply thought most "spirit mediums" were frauds.
After staring blankly for several long seconds, he bolted to the kitchen door.
"Miss Yiye!" he shouted. "Which immortal bestowed these divine foods upon you?"
"I told you—I don't know."
"You didn't even ask?" he cried. "You're supposed to be a divine envoy! How can your villagers kowtow to a god whose name they don't even know? When it's time to build a proper shrine, who will they worship? This is sheer muddleheadedness!"
"Oh?" Yiye blinked. "You're right! Scholars do think of things more thoroughly."
She tilted her head back and shouted toward the sky:
"Heavenly Lord! Heavenly Lord! How should we address your august title?"
The sky remained silent.
Li Daoxuan, having already plunged deep into historical research on his computer, did not hear her tiny mosquito-like voice through the diorama wall.
Yiye shrugged at San Sier. "The Heavenly Lord doesn't wish to say."
"…Eh?"