Zheng Daniu—who, to be absolutely clear, possessed zero martial skill—saw the bandit known as "A Knife" swing down at him. He barely had time to squeak before the blade landed squarely on his chest.
Fortunately, that chest was currently wrapped in Gao Yiye's lovingly gifted dual-layer armor: a solid iron plate big enough to serve as a wok lid.
Naturally, the outcome was—
Clang!A Knife: "???"Zheng Daniu: "?!?!"
Zheng Daniu stared at his perfectly intact self, then broke into a goofy grin like a cow who survived a lightning strike.
A Knife recovered quickly and swung again—this time straight at Zheng Daniu's unarmored neck.
But midway through the slash, something went wrong. His wrist froze. His blade refused to move, as if some invisible force had pinched it like a misbehaving chopstick.
"Huh?""Huh??""What—who grabbed my knife?!"
Of course, it was Li Daoxuan.
He wasn't about to let his top economic contributor—the very man whose woodcutting kept his micro-carving business thriving—lose his head. Some NPCs could die. Zheng Daniu absolutely could not.
Two fingers extended.Steel halted.The world paused in disbelief.
Gao Yiye shouted from afar, "Zheng Daniu! Tianzun's holding the enemy for you—why are you still smiling like an idiot?!"
"Oh! Right!"Daniu snapped awake and swung his axe.
After ten days of nonstop tree-chopping—and daily reward payments in the form of heavenly-grade Fat House Happy Water—the man had bulked up to the point even century-old pines whispered in terror when he walked by.
He chopped.
Thunk!
Thick cowhide?Not thick enough.
A Knife's chest split open. Blood sprayed. His eyes bulged in disbelief.
He glanced at the sky, as if trying to file a complaint with the gods… then collapsed.
Zheng Daniu raised his axe and roared, "Heaven bless!"
The villagers beside him instantly echoed, "Heaven bless!"
Meanwhile, the bandit leader—the self-proclaimed Supreme Ming King—finally sensed something was off.
He had bravely charged in front, waving his ghost-head sabre like a true warlord, absolutely confident because… well… none of the falling boulders had hit him yet.
Leading from the front was easy when fate itself avoided your scalp.
But as he shouted and gestured for his men to climb, he suddenly noticed something strange.
Where were the twelve hundred brothers he brought?
"Huh? Where is my army?"
He turned—and saw the answer.
There was no army.Only a few dozen terrified survivors.
The trebuchets had dropped a twenty-stone meteor shower on the rear ranks. Morale shattered like tofu in boiling oil. The bandits behind him refused to advance, then retreated, then sprinted, then evaporated into scattered woodland dust.
Thus the Supreme Ming King, heroically leading the charge, had in fact become…
A one-man advance guard no one asked for.
One by one, his frontliners were crushed by stones, boiled by oil, stabbed off ladders, or simply tripped to death in the chaos. The Supreme Ming King, stuck in the noisy front, had no idea he was now an army of one.
Only when he turned around did he fully grasp his situation.
Ah.So this was the famed military technique called "ladder assault."In theory, it worked beautifully.In practice, with bandits?
Absolutely not.
He shouted, "Retreat! Retreat! RETREAT!"
Then ran for his life, with the remaining few dozen fleeing behind him.
Mr. Bai thrust out his hand: "Bow! Bring me a bow!"
A servant immediately handed him a hunting bow, ready to shout "Magnificent shot!" as soon as his master performed suitably.
Mr. Bai drew the string.Aimed at the Supreme Ming King's exposed spine.Released.
Swish—
The arrow heroically flew half a yard to the left of the target.
The servant quietly swallowed his compliment.
Everyone else: "..."
Mr. Bai coughed, face slightly red, shoved the bow back at the servant, and pretended absolutely nothing had happened.The Confucian virtue of "archery" could officially be crossed out from his résumé.
But his small embarrassment hardly mattered.
The bandits were retreating.The pressure on the walls eased.And the villagers erupted in triumphant cheers:
"We won!""We held them off!""Gaoshicun is safe!""Heaven bless!""Heaven bless!"
Mr. Bai immediately threw a wet blanket over the celebration:
"What are you cheering for? The thief chieftain escaped! That Supreme Ming King will surely hold a grudge—we don't know when he might sneak back and take revenge!"
Villagers froze.
Right.That was a problem.
Bandits you kill are fine.Bandits who remember your face—that's the nightmare.
Who dared leave the village now?What if they went to gather herbs, go to market, or visit a neighboring village, only to run into that lunatic?
Just as panic rose again, Gao Yiye's voice rang out:
"Watch closely, everyone! Tianzun is about to perform divine magic and eliminate our future troubles!"
The villagers lit up with joy.
Mr. Bai: "???"
Suddenly—
The sky thundered.Clouds split.A massive invisible force plummeted downward.Wind roared.Dust spiraled in rings across the ground.
Then—
BOOM!
The earth shook.
The Supreme Ming King and everyone within three paces of him were instantly flattened into meat paste.
The ground beneath them collapsed into a giant handprint-shaped crater.
At its center, lay the bandit chief—or what was left of him—smoothly pressed into the palm-shaped depression like a particularly unappetizing dumpling.