The colossal imprint of the Supreme Ming King gradually surfaced from the drifting sand, a divine silhouette growing clearer by the second. From atop the village wall, the scene was so overwhelming that even the wind seemed to hold its breath. Dust rolled across the sky like an official's attempt at covering up a scandal—dense, chaotic, and utterly ineffective.
The original forty-two natives of Gaojia Village had witnessed this miracle once before. Yet seeing it again sent their knees crashing to the ground with all the dignity of a scared quail.One after another, villagers—old, new, Bai family tenants, servants—collapsed in synchronized reverence. Foreheads hit the dirt. The ground probably felt flatter after that.
Even Old Mr. Bai, lord of pride and self-importance, felt his scholar's backbone soften. Compared to the peasants, he received double the shock: once as a cultured man who thought he'd seen everything, and once as someone realizing he absolutely had not.
He turned—and saw Sanshier and his wife already kneeling like perfectly ordinary commoners.
That did not help.
Soon the entire Bai entourage was kneeling, chanting, "Heavenly Venerable, mighty and profound!" with the unified passion of taxpayers pleading for mercy.
Mr. Bai was the only one left standing, looking like the one kid in class who didn't realize the bell had rung ten minutes ago. Even his wife and son had disembarked from their big carriage only to drop to the ground instantly.
He swallowed hard.
He's not an evil god… Not a cult god either… Just a Taoist immortal, right?In the Ming dynasty, wearing Taoist robes was intellectual fashion—scholars liked to cosplay as immortals. So kneeling to one? Entirely respectable! Perfectly legal! No one could accuse him of joining a heretical sect…
With logic patched together like a leaky roof, his knees finally loosened.Mr. Bai knelt. "Heavenly Venerable is mighty!"
High above the village, Li Daoxuan watched the tiny villagers bowing, a grin tugging at his mouth—just in time for something to feel wrong.
A faint light shimmered atop each person's body—like someone sprinkled the whole village with fireflies. The glowing points drifted upward, gathered, then shot out toward the four walls of the diorama box.
Nearly three hundred people…Nearly three hundred lights.
And then—The entire landscape box burst into golden radiance.
The villagers didn't notice a thing. They continued kneeling with absolute sincerity, completely unaware that they were now powering up a mystical hardware upgrade.
Li Daoxuan blinked at the flash.When his vision cleared, five new buttons had appeared at the corners of the box:
East, South, West, North, Middle
And beside them: Rescue Index: 325
A realization slithered into him like a game tutorial finally triggering after ten hours of play.
Oh. Oh—THIS is the function!
He pressed East.
The entire village scene shifted slightly left.He pressed again.The houses and tiny villagers slid left again, revealing more view on the right.
Oh, this was good. This was very good.
He pressed North repeatedly.The village slid downward, revealing a barren hillside crawling from the top edge—dead trees stripped bare, the very place where Zheng Daniu had chopped wood last time.
Finally!He could move the field of view.It was practically a Google Map from the Ming Dynasty—powered by believer loyalty and NPC suffering.
Li Daoxuan laughed aloud."My vision finally expanded!"
He immediately tested the limits, pressing buttons until the view refused to move further.
North reached the edge.
Pressing Middle instantly recentered the view over Gaojia Village.
He grabbed a ruler, measured the box, converted using a 1:200 scale, and concluded:
He could now see roughly 500 meters in each direction.
Not huge.But absolutely progress.
The Rescue Index simply wasn't high enough yet—two hundred saved villagers weren't enough to buy a DLC expansion apparently.
Still, knowing how to expand was half the victory.
He opened a notepad and jotted:
Center of view = Gaojia Village. Vision radius dictated by Rescue Index.
Five movement buttons (East, South, West, North, Middle). Real-world ratio remains 1:200.
He stretched, satisfied yet exhausted.Originally, he just wanted to raise tiny villagers like peculiar pets and maybe prevent them from dying too horribly. But now the box had given him numerical metrics—meaning pressure, responsibility, and the looming specter of "optimization."
Numbers always make people anxious…Am I supposed to grind population XP now?No thanks. He'd save whoever he felt like saving. Let the field of view grow at its own pace.
He glanced back into the box.
The villagers were already cleaning up after the bandit attack—efficient, grim, accustomed. They stripped the bandit corpses, divided weapons, even rifled through pockets for loose copper coins. What they found belonged to whoever found it. Ming-era capitalism at its purest.
The naked bodies were hauled outside the village and buried in a pit on the hillside.
The worst injury, ironically, was a Bai family servant who spilled a bit of boiling oil on his own leg while pouring oil from atop the wall. His calf now blistered, and he was howling.
Villagers poured cold water over the burn.No medicine, nothing better to offer.
Li Daoxuan opened his desk drawer, found a tube of burn ointment, squeezed out a sesame-seed-sized dab, and prepared to deliver modern salvation…