Li Daoxuan raised his phone and pointed it into the box.
Click. Click.
He snapped a few macro shots, saving the standoff for later.
At the same time, his left hand hovered near the open lid. He had already lifted the cover, palm facing down, fingers curled and ready. If any of his little people faced mortal danger, he was prepared to reach in and eliminate these five intruding officials on the spot.
Just like he had done to the bandits.
Easy, clean, and satisfying.
---
Inside the diorama, Gao Yiye was panicking.
She saw it. Tianzun's face had appeared faintly in the sky. That was not the most terrifying part. The terrifying part was that Tianzun had already raised his hand.
She knew what that gesture meant.
Just yesterday, she had watched with her own eyes as Tianzun squashed every bandit into meat patties, one slap per person. That terrifying yet deeply satisfying scene was still burned into her mind.
Gao Yiye made the fiercest face she could manage and shouted at the bailiffs. "Do not mess around! You cannot touch this rice, or you will die!"
Above the box, Li Daoxuan blinked.
"Eh?"
Gao Yiye screamed again, "Hurry up and leave!"
Her voice carried. Everyone heard it.
The villagers froze.
The five bailiffs stopped too. Something about her voice made them look around, even though there was nothing to see. Just the same dusty street, the same crumbling huts, the same empty sky.
"What the fuck is she screaming about?" one of them muttered.
"Beats the shit out of me. Something about us dying."
"Die? From what? A stiff breeze?"
"I don't see a damn thing. Do you?"
"Nope. Just dirt and these worthless fucks."
The lead bailiff spat on the ground. "Don't tell me you idiots are scared of a starving girl."
But none of them moved forward.
Then they remembered what the Village Chief had said earlier.
"This is divine rice, bestowed upon us by Tianzun to save our lives. If you dare touch it, Tianzun will take your lives."
The lead bailiff's eye twitched. "Divine my ass. Somebody's playing games."
Another bailiff let out a nervous laugh. "You actually had me going for a second. I really thought something was coming to kill me. Turns out it's just a bunch of wretches putting on a show. You think I'm that easy to scare?"
A third bailiff jabbed his iron ruler toward Gao Yiye. "You wretched bitch! What kind of crazy shit are you spouting? Threatening government officials is going against the imperial court! You got a death wish?"
Gao Yiye shouted back, "I'm not threatening you. I'm saving you. Leave! Tianzun has already raised his hand. You've pissed him off. If you keep this up, he'll slap you all to death, one by one."
The five bailiffs looked at each other. Something in her voice made the back of their necks prickle, but none of them would say it out loud.
The lead bailiff curled his lip and jerked his chin at his subordinate. "Take her. She's talking shit. Drag her back to the yamen, soften her up, and find out who she's working for. Probably one of those White Lotus fucks."
The subordinate grinned. "Actually, boss, she's not that bad looking. After a few showers and some perfume, our brothers could have some fun with her first."
Another bailiff laughed. "Yeah, and after the brothers are satisfied, we can sell her to a brothel. She's young. Still got all her teeth. Should fetch good money."
"Damn, bro. Why are you so smart?"
The grinning bailiff stepped forward, iron ruler in hand, eyes crawling over Gao Yiye like she was already his.
Gao Yiye glanced at him, then looked up. The clouds had parted wider. Tianzun's hand was descending, hovering right above the bailiff's head. If this man took one more step, he would be flattened where he stood.
But bailiffs were different from bandits.
Kill a bandit, and nobody cared. Drag the body out, dump it in a ditch, blame it on wolves. Done.
Kill a bailiff, and soldiers would come. They would not ask questions. They would burn the village down and call it rebellion.
She had seen it. When she was small, a man from the village named Gao Yingxiang had beaten a bailiff who came for grain. Within days, hundreds of soldiers descended on Gaojia Village. Uncle Gao could not fight them all, so he fled and never returned. The raids continued for years.
She could not let that happen again.
Gao Yiye screamed at the top of her lungs, "I beg you! Let us go, and you can keep your lives too!"
Outside the box, Li Daoxuan heard her desperate cry.
She was shouting herself hoarse, and not at the officials. She was shouting for them. She was trying to protect them.
No, wait. She was not protecting the officials. She was protecting herself, and everyone else in the village.
Li Daoxuan understood immediately.
Behind these five officials stood many more. Their identities represented a power structure. The girl knew the village had a deity protecting them, but she did not know how long that protection would last.
What if Tianzun helped them for a few days on a whim, then stopped? Then the whole village would be dead meat.
It seemed there were still many things worth studying in this diorama world.
This time, he would act according to the young girl's wishes.
Li Daoxuan withdrew the hand he had originally planned to use for crushing.
Instead, he extended two fingers, as gently as if plucking a small wildflower from a field, and pinched the advancing bailiff by the shoulder.
"AAAAAH! HELP ME! SOMETHING'S GOT ME!"
The bailiff screamed like a pig being slaughtered, his voice cracking in sheer terror.
One moment he was striding toward Gao Yiye to arrest her. The next, a massive invisible force clamped onto his shoulder. The immense pressure squeezed inward, making all the bones in his body creak, joints groaning as if about to dislocate.
He twisted wildly, looking left and right, trying to see what was holding him. Nothing. Only the crushing grip of the void.
Then his feet left the ground. He was hoisted into the air, dangling ten feet above the dusty road.
"AHHHHH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME!"
"LIU?! LIU, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!"
"WHAT'S HOLDING HIM?! I DON'T SEE ANYTHING!"
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
The four bailiffs scrambled backward. One of them slipped in the dust and went down hard, crawling on his backside to get away. Another clutched his iron ruler with both hands like a talisman, as if it could protect him from whatever invisible thing had just snatched his colleague out of the air.
"Boss!" the youngest one wailed. "BOSS, DO SOMETHING!"
The lead bailiff stood frozen. His face had gone pale. His hand rested on the hilt of his saber, but he could not make himself draw it.
What would he even swing at?
The villagers did not need to be told. They dropped where they stood.
"TIANZUN!"
"HE'S HERE! HE'S REALLY HERE!"
"Mercy, Tianzun! Mercy!"
An old woman threw herself flat, forehead hitting the dirt so hard it split open. She did not care. A young mother clutched her child and wept into his hair. Gao Chuwu went down so fast his knees cracked against a stone, but he did not even flinch, eyes locked on the bailiff kicking in the air above them.
"TIANZUN HAS REVEALED HIS POWER!"
The cry spread through the crowd like fire. Within heartbeats, all forty-two villagers were on their knees, then on their faces, kowtowing toward the sky.
The suspended bailiff sobbed hysterically. Tears, snot, and urine streamed down, soaking his trousers. He flailed his arms and legs, screaming hoarsely.
"Tianzun, have mercy! Tianzun, have mercy! This lowly one meant no offense! This lowly one was wrong! Have mercy!"
The other four lost their minds.
"GET HIM DOWN! GET HIM DOWN!"
"HOW?! THERE'S NOTHING HOLDING HIM!"
"SOMEBODY GRAB HIS LEGS!"
"HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO GRAB HIS LEGS?! HE'S TOO HIGH UP, BOSS!"
"BOSS! BOSS, SAY SOMETHING!"
At that moment, Li Daoxuan puffed out his cheeks and blew toward the four standing bailiffs.
WHOOSH!
A fierce wind roared to life. It did not touch the villagers. It did not touch the kneeling girl. It slammed straight into the four bailiffs like the hand of an angry god.
"WHAT THE FU—"
"AAAAAAAH!"
They were ripped off their feet like leaves in a storm. Arms flailing, legs kicking, they flew backward through the air, tumbling over each other in a mess of red uniforms and iron rulers. One crashed into a wooden fence. Another landed face-first in the dirt. The youngest slammed into the lead bailiff, sending them both rolling.
For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Then the screaming started.
"MY LEG! I THINK MY LEG IS BROKEN!"
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"
"I CAN'T BREATHE! I CAN'T—"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! GET DOWN! GET DOWN NOW!"
The lead bailiff scrambled to his knees, then threw himself flat, face pressed into the sand.
"TIANZUN, MERCY! TIANZUN, MERCY! THIS LOWLY ONE BEGS YOU!"
The other three stared at him, stunned. Then the fear hit them all at once.
They dropped. Knees first. Then hands. Then faces. Foreheads grinding into the dirt, bodies shaking, voices cracking into sobs.
"MERCY! MERCY!"
"WE DIDN'T KNOW! WE DIDN'T KNOW!"
"PLEASE! PLEASE, SPARE US!"
"WE'LL LEAVE! WE'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!"
Li Daoxuan spoke. "Tell them to get lost. They are forbidden from speaking a word of what happened here."
Gao Yiye shouted, "Tianzun tells you to get lost! He also warns you that you are not allowed to speak of today's events to anyone!"
Above them, the suspended bailiff watched his colleagues vanish. His face twisted in horror.
"WAIT! WAIT, YOU BACKSTABBING FUCKS! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Nobody answered. Nobody even slowed down.
He kicked and thrashed in the air, tears streaming down his cheeks, snot bubbling at his nose. His voice cracked into something between a scream and a sob.
"TIANZUN! TIANZUN, PLEASE! THIS LOWLY ONE BEGS YOU! LET ME GO! LET ME GO TOO! I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER'S GRAVE, I WILL NOT BREATHE A SINGLE WORD ABOUT THIS! NOT ONE! PLEASE!"
Li Daoxuan listened for a moment. Then he released his pinch.
The bailiff dropped like a sack of rocks.
SMACK.
He hit the ground shoulder-first, the impact driving every ounce of air from his lungs. For a long second, he just lay there, mouth open, eyes wide, gasping like a fish on dry land.
Then he moved.
He rolled onto his stomach, pushed himself up on shaking arms, and looked back at the sky one last time. Nothing. Just clouds and sunlight.
He did not wait to find out if the god had changed his mind.
He ran.
He limped, stumbled, crawled, and ran. His left leg dragged behind him. His shoulder hung at a strange angle. He did not care. He kept running until he vanished through the same village gate his colleagues had fled through moments earlier.
Li Daoxuan's gaze locked onto the five fleeing officials. He wanted to see clearly exactly how these five would leave the diorama box.
He watched as they stumbled out of the village in a miserable state, ran across the yellow sand outside, and continued running until they quickly reached the edge of the diorama box.
A glass wall stood there.
As if they could not see the glass wall, the five continued walking forward and passed into the glass.
They did not pass through to the outside. They simply vanished without a trace, as if the glass wall were a portal leading to another world.
Li Daoxuan stared at the empty corner of the box.
Walked out? Disappeared? He fell into deep thought.