Gao Yiye immediately shouted, "He refuses to reveal the Emperor's name! Tianzun is furious! Everyone, pick up your weapons and beat him!"
Gao Chuwu was the first to react. He grabbed his thick wooden club and tightened his grip around it. The other young men quickly raised their own sticks, while the surrounding villagers scrambled to find anything they could use as a weapon.
Beneath the setting sun, an entire crowd of villagers soon stood ready for battle, each holding something different. Clay pots, hoes, table legs, carrying poles, and all sorts of other household objects were raised into the air.
The weapons were crude and completely mismatched, but there were so many of them that the sight was genuinely terrifying.
Shan Shi'er's face turned ashen.
Seeing the villagers gathering around him with their makeshift weapons, he did not even wait for them to make the first move.
"Zhu Youxiao! Zhu Youxiao!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "The current Emperor's name is Zhu Youxiao!"
At that moment, he could no longer care less about the taboo against speaking the Emperor's personal name.
As the saying goes, the mountains are high and the Emperor is far away. Imperial authority barely reached remote villages like this. Compared to preserving a little dignity, staying alive was obviously more important.
In his panic, Shan Shi'er even forgot his usual habit of ending every statement with some grand four-character phrase.
"Tsk. So his name really is Zhu Youxiao."
Li Daoxuan's expression darkened. "Yiye, ask him about the current state of the world."
Gao Yiye hurriedly relayed the question.
Terrified by the bizarre assortment of weapons surrounding him, Shan Shi'er did not exactly know what she meant by "state of the world," so he simply recited a government dispatch he had recently seen at the county yamen.
"On the eleventh day of the fifth month, the Manchu army besieged Jinzhou. The imperial court mobilized troops to reinforce them. On the twenty-eighth, the enemy split their forces to attack Ningyuan City again. Commander Yuan Chonghuan, along with Eunuch Liu Yingkun and Vice Commissioner Bi Zisu, led the officers and soldiers to defend the walls, setting up camps inside the moat and repelling the attack with cannons..."
He paused, glancing at the villagers.
They stared back at him, completely lost. Not a single word had landed.
But their weapons had not been lowered yet, so Shan Shi'er figured he was on the right track and kept going.
"Man Gui led You Shilu and Zu Dashou to the rescue. A fierce battle broke out outside the city. Both sides took heavy casualties. Man Gui was struck by several arrows. The Manchu forces soon withdrew, then sent more troops to attack Jinzhou. But they could not take the city, and retreated because of the brutal summer heat..."
He stopped right there. He could not remember the rest. Sweat poured down his face like a waterfall.
I am doomed. I cannot recite the rest. I do not know if they are satisfied. Will they beat me to death? This is what you call... hanging by a thread.
In reality, reciting up to this point was more than enough.
Hearing this, Li Daoxuan was absolutely certain.
The diorama box was not some fantasy alternate-world miniature kingdom, but the Great Ming. And specifically, the late Ming Dynasty, during its most grueling and difficult years.
"No wonder Gaojia Village was a desolate wasteland where the villagers could not even get a bite to eat. Was this not exactly the kind of life ordinary people lived at the end of the Ming Dynasty? It was just that reading about it in history books was never this visceral. Only by seeing it in the diorama box could he truly empathize with their plight."
Now, Li Daoxuan understood everything.
"Alright, stop giving him a hard time. I have finished asking what I wanted to ask. Seeing how tired and hungry he is from being dragged all the way here, give him something to eat."
After saying that, he was in no mood to pay attention to the diorama box anymore.
He opened his computer, launched his browser, and began searching for materials related to the late Ming Dynasty, diving headfirst into the ocean of history.
Meanwhile, as his final sentence was relayed through Gao Yiye's mouth, the villagers immediately put down their weapons, kowtowed to the sky, and dispersed to their respective homes.
Shan Shi'er breathed a sigh of relief.
I managed to scrape my life back. The villagers in this place are so bizarre. They all listen to this young girl, and she looks exactly like a typical charlatan acting as a spokesperson for the gods. Could this be an evil cult like the White Lotus Society? Falling into the hands of a cult bodes ill for me. I have to play along to save my neck so I can go home.
This is what you call... compromising for survival.
Putting on an act, he mimicked the villagers and kowtowed once to the sky.
He had no idea what kind of god he was kowtowing to, but kowtowing was the right move anyway. Doing this to save his life was not shabby at all.
Gao Yiye said to him, "Come with me. I will get you some food."
Shan Shi'er voiced his agreement and hurriedly followed.
As they walked, he could not help but ask in a low voice, "Miss, I see that your whole village seems to be worshiping a god. Which Immortal exactly are you worshiping? This is what you call... tracing to the source."
Gao Yiye replied, "I don't know."
Shan Shi'er was speechless. "!"
This was the first time he had ever heard of people who did not even know what god they were worshiping. Were these villagers a bit too stupid?
Gao Yiye continued, "Tianzun is just Tianzun. He has never told us His taboo name, and we would not dare ask. We only know that His divine power reaches the heavens, He is gentle and merciful, and He takes great care of the people of Gaojia Village. We only survived because of Him."
Shan Shi'er sneered inwardly.
A myth concocted by a charlatan. Only foolish, ignorant peasants would believe it. I, Shan Shi'er, have read the texts of the sages. I will not be easily fooled by you. This is what you call... clear mind, firm will.
Just as he was thinking this, they arrived at Gao Yiye's house. With a creak, she pushed open the broken wooden door.
"Sit here for a bit. I will go to the kitchen and get you some food."
Shan Shi'er looked up into Gao Yiye's house and was instantly dumbfounded.
In the corner of the room sat a massive pile of giant white rice. It was truly huge. Each grain was the size of a millstone.
Leaning against the wall was a cabbage leaf. It was not even a whole leaf. From the veins, he could tell it was just a small piece cut from a cabbage leaf, yet it was as large as the entire wall.
Gao Yiye casually grabbed a few broken pieces of rice, tore a strip off the gigantic cabbage leaf, and put them into a bamboo basket. She walked into the kitchen, clearly intending to use these items to cook him a meal.
Shan Shi'er's mouth dropped open in shock, unable to close for a long time.
What is with this rice? What is with this cabbage leaf? What the hell is going on with this village?! Mother of God!
Shan Shi'er was a typical ancient intellectual.
Although he knew much more than the illiterate masses and was not easily fooled by charlatans, he still could not completely shake off superstition.
That is to say, even though he did not believe in the White Lotus Society's nonsense about the "Eternal Venerable Mother" or the "Homeland of True Emptiness," he was not an atheist. He too believed that gods existed in this world.
After standing frozen for several dozen seconds, he lunged to the kitchen door in one stride and yelled at Gao Yiye, who was cooking inside, "Just which Exalted Immortal bestowed these foods upon you?!"
Gao Yiye replied, "I already told you. I don't know."
Shan Shi'er exclaimed, "You did not even ask to clarify this?! And you call yourself a Saintess. You have made it so the villagers do not even know who they are kowtowing to! When it is time to build a temple for the Immortal in the future, you will not even know what to enshrine! You are utterly... muddled and confused!"
Gao Yiye blinked. "Ah? You are right! Educated people really do think things through more carefully."
She tilted her head up and called out to the sky, "Tianzun! Tianzun! How should we address Your esteemed title?"
The sky gave no answer.
By this time, Li Daoxuan was already reading history books. The humiliating history of the late Ming had left him feeling melancholic. How could he possibly hear the mosquito-like voice of the tiny girl in the box?
Gao Yiye spread her hands at Shan Shi'er. "Tianzun does not want to say."
Shan Shi'er blinked.
"Eh?"