"Yiye!"
At Li Daoxuan's call, Gao Yiye immediately looked up, her eyes fixed reverently on the sky.
From above, Li Daoxuan could see her face clearly. Delicate features, a faint blush on her cheeks. She really was a beautiful girl.
Too bad she was less than a centimeter tall. No matter how pretty she was...
Ahem!
He was getting ahead of himself.
Li Daoxuan cleared his throat and gave his order. "Yiye, send Gao Chuwu to the county town. Have him find Shan Shi'er and tell him to recruit a few skilled craftsmen to bring back to Gaojia Village."
Gao Yiye straightened. "Yes, Tianzun."
She turned and scanned the village. It did not take long to find Gao Chuwu. He was hauling firewood near Gao Yiyi's forge, his broad back bent beneath a bundle of branches.
"Brother Chuwu! Come here!"
Gao Chuwu dropped the firewood and jogged over, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Yiye, what is it?"
"Tianzun has a task for you."
Gao Chuwu's eyes widened. He immediately straightened up, standing at attention like a soldier waiting for orders. "Tianzun has a task for me? Yes! I'm ready. What does he want me to do?"
Gao Yiye nodded. "Go to the county town and find Shan Shi'er. You remember him, right? The advisor we brought back last time."
Gao Chuwu scratched his chin. "Of course. The one who talks in four-character phrases all the time?"
"That's him."
"What should I tell him?"
"Tell him Tianzun needs skilled craftsmen. Blacksmiths, carpenters, anyone who knows how to forge metal or build things. Bring them all back to Gaojia Village."
Gao Chuwu nodded slowly, then frowned. "Will he even listen to me? Last time, we had to knock him out and drag him back here."
Gao Yiye fell silent. She had not considered that problem.
Above the box, Li Daoxuan spoke again. "Yiye, tell him this is a chance to earn merit. If he helps, I will reward him. If he refuses, I will remember that too."
Gao Yiye repeated his words exactly.
Gao Chuwu's face lit up. "Ah, now that makes sense. Threats and rewards. Shan Shi'er understands that kind of talk."
"Take the three men who went with you last time," Gao Yiye added. "You will need company for the journey."
"Got it!"
Gao Chuwu turned and shouted across the village. He hurried off to find the three men who had accompanied him on his previous trip to the county town.
A short while later, the three young men jogged over, still covered in dust from gathering firewood.
"Listen up! We are going to the county town," Gao Chuwu announced. "Tianzun's orders."
The three exchanged glances before grinning.
"Heh, finally! We get to do something useful."
"Chuwu, should we bring our clubs?"
"No clubs this time," Gao Chuwu replied. "We are not kidnapping anyone. We are recruiting."
"You sure about that? Last time..."
"Last time was last time. This time, Tianzun told us to ask nicely."
The four men returned to their homes to prepare for the journey. Each packed a small cloth bag with dried provisions: a few pieces of salted chicken, some rice wrapped in leaves, and a gourd of water.
Before leaving, they ate a quick meal of porridge to make sure they had enough energy for the long walk.
Gao Chuwu checked his shoes. They were worn out and barely holding together, but they would have to do. He tightened his belt, checked his bag one last time, and glanced back at the village.
The strange, colorful wall now surrounded Gaojia Village. It looked like something from a dream.
Even now, he could hardly believe it was real.
"All right. Let us go."
The four men walked through the open gate, passed the two villagers standing guard with bows on their backs, and headed north toward the county town.
Above the box, Li Daoxuan watched them until they vanished into the darkness beyond the glass boundary.
With that taken care of, Li Daoxuan turned his attention to the Lego bricks beside his desk.
Time to build a temporary fortress.
He did not need anything complicated. He simply connected the bricks one by one, assembling them into long, continuous sections. Once each section was ready, he carefully lowered it into the box and arranged the pieces around the perimeter of Gaojia Village.
Below, the villagers were still busy gathering firewood.
Then, without warning, a thunderous rumble shook the air.
The ground trembled beneath their feet.
The villagers dropped what they were doing and looked up.
Massive, multicolored structures descended from the heavens. They came down with a deafening rumble and struck the ground one after another. Piece by piece, they formed an enormous circular wall around Gaojia Village, leaving a single arched opening for the entrance.
The wall stood two zhang tall, towering over every building in the village. It was thick and imposing, yet its surface looked nothing like stone or packed earth. It was smooth, glossy, and covered in vivid colors.
The villagers stood frozen.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
Every pair of eyes stared at the impossible structure that had suddenly appeared around their village.
Then someone dropped to their knees.
"What..."
"It came from the sky!"
"I saw it! It fell from the heavens, piece by piece!"
"That is not stone. And it is not wood. What is it?"
"Look at all those colors!"
"Can I touch it?"
A young man cautiously reached out and pressed his palm against the wall. He pulled back, his eyes widening.
"It is smooth! Like polished glass, but not quite!"
Another villager knocked on it with his knuckles. He tried again, harder this time, before drawing his knife and scraping the surface. A shallow scratch appeared.
"It can be cut. But look how thick it is!"
"Two zhang tall! It is taller than the oldest tree in the village!"
"When did Gaojia Village become a city?"
"We have a wall! An actual wall!"
"Tianzun built us a wall!"
"TIANZUN BUILT US A WALL!"
The shout spread through the crowd. One by one, the villagers fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads against the dirt, their voices blending into a chaotic chorus of gratitude and awe.
"Tianzun is merciful!"
"He protects us!"
"We have not been forgotten!"
"We have NOT been forgotten!"
Some villagers cried, while others laughed with relief. An old woman pressed both hands against the wall and refused to let go, murmuring prayers under her breath. Nearby, a child ran along its base, touching every color he could reach and squealing with delight.
Gao Yiyi, the village blacksmith, stood apart from the others. He approached the wall and ran his calloused hand along its surface. Then he stepped back, examining it from top to bottom.
"I do not know what this material is," he muttered. "But it is stronger than anything I have ever worked with. If we can build a gate to match..."
He trailed off, already thinking about how to make it work.
Meanwhile, Gao Yiye climbed the wall using the protruding studs as footholds. She reached the top and stood above the entrance, silhouetted against the morning sky.
"This wall is a gift from Tianzun!" she called out, making sure everyone could hear her.
Her voice carried both authority and devotion.
"Bandits may come for us in the days ahead. Tianzun has ordered us to build a wooden gate to close this entrance and assign guards to take turns keeping watch. If our enemies attack, we must defend ourselves with weapons and armor!"
The villagers bowed their heads.
"We obey Tianzun's command!"
Li Daoxuan watched silently as they got to work.
Several villagers grabbed axes and began cutting down trees. Their methods were crude but effective. They felled trunks as thick as a man's arm, trimmed the branches, and laid the logs side by side. Then they bound them tightly with straw ropes to make a sturdy wooden gate.
Meanwhile, under the Village Chief's supervision, the villagers organized their guard shifts. Before long, two men stood atop the wall near the entrance, armed with bows and arrows taken from the defeated bandits. They kept watch over the surrounding area, their expressions serious.
The defenses were primitive, but they were a start.
Gaojia Village now had a basic defensive perimeter. As long as they kept the gate shut, any bandits who came their way would have a much harder time getting inside. And if the situation became desperate, they only needed to hold out until Li Daoxuan could intervene.
Now, all he could do was hope Gao Chuwu succeeded in bringing back the craftsmen.
---
Meanwhile, outside the County Yamen of Chengcheng County.
Shan Shi'er had changed into a clean scholar's robe. He looked neat and respectable. He stepped forward and cupped his hands politely toward the guard at the gate.
Before he could speak, the guard cut him off coldly. "The Magistrate has given orders. If you come, you are not allowed inside under any circumstances."
Shan Shi'er smiled calmly. "I am not here to see the Magistrate."
The guard frowned. "Then why are you here?"
"I just want to ask whether anything important has happened recently," Shan Shi'er replied smoothly. "Come, come. When I served as advisor here, I treated you well. Surely sharing a small piece of news is not too much to ask, right? As they say... repaying kindness with gratitude."
The guard hesitated. Shan Shi'er had an annoying habit of ending every sentence with an elegant idiom, but he had always been decent to the guards. He had helped out more than once.
After a moment, the guard lowered his voice.
"I will tell you this much. Two days ago, the Magistrate sent teams to collect grain taxes from nearby villages. You opposed it at the time, and he dismissed you because of it. Remember?"
Shan Shi'er nodded. "I remember it as though carved into my bones. Etched in bone and marrow."
The guard continued. "The teams went to Gaojia Village, Zhengjia Village, and Wangjia Village. The team sent to Gaojia Village came back empty-handed. Not a single grain."
Shan Shi'er was not surprised. With Tianzun protecting them, collecting taxes there would have been impossible.
"The team sent to Zhengjia Village collected only a small amount, far below quota. But the team sent to Wangjia Village..."
He paused, lowering his voice further.
"They beat the villagers badly. Burned down an abandoned shack to scare them. Then, under cover of night, they forced their way into homes and took the villagers' seed grain as tax."
Shan Shi'er's expression changed instantly. His face went pale.
"Seed grain?"
His voice rose in alarm.
"You took their seed grain?!"
His hands began to tremble.
"That is the grain they need for next season's planting! Without it, they cannot grow crops! Have you never heard the saying? Starve your parents if you must, but never eat the seed grain! Taking that is an act against Heaven itself! You... you are committing acts against nature and reason!"
The guard shrugged. "What does that have to do with us? The court is pressing the Magistrate. If taxes cannot be collected, he suffers. And if he suffers, all of us suffer."
Shan Shi'er's face grew pale.
"It's over," he whispered. "Wangjia Village will revolt."
The guard scoffed. "They are just peasants. What courage would they have to rebel?"
Shan Shi'er did not argue further. He turned and hurried away, legs pumping faster than they had in years.
When he reached home, he immediately gathered his wife, children, servants, and maids.
"Pack everything!" he shouted. "We are leaving the county town at once! You know what they say... fleeing swiftly!"
His wife, a plump middle-aged woman, stared at him in shock. "Leaving? Why?"
Shan Shi'er spoke quickly, sweat beading on his forehead.
"There has been drought for three years. The people are already starving, and now the Magistrate has seized their seed grain. This will lead to disaster. If we stay here, we will be caught in it!"
His wife frowned. "Even if villagers rebel, they would just become bandits. They would not dare attack the county town."
Shan Shi'er leaned closer and lowered his voice, trembling with fear.
"You do not understand! Wangjia Village is not ordinary. There is a man there named Wang Er."
He paused.
"Wang Er came from Baishui County. He is widely known for his strength and reputation. With a staff in hand, dozens of men cannot get near him. His influence among nearby villages is immense."
Shan Shi'er's voice grew heavy.
"If Wang Er raises the banner of rebellion, countless desperate people will follow him. When that happens, Chengcheng County and all the surrounding regions will fall into chaos."
He looked into the distance, unease filling his eyes.
"I will not stand beneath a collapsing wall. As the ancients said... a gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall."
He turned back firmly.
"I am no longer a county official. There is nothing keeping us here. We leave immediately!"