Li Daoxuan strolled around the flower-pet-fish market and soon found a shop selling fish tanks.
Rows and rows of tanks—big, small, round, square—beautifully crafted.
He ran his hand over one. Nice. Several millimeters thick. Solid. Reliable.
Despite its thickness, the glass was crystal-clear, the kind of clarity that made you worry someone would walk straight into it if it were a shopping mall door.
The shopkeeper noticed Li Daoxuan examining the glass with professional intensity. Instantly, he understood—this wasn't a window shopper. This was a man with purpose. He darted forward with a salesman's perfect half-bow and smile.
"Handsome sir! Buying a fish tank? You came to the right place. Mine are the best in the entire market."
Li Daoxuan nodded politely. "I'm satisfied indeed."
The shopkeeper's eyes brightened. "Which one do you want?"
"I want a… bottomless fish tank."
Pffft—!
The shopkeeper nearly coughed out an entire lung. "What did you say? A bottomless tank? That's just four pieces of glass standing in a circle! How do you hold water? No water, no fish! Are you messing with me?! No bottomless tanks here!"
Li Daoxuan calmly replied, "I intend to buy twenty. Express order. I'll add ten percent."
The shopkeeper's business smile returned with astonishing speed. "Well! Why didn't you say so? That's easy—I can melt the sealant and remove the bottoms on the spot. No problem! Fish tanks never needed bottoms anyway! Sir, you're clearly an expert in aquatic arts—only real connoisseurs dare to raise fish like this!"
He immediately began working—melting the glass sealant, removing the bottoms. A beautiful fish tank transformed into a simple glass ring. Inside, he was surely cursing Li Daoxuan to seventeen generations, but his face remained serene and professional.
Soon twenty tanks of various sizes—some tens of centimeters long, some ten centimeters—round ones, square ones—were ready.
Li Daoxuan added a delivery fee.
The shopkeeper personally drove and, in the spirit of all overworked gig drivers, helped carry every tank upstairs. Before leaving, he leaned close and whispered:
"Handsome sir… if all your fish die in a few days and you need replacements—fish and tanks—please come back to me."
Then he sprinted away.
Li Daoxuan returned to the crate, glanced at Gaojia Village. Xing Honglang was already in the watchtower with Gao Yiye; the two girls had shut the doors and were applying "heavenly medicine" to the wound.
Gao Chuwu had run off somewhere to wallow in self-loathing.
Other villagers were trading goods with the salt smugglers.
Li Daoxuan tapped "Zhengjia Village." The view snapped over.
He examined the farmland outside the village, mentally dividing the fields into several sections. Selecting a suitably sized bottomless fish tank, he lowered it over one plot—pressing it slightly so the glass sank a little into the soil. Perfect: no bandits digging tunnels into the fields.
Next plot. One more tank.
In moments, six or seven bottomless tanks were set in place.
Zhengjia Village's entire patchwork of fields was now covered with giant glass cylinders. Li Daoxuan clapped his hands. Perfect. No need to worry about random bandits from Heyang stomping the crops flat.
He tapped "Gaojia Village," and his view snapped back.
Gao Yiye and Xing Honglang had finished dressing the wound. Xing Honglang's right arm was wrapped in white cloth—the range of bandaging suggested the injury wasn't small.
Yet her face showed no sign of pain—still bold and heroic. No wonder no one had noticed earlier; only Cheng Xu had spotted something in her technique.
Gao Yiye said, "Sister Xing, since you're injured, don't run around for now. Stay until your arm recovers."
Xing Honglang nodded. Losing to Gao Chuwu had shown just how much her strength had dropped. Roaming around with an injury was basically asking to get stabbed by some idiot bandit. "Thank you, Saint Maiden. Then I'll impose on Gaojia Village for a while."
Gao Yiye smiled. "Dao Xuan Tianzun promised you a residence if you ever returned. Look—on that northern slope…"
The northern slope had once been full of dead, bark-stripped trees. But after some hard labor from the convict workers, the entire place had been cleared.
A few days ago, Li Daoxuan had stuck a tiny shovel into the crate, scraped out a flat piece of land, and placed down a huge cluster of hard-plastic buildings. He named the area Gaojia Commercial Zone.
Inside was a large residence for Xing Honglang and her salt-smuggler crew. There was also a market, a ring of houses, a teahouse, an inn, a restaurant, even a brothel…
Unfortunately, the moment he placed them, Li Daoxuan realized: you couldn't light fires inside plastic houses. Which meant the restaurants and teahouses were useless decorations. Eventually, the villagers would need to build stone structures themselves.
And as for the brothel…
cough cough
Erase that! Erase that!
Xing Honglang looked up at the rainbow-colored plastic complex and couldn't help thinking: This mysterious Tianzun is generous, sure… but his taste? Why are the houses rainbow?! That's not respectable at all.
Still—free mansion. Hard to refuse.
She soon moved her people in.
The mansion was luxurious: pavilions, gardens, rockeries—all the trappings of elite living.
In the back garden stood a beautiful flowering tree. Despite her rough exterior, Xing Honglang was still a woman; she loved flowers. She reached to pluck one—yet after struggling for a while, she failed to break the branch.
Only then did she realize the tree was absurdly strange—neither metal, nor wood, nor anything normal. Completely inexplicable.
That night, Gao Chuwu came. He stood outside the plastic gates with his arms limp at his sides, not daring to knock. Instead he talked at the doors for half an hour, apologizing nonstop.
He thought no one heard him.
But the smugglers were always vigilant. There was a guard right behind the plastic panel; he immediately informed Xing Honglang.
She listened for a moment, snorted, "Pointless," and went back to sleep.
Footnotes
Bottomless fish tanks – Historically not used for agriculture, but if Qing dynasty farmers had access to modern fish tank technology, they absolutely would have invented glass fortifications.
Salt smugglers – In many dynasties, salt taxes created a thriving underground economy. Smugglers were often more professional than government soldiers.
Plastic buildings – A recurring tragedy of transmigration: the protagonist forgets basic physics and builds entire towns out of fireproof-but-also-no-cooking-allowed material.
Back-garden tree – When you live in a divine sandbox, sometimes the "plants" are props from last year's toy set.
Half-hour apology monologue – A classic move among large, guilty men throughout history.