The words "The bandits are getting closer!" snapped the salt smugglers out of their terrified stupor.
Now was definitely not the time to kneel on the ground worshipping anything—not even Dao Xuan Tianzun himself. Work first, reverence later.
They scrambled to their feet, each grabbing whatever size of rolling log matched their personal strength. Some carried them on their backs, some hugged them like oversized babies, and others simply pushed them along the ground with both feet planted like stubborn oxen.
Seeing the mountain of logs—seemingly endless thanks to that mysterious "celestial delivery"—everyone's morale soared.
Cheng Xu raised his voice:
"Hold steady, everyone! Don't throw yet! Only half the bandits have climbed up. We wait until the rest are on the slope—then we drop everything."
But Xing Honglang suddenly cut him off.
"Hejiao-xi," she said, "we should throw now. Half is enough."
Cheng Xu blinked.
"That's not according to any military text I've ever learned."
Xing Honglang sighed softly.
"Not according to military texts… but according to humanity.
The back half of that bandit mob—they're all old folks, women, children."
Cheng Xu froze.
Right—only the first half of the eight thousand bandits had real fighting ability. The rest were just people swept up like debris by the tide of chaos.
His soldier's instinct only thought: Hit the enemy where it hurts most.
But Xing Honglang's words forced him to picture what would really happen—rolling logs smashing through the elderly, the frail, the terrified. A hundred grandmothers… perhaps like his own Tai Nai, with cloudy eyes but always soft when they looked at him.
His stomach tightened.
Xing Honglang said quietly:
"We're jianghu folk. Our blades point at the strong—never the weak."
Cheng Xu snorted.
I'm not jianghu folk, he thought. I'm trained military—mercy wins no wars.
But even so… the image didn't sit right in his chest.
He looked down the slope again.
Yes. Too many faces there didn't deserve to die like insects under rolling timbers.
So he slashed his arm through the air and shouted:
"Drop them! Don't wait for the back half!"
"Finally! I've been waiting forever—hahaha!"
Flat-Rabbit leapt out like a spring-loaded monkey and gave his massive log a ferocious kick.
The thing was huge—half a man tall, thicker than his waist. Flat-Rabbit couldn't lift it, only roll it. He'd been waiting for this moment since he dragged it here.
Meanwhile, halfway up the mountain…
Er-Chun, the bandit lieutenant, was slogging uphill with his men. Sweat, curses, and desperation—typical late-Ming peasant-rebel ambiance.
He grumbled,
"So once we cross this ridge, it's Chengcheng County?"
His underling nodded eagerly.
"Yes! Past Zhengjia Village, then Gaijia Village, Wangjia Village—all the way to the county seat."
"Good! That dog Xing Honglang cut me and ran to Chengcheng. Now I'm here—gonna catch her alive and show her what I can do."
"Third Boss, your abilities… that woman surely can't handle them," a follower flattered.
"Hahahahaha—!"
They laughed for two full seconds.
Then the mountain answered with a thunderous roar.
They looked up.
And saw a massive log, half a man tall and as thick as a tree trunk, spinning downhill like the wrath of heaven.
Er-Chun shouted the most ancient of tactical exclamations:
"WHAT THE—!!"
But he dove aside with impressive speed, rolling straight into the bushes.
His men weren't so lucky.
One was hit squarely—sent flying like a beetle flicked by a bored deity, spiraling arcs of blood painting the air.
The giant log didn't stop.
It rolled straight through the crowded slope, plowing through bandits like a divine bowling ball, leaving chaos and limbs in its wake.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" someone screamed.
"WHO THREW THAT?!"
"ANOTHER ONE! ANOTHER ONE!!"
From above, a forest of heads popped out.
Some hurled rocks, others kicked down more monstrous logs.
A storm of rolling wood thundered downward like a mountain landslide.
The bandits broke instantly.
The clever ones dove behind rocks.
The less clever ones curled in fetal position, hands over heads.
The truly stupid ones ran in circles, screaming like panicked poultry.
Countless logs crashed through them, and the mountain filled with cries of terror, agony, and very creative profanity.
"It's a local militia!"
"From where?!"
"Damn—!!"
"AAAARGH!"
Er-Chun shook behind a rock, trembling.
Sui Fengxiong and Fan Shanyue also wedged themselves into crevices, barely daring to breathe.
The thunder of rolling logs lasted a long, terrifying minute.
Then—silence.
The three bandit leaders peeked out.
The slope looked like a butcher's yard—bodies everywhere, limbs at angles nature did not intend.
Fan Shanyue was the first to recover, shouting:
"Retreat! Retreat to the bottom! NOW!"
He didn't need to order, really—every surviving bandit was already sprinting downhill. Some even used cooking pot lids as makeshift sleds to accelerate their escape.
Many simply fell and tumbled down the mountain, miraculously outrunning the logs—though some died from sheer clumsiness.
In just moments, the entire eight-thousand-strong bandit force had collapsed into a panicked retreat at the mountain's foot.
Up on the ridge, the militia and salt smugglers erupted:
"We did it!"
"We beat them back!"
Xing Honglang exhaled long and slow.
One hundred people… held off eight thousand.
She turned to the massive pile of logs behind them.
Without Dao Xuan Tianzun's "timely delivery," they would've been doomed.
No question.
She looked up at the drifting low cloud—six or seven stories high—knowing he was up there, watching.
If this had been her first trip to Gaijia Village, she would've bolted at the first mention of "a god."
But now?
Now she found it… comforting.
Reassuring, even.
To have a god on your side—that was a feeling no jianghu sword could match.
Cheng Xu giggled triumphantly.
"Hah! When I return, I shall write a glorious memorial—'With one hundred brave villagers, I repelled twenty thousand bandits and saved Chengcheng County—'"
He paused.
Wait.
He wasn't a government official anymore.
He couldn't write memorials to the court.
He collapsed face-down.
orz
Flat-Rabbit waddled over.
"Hejiao-xi, we won! Why do you look like you lost your pants?"
Cheng Xu rolled over, stared at the sky, and sighed:
"I feel like… I'm not myself anymore."
From somewhere above the clouds, Li Daoxuan smiled gently.
Becoming a better version of yourself—
what's so bad about that?
Footnotes
Late-Ming peasant armies: Historically, rebel "armies" often included thousands of non-combatants—elderly, women, children—forced to march with them. Their presence inflated numbers but reduced combat effectiveness.
Rolling log defenses (gunmu / léi shí): A very real defensive method used in China since ancient times, especially on mountain passes. Gravity does most of the work.
Military vs. Jianghu ethics: The story contrasts "soldier logic" (maximum efficiency) with "jianghu morality" (fight only the strong), a classic wuxia tension.
Pot-lid sled escape: While comedic here, peasants genuinely used makeshift sledding on grass slopes to move quickly—though not usually under falling logs.