Li Daoxuan saw the county town but stuck to the same principle: don't act rashly.
First, position himself as an observer.
His gaze swept over the town from above.
The county town's narrow streets were filled with refugees from various villages, in tattered clothes and sickly complexions.
The numbers were considerable; a casual glance revealed thousands.
During the Ming Dynasty, a prosperous southern county town could easily have hundreds of thousands of people. Even a small northwestern county town like Chengcheng could have seventy to eighty thousand.
Normally, these people were scattered across the county's various villages, not gathered together.
But a major drought had forced these originally scattered county residents into the county town.
This made the already narrow streets even more congested.
It happened to be mealtime. A bell suddenly rang from the center of the town. The refugees lying haphazardly on the streets perked up at the sound, scrambling to their feet.
"Food time!"
"It's gruel distribution time again."
"We can eat!"
On every street, massive streams of people ran in one direction.
Li Daoxuan's gaze naturally followed the flow. Soon, he arrived at the front of the county government office. A stage had been set up there. Liang Shixian was personally overseeing a large group of yamen runners and helpers bringing out cooked wheat paste.
Under the runners' shouts, the refugees formed a long line. Holding broken bowls, each received a bowl of paste, retreated under the eaves of street shops, and drank it wretchedly.
Liang Shixian frowned deeply. He knew one bowl of this paste couldn't fill anyone, but he could only give each person this much because he didn't have much grain himself.
This grain was all obtained by him shamelessly begging from the reclusive "Li family" in Gao Village.
Each time, he'd haul back thirty cartloads, which would be eaten up in a few days. Then he'd have to shamelessly go back for another thirty cartloads...
This cycle repeated; he'd been shamelessly begging for grain from the Li family for a year now.
He was starting to feel something was off...
Although it had rained around the Li family's area and they had wheat fields, the grain produced from those fields couldn't possibly sustain his constant "ravaging."
The Li family must have some strange method of obtaining grain from somewhere.
This method was extremely secretive, as no one had ever spotted any grain transport convoys from other provinces returning to the Li family. Not a single one.
He had ten thousand questions he wanted to ask, but he swallowed them all.
Once he voiced this doubt, wouldn't the Li family stop giving grain?
Without grain, what would happen to these common folk?
The court wouldn't give him grain; not only wouldn't they give, they might even press him for Chengcheng County's overdue tax silver. Wouldn't that be sentencing these people to death?
Even if just for these people's sake, Liang Shixian could only play deaf and dumb, feign ignorance while understanding perfectly, pretend he never doubted the Li family, pretend he knew nothing, and be a thick-skinned, foolish official.
(Ming Context: Magistrate Liang's dilemma reflects the crushing reality for local officials during the late Ming crises. With central government support failing, they were often left alone to handle famine, rebellion, and taxation. His choice to 'play the fool' to secure life-saving grain from a mysterious source, rather than uphold bureaucratic transparency, was a tragic, pragmatic survival tactic for his people.)
Using the "Focus" function, Li Daoxuan watched Liang Shixian. From his expression, he sensed his sympathy for these people, but also his feeling of helpless inadequacy.
He really wanted to help him!
But now wasn't the right time to intervene.
The same rule applied: Reaching out recklessly wouldn't be helping; it would be frightening people.
He continued clicking north, south, east, west, surveying the entire county town.
Suddenly, a magnificent building on the West Main Street caught Li Daoxuan's attention.
The City God Temple!
Chengcheng County's City God Temple, an ancient and awe-inspiring historical relic.
The temple's incense offerings seemed rather sparse...
The common folk were too poor; they couldn't even afford incense and candles anymore.
They could only kneel before the City God and kowtow a few times.
Li Daoxuan noticed that while the main hall had few people, a side hall had seven or eight devout men and women kneeling properly on prayer mats, murmuring reverently as they worshipped something.
Li Daoxuan used the "Focus" function on the side hall. The situation inside immediately became clear.
The long-unseen Third Madame sat with dignified solemnity, surrounded by numerous jars and bottles. A group of devotees prayed fervently: "Praise the Tianzun!"
"May the Tianzun bless my daughter's diarrhea to heal quickly."
"Tianzun bless,may my son's sores dissipate swiftly."
After listening to one person's "symptom description," Third Madame opened a jar, carefully took out a bit of medicine, and handed it to an old woman. "This is sacred medicine bestowed by the Tianzun. The usage method is like this... Use it carefully when you return. If your son's fate isn't meant to end, he will naturally recover. If it is a tribulation destined in his fate, even the Tianzun cannot save him."
The old woman thanked her profusely, kowtowed, and left.
Seeing this, Li Daoxuan's eyes lit up.
He had a method...
A way to intervene in the county town without frightening the common folk.
Hehe!
Hadn't the game Civilization long ago provided the method?
If you want to reach into another's city without going to war, the best method is "culture." As long as "cultural" infiltration reaches a certain point, an enemy city can become yours in minutes.
To take over Chengcheng County and turn it into "his own county town," using cultural methods was the most prudent and caused the least harm to the common folk.
Li Daoxuan clicked on the words "Gao Village" outside the box. The view swished back above Gao Fort.
Having just surveyed the suffering county town, returning his view to Gao Village immediately gave him a completely different atmosphere.
Xing Honglang and Gao Chuwu were actually sparring one-on-one!
Li Daoxuan didn't know which round this was for them, but every time Xing Honglang returned from a trade trip, she would fight Gao Chuwu.
A large crowd held bowls, eating their dinner while enjoying the spectacle.
Xing Honglang struck first, her Jin-style Hongquan boxing creating a whistling wind. Gao Chuwu immediately countered with Guanzhong Hongquan. Bang, clang, ping, pong — they exchanged over a dozen moves in a flash. Then Xing Honglang feigned an opening. Gao Chuwu's punch met air.
Xing Honglang swished in close. Thump, thump, thump — a flurry of blows.
Gao Chuwu's iron-tower-like frame toppled once again with a thud, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The onlookers laughed loudly again. "Hahaha! Gao Chuwu can never beat Xing Honglang. This is getting less and less interesting. No fun at all, hahahaha!"
Gao Yiye and San Shier also clapped and laughed heartily in the crowd.
Li Daoxuan spoke: "Yiye, ask San Shier how many copies of 'The Tale of the Daoist Mystic Tianzun Vanquishing Demons' are left unsold?"
As these words left his mouth, Gao Yiye froze as if struck by an acupoint technique.
Several seconds later, she turned like a robot, moving with incredibly stiff motions. Her neck seemed unable to rotate as she looked up at the sky. "Uh... uh... cough... that... that book... Tianzun... You know about it?"
Li Daoxuan deliberately pretended to have a stern face. "How could I not know? How could such a thing be hidden from me?"
(Meta: Li Daoxuan's plan of 'cultural victory' is a brilliant gamer's solution. Instead of direct, terrifying divine intervention ('conquest victory'), he's leveraging the existing, grassroots spread of his 'cult'—through Third Madame's medicine and Gao Yiye's bestselling picture-book—to achieve soft power influence. It's a far more sustainable and psychologically astute strategy for winning hearts and minds.)