Li Daoxuan suddenly noticed something wrong inside the diorama box.
There were five more little people in it.
Yes—five extra ones.
This morning, after buying food for the villagers, he had counted them carefully:
Exactly forty-two tiny villagers. Not one more, not one less.
(If you've forgotten, please refer back to Chapter 5.)
But now—there were forty-seven.
And these five newcomers looked as if they had squeezed their way in from the very edge of the diorama.
They wore matching deep-red uniforms, long sabres hanging at their waists, iron rulers in hand. A white circle was painted on their backs, with the character "衙" (Yamen) written inside.
They looked unmistakably like imperial yamen runners from ancient China.
Li Daoxuan hadn't seen the moment they appeared. When they "squeezed in," he'd been focused on the villagers, so by the time he noticed them, the five new little officers were already marching toward the village entrance.
He stared in disbelief.
How in the world did these little officers get into my diorama box?
What on earth?
It felt like someone raising pet hamsters who suddenly finds five new hamsters in the cage, completely different in breed from the ones he originally kept.
Of course he'd be stunned!
He circled the box again and again.
Left—right—front—back—every side was sealed tight with glass.
The only possible entrance was the top lid, but he had closed it firmly right after pouring in the giant rice.
The air vents?
Impossible. They were tiny and high up. No way tiny people squeezed through them.
This was ridiculous!
While he was puzzling over this mystery, the five newcomers had already started quarreling with the villagers. Li Daoxuan quickly pressed his ear to the glass.
One officer shouted arrogantly:
"You filthy peasants! You've been owing taxes for ages! Are you planning to rebel?"
Another swung his iron ruler threateningly.
"If you still don't pay, I'll drag every single one of you to prison!"
The village chief hurried up with a forced smile.
"Good sirs, good sirs, it's not that we refuse to pay. We truly have no money, no grain. We're all starving. Look at this weather—months without a drop of rain, the crops all dead…"
The officer snorted.
"Drought is no excuse. The imperial tax must be paid in full—otherwise you're rebels."
The village chief nearly cried.
"Sir, please look at my villagers. Every one of them is yellow-faced and skin-and-bones. A breeze could blow them over. None of us have grain left. We're starving… truly we cannot pay."
The officer snapped,
"Worthless peasants! I'll search your homes myself. If I find so much as a grain you've hidden—get ready to rot in jail!"
He shoved the chief aside and swaggered into the village.
Li Daoxuan couldn't help laughing.
The diorama is developing a new plot again?
When he first bought this diorama, the little people had been acting out a scene—bandits burning and pillaging the village. Back then he thought they were motorized toys following a preset script. He had interfered out of curiosity and crushed the bandits.
But later he realized—they were alive.
They had consciousness.
The box was tiny, and he only had forty-two villagers. He assumed that was the whole cast. He never expected new characters to appear out of nowhere.
And now five yamen runners had entered the scene to bully starving peasants?
What was going on?
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
A strange, indescribable feeling stirred within him.
This box is not what I thought it was.
This might not be just a simple "miniature world."
In the village, the five yamen runners were causing chaos—barreling into houses, overturning belongings, making the whole village erupt in noise.
The village chief became visibly anxious.
Most villagers had nothing to hide—their houses were truly empty.
But Gao Yiye's house… that was different.
It was filled with half a room of enormous, millstone-sized divine rice.
If the officers found that…
The more nervous the chief became, the more suspicious he looked.
It didn't take long for the officers to notice. Almost everyone kept glancing—intentionally or not—toward one shabby little hut, as if some immense secret were hidden there.
All the young villagers stood guard in front of it, two of them bracing their backs against the door as if restraining some beast behind it.
Naturally, the yamen officers' attention locked onto that house.
"Out of the way!" one shouted, striding toward Gao Yiye's home.
The villagers panicked. Expressions tightened all around.
The chief instinctively stepped forward to block him.
The officer shoved him aside like a rag doll.
The officers marched right up to the door.
"Move!"
The young men clenched their fists—but none dared strike.
Still, none would step aside either.
The officer lifted a foot and kicked.
Inside, Gao Yiye and Gao Chuwu were leaning against the door with their backs. They were thrown aside instantly, the wooden door popping open—
—and the mountain of giant rice inside immediately slithered forward under its own weight.
With a thunderous whoosh, the gigantic white grains tumbled outward.
The officer in front nearly died of fright. Luckily, he had practiced a few days of martial arts and reflexively leapt backward.
And because the young villagers had restacked the rice more carefully this time, the avalanche wasn't as massive as earlier. It didn't crush him to death—just buried him from the waist down.
The other four officers leapt back as well, pale with shock.
The buried officer flailed his hands and legs, furious and terrified.
But when he actually saw what he was trapped in—
huge, millstone-sized grains of rice—
he froze, utterly stunned.
So did the other officers, mouths hanging open.
The villagers could only remain silent.
Nobody knew what to say.
The scene hung in an eerie silence for several seconds.
Then the buried officer screamed,
"What are you staring at?! Get me out of here!"
The other four rushed to pull him free.
One officer stammered, wide-eyed:
"Gaojia Village… actually hid something like this?
This… this rice… why is it so big?"
The village chief finally steeled himself.
"This is divine rice granted to us by the Heavenly Deity—to save our lives. If you dare touch it… the Deity will strike you down."
The five officers stared at each other, unsure whether to believe him.
Silence again—ten long seconds… twenty… thirty…
Li Daoxuan watched quietly, unsure whether he should intervene.
If I want to protect my forty-two villagers…
Should I just squash these five new yamen runners?
Just like I crushed the bandits?
But…
Is that the right thing to do?
Where did these officers come from?
How did they enter the box?
And would more appear later?
Too many unanswered questions.
Acting rashly now might not be the best choice.