Li Daoxuan suddenly froze.
"Hold on. There were five extra figures inside the box. Five. Where did they come from?"
Just this morning, when he had stocked up on supplies for his miniature colony, he had counted them meticulously. Forty-two souls, not one more and not one less.
Now the count stood at forty-seven.
The five newcomers seemed to have materialized from the very edges of the diorama's perimeter, as if they had slipped through gaps that should not exist.
They wore identical deep-red uniforms, with simple sabers hanging at their waists and iron rulers gripped in their hands. On each back was a white circular patch bearing the character for "yamen," marking them as government runners.
Ancient officials.
Li Daoxuan had been watching the villagers when they appeared, so he missed the exact moment of their entry. By the time his attention shifted, they were already marching toward the village gate.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still forty-seven. How the hell did these five get into my sealed glass box?
It was like keeping hamsters. You count forty-two in the cage. You look away for a second. When you look back, there are forty-seven, and the new five are a completely different breed.
Would that not make anyone's scalp crawl?
He circled the diorama, inspecting every inch. Left, right, top, bottom. All four walls were seamless glass, tightly sealed. The only opening was the lid on top, which he distinctly remembered closing after pouring in the divine rice. The ventilation holes were tiny, high up, and physically impossible for sub-centimeter humans to navigate.
This defied logic.
While he was still frowning at the mystery, he noticed the five bailiffs engaging with the villagers. He leaned down and pressed his ear against the glass to filter out the ambient noise of his apartment.
One bailiff barked. "You lowly wretches! Every year, late with your taxes. You think you can rebel?"
Another smacked his iron ruler against his own palm. "Pay up, or I haul every last one of you to prison!"
The Village Chief stepped forward, forcing a smile onto his weathered face. "Sirs. Sirs, please. It is not that we will not pay. We cannot."
He gestured at the villagers behind him, at their hollow cheeks and trembling hands.
"Look at us. There is no grain. No silver. We have nothing. It has not rained in months. The crops are gone. Everything is gone."
The bailiff sneered. "Drought? I do not care about drought. The court wants its taxes. You do not pay, that is treason."
The Chief's face crumpled. "Please. Look at us. Skin and bones, every one of us. A strong wind would knock us flat. Do we look like people hiding money?"
His voice cracked.
"We are dying. We have nothing left to give."
"Lies!"
The bailiff shoved the Chief aside. "I will search the village myself. And if I find so much as a handful of hidden grain, I will drag you to prison and leave you there until you rot."
Outside the box, Li Daoxuan watched, intrigued despite himself.
A new scenario, huh?
When he first acquired the diorama, bandits had been rampaging. He assumed it was a pre-programmed animation loop, an electronic toy acting out a script.
He had intervened casually, flicking the bandits to death. Later, he realized the figures possessed consciousness. But given the limited space and population cap of forty-two, he assumed the cast was fixed.
Now, five new actors had entered the stage, initiating a new plotline of bureaucratic oppression. What exactly is this box?
A strange chill crept up his spine. This diorama is far more complex than I thought. It is not just a terrarium. It is a living world.
Inside the village, chaos erupted. The bailiffs kicked open doors, overturned chests, and rifled through cupboards. Noise filled the air.
The Village Chief grew visibly tense. Most households were safe, since the villagers genuinely had nothing left. But Gao Yiye's house was half-filled with divine rice, grains the size of millstones.
If the bailiffs found those...
The Chief's anxiety made him conspicuous. The bailiffs quickly noticed the villagers' eyes drifting toward one specific dilapidated hut. Several young men were guarding it, two of them bracing their backs firmly against the doorframe as if holding back a landslide.
The lead bailiff followed their gazes. His eyes landed on the hut. Then on the young men pressed against its door.
He grinned.
"Move aside!"
The Village Chief stepped into his path. "Sir, please. There is nothing in there."
"Then why are you blocking me?"
"There is nothing. I swear it. Just an old man's humble home."
"Out of my way."
"Sir, I beg you..."
The bailiff shoved him. Hard.
The Chief hit the dirt, rolling, gasping.
"Grandpa!"
"Stay back!" The bailiff's hand went to his saber. "One more step from any of you, and I swear on the Emperor's name, I will cut the old fool down where he lies!"
The villagers froze.
The lead bailiff turned toward the hut. The other four flanked him, hands on their weapons.
"Open it."
Two bailiffs grabbed the young men guarding the door and threw them aside. The others raised their boots.
Inside, Gao Yiye and Gao Chuwu pressed their backs against the wooden frame, eyes wide, muscles straining. They had been holding the door shut from within, but the weight of the divine rice behind them was already pushing outward, groaning against the wood.
The first kick landed.
BAM.
The frame splintered. Yiye and Chuwu were thrown sideways as the door exploded outward.
CRASH.
A torrent of white boulders poured into the street. To the inhabitants, it sounded like an avalanche of stone. To the bailiff standing closest, it was a nightmare. He tried to jump back, but the sheer volume swept him off his feet. He was not crushed instantly, because the rice had been stacked neatly by Chuwu earlier, reducing the kinetic energy, but he was buried waist-deep in the massive, smooth spheres.
The other four bailiffs scrambled back.
The buried officer thrashed, kicking his legs, trying to free himself. When he finally got his footing and looked down, his face went white. What surrounded him was not gravel or pebbles. They were polished white monoliths, each one larger than his entire body. Hard as stone. Heavy as lead.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Then the trapped bailiff screamed. "What the hell are you all standing there for?! Get me out!"
The others rushed forward, shoving the giant grains aside to drag their colleague free. It took all four of them, straining and cursing, to roll even one of the massive spheres off his legs.
One bailiff stumbled back, pointing at the pile with a shaking hand. "What the fuck. Gaojia Village is hiding... this? What kind of rice is this? Why is it so damn big?"
The Village Chief seized the moment. His voice was shaking, but he made it loud.
"This is divine rice, sir! Gifted to us by Tianzun to keep us alive! If you dare touch it, Tianzun will strike you dead where you stand!"
The five bailiffs looked at each other. Nobody spoke. Rumors had been spreading through the county for days. Bandits crushed flat by an invisible force. Men turned to paste without a single wound. Nobody knew what to believe.
But standing here, buried to his waist in rice the size of boulders, it was getting hard to call it nonsense.
Nobody moved.
Outside the box, Li Daoxuan remained still, his hand hovering near the lid.
I could end this, he thought. Reach in, flick them away like flies. Protect my forty-two little hamsters.
But then doubt crept in. Where did they come from? How did they bypass the seal? Will more appear tomorrow? Next week?
Intervening now might solve the immediate threat, but it would blind him to the mechanics of this world. Was this a game spawning enemies? A simulation generating NPCs? Or something else entirely?
Rushing in would only keep him ignorant.
For the first time, Li Daoxuan did not act as a god of destruction. He acted as a scientist observing an experiment.
He kept his hand still.
He needed answers.