Dawn broke. Li Daoxuan, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, glanced at the morning light filtering through the window.

Unconsciously, he had spent the entire night poring over historical records. He had roughly read through the pitiful, insulting history of the late Ming era, gaining a general understanding of the overall sequence of events. Yet, many details remained unclear to him.

Moreover, historical texts often employed subtle, judgmental language; they contained numerous contradictions and could not be fully trusted.

He double-clicked the mouse to open a file on his desktop—a document summarising some critical questions he had compiled overnight.

Question One: Items placed into the scenic box increase in length, width, and height by 200 times. Volume increases proportionally, and weight also increases. As a liberal arts student, he couldn’t calculate the exact figure. But one thing was sure: a 50-gram egg would become hundreds of tons. Calculating based on this, feeding one little person wouldn’t cost much. Supporting these forty-two little people posed no problem; he could let them live in comfort, enjoying good food and drink. However, trying to feed millions, perhaps tens of millions, of them and protect their safety would inevitably lead to the awkward reality of bankruptcy. So, the question arose: What was his goal? To save only these forty-two little people? Or to use all his power to rescue as many common folk from the late Ming as possible? Or even more ambitiously, to save the entire nation? If the latter two were the goals, his financial resources were insufficient, forcing him to reconsider his target.

Question Two: Amidst the chaos of war in the late Ming, the little people faced constant mortal peril. He himself needed to eat, sleep, bathe, and occasionally even go on dates—he couldn’t guard the scenic box 24 hours a day. It was entirely possible that after a simple trip to buy groceries, he could return home to find all forty-two little people slaughtered by the imperial court, the Jurchens, Li Zicheng, or Zhang Xianzhong, leaving the scenic box a ruin littered with corpses. This possibility was very real. Therefore, it was crucial to enhance the little people’s capacity for self-protection.

Question Three: The scenic box, measuring 2.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, provided a visible range of only 500 meters long by 300 meters wide. This barely covered Gaojia Village and the surrounding fields. He couldn’t directly influence areas “beyond sight.” Was there any way to extend this visible range?

These were the most pressing problems he had contemplated throughout the night.

Of course, Question Three veered into the mystical; he could only let it take its natural course.

He needed to focus his energies on solving the first two problems first.

His gaze settled on Question One. Believing himself a fairly decent person, he naturally didn’t intend to save only these forty-two little people. If possible, he wanted to rescue as many impoverished common people as he could. And ideally, saving the entire nation would be the best outcome.

Hence…

He couldn’t rely solely on personally dropping food into the scenic box!

That approach was highly unscientific; it would only foster passive, apathetic parasites.

He had to motivate the little people inside the box to cultivate crops themselves and actively embrace life.

Having thought this far, it was time to act!

The first priority was providing water for the little people! Water was essential for their vitality.

How to provide water? Simply aiming a faucet at the box? That was clearly impractical. A 200-times thickened water pillar surging into the village wouldn’t be supplying water—it would be causing a flood. A spray bottle? A humidifier? Li Daoxuan searched online and found that the finest humidifier mist droplets were about 0.3mm in diameter. Passing through the box into the late Ming era, they would become massive water droplets of 6cm diameter, falling densely. Spraying that above the village would be like unleashing a super rainstorm; even grass houses would collapse under the deluge.

Li Daoxuan’s eyes shifted to his Lock & Lock box.

He picked up the Lock & Lock box and gestured towards an empty patch of land next to the village. Good, it would fit here. He reached out his hand over that piece of ground, dug forcefully, and instantly scooped out a huge pit…

…

Early morning!

The villagers rose early. At the break of dawn, these hardworking people got ready for the day’s work.

However, a severe drought gripped the land; the fields lay barren with not a sprout to be seen. There was no farm work to be done.

Digging for wild vegetables was their usual early morning task. But since they still had over a hundred “large” white rice grains and several substantial cabbage leaves stored at home, foraging wasn’t urgent. So, after getting up, the villagers busied themselves with various chores—weaving baskets, sharpening knives, mending clothes…

Gao Yiye planned to mend her tattered clothes. She picked up a needle and thread, took a small stool, and stepped outside. Just as she was about to set the stool down to thread the needle by the morning light, she heard a faint soughing sound near her house.

She turned and saw it was Thirty-Two.

“Huh? You’re still in Gaojia Village?”

After all, last night, following the Great deity’s instructions, she had given Thirty-Two a full meal, warned him not to disclose anything he had witnessed here, and sent him back to the town.

But after seeing a millstone-sized grain and huge cabbage leaves last night—phenomena he couldn’t grasp yet found profoundly astonishing—Thirty-Two had wanted to linger in the village a bit longer.

After leaving Gao Yiye’s home, he had simply curled up and slept under the eaves.

He was an advisor accustomed to privilege and comfort, rarely rising this early. Startled awake by Gao Yiye, his mind was still cloudy as he sat up, rubbing his face. “Huh? It’s already dawn?”

Gao Yiye found it strange. “After you ate your fill last night, didn’t I tell you to go back to the town?”

Thirty-Two, still groggy, mumbled, “Ah? Why didn’t I go back last night? It’s called ‘beyond one’s comprehension.'”

Just as he finished speaking, Gao Yiye’s expression changed dramatically.

She had spotted a giant hand descending from the sky, digging into an empty patch of land beside the village. Instantly, the ground rumbled violently as a colossal pit appeared.

Thirty-Two followed Gao Yiye’s gaze. He couldn’t see the hand, only witness the ground abruptly caving in to form a giant pit. Earth, sand, and rocks from within it were plucked up by an invisible force and moved aside…

The spectacle truly involved flying stones and swirling dust, earthshaking in its intensity.

Thirty-Two felt dizzy with confusion. “Ah? Did I wake up too forcefully? Should I maybe sleep a bit more?”

He even forgot to offer his trademark four-character summary.

Every last villager was jolted by the commotion and ran towards the site of the disturbance.

Gao Yiye quickly jumped up, shouting, “Hold on, Villagers! Don’t go over there! Don’t disturb the Great deity performing immortal techniques!”

The villagers stopped en masse!

After halting them, Gao Yiye watched intently. The Great deity’s enormous hand dug into the ground several more times, excavating a huge, square pit roughly over ten zhang long, five zhang wide, and eight zhang deep.

Then, a giant hand placed a transparent box onto the pit, packing down the surrounding soil…

Neither Thirty-Two nor the villagers could see the giant hand, but they clearly witnessed the transparent container slowly descend from the heavens, landing perfectly within the freshly dug pit.

Everyone stood gaping in astonishment, utterly bewildered by what had occurred.

Li Daoxuan clapped his hands. “Perfect, the reservoir is complete.”

He picked up a cup brimming with water and poured it steadily into the Lock & Lock box…

Thus, the people inside the box beheld a startling spectacle: a waterfall suddenly cascaded from the sky, a torrential stream plunging down to fill the massive container set into the ground. Very soon, the box was brimming with water.

The villagers stood dumbfounded, rooted to the spot for a long, long time.

Finally, Thirty-Two found his voice: “【It was said that a galaxy falls from the ninth heaven.】”

Gao Yiye observed, “That one’s way over four words.”

Thirty-Two clutched his head. “No other verse captures this grandeur!”