Li Daoxuan was annoyed by his narrow field of vision for two seconds, then suddenly remembered that five days ago, he had installed a Surveillance Camera beside the scenic box, which had been monitoring everything inside all along. Since this thing did loop recording, he could certainly retrieve the video from last night now.

He quickly opened his phone, accessed the Surveillance Camera APP, and pulled up the video list.

Last night, he had not slept until after two o’clock, so he just needed to watch the videos from after that time.

In no time, he found the truth of the water theft.

In the night, a large group of poorly dressed villagers, similar in appearance to the villagers of Gaojia Village, appeared. Carrying buckets and using the moonlight, they cautiously approached the big pond at Gaojia Village, quietly placed the buckets into the pond, drew out two buckets of water, then picked them up and dashed toward outside the village.

After about an hour, the group returned, lifted two more buckets of water, and ran away again.

They did this three times over three hours, until dawn was approaching and the group stopped coming; by then, the water in the pond had been stolen, lowering by half a foot.

Seeing this, Li Daoxuan did not know what to say.

He put away his phone and heard the villagers discussing: “We don’t know where these thieves came from to steal our village’s water. It’s too much. This precious water was given to us by the Great deity. How can we let others steal it?”

“Where is the Village Chief? Ask him to come out and decide what to do. Should we follow these footprints to catch the water thieves and beat them?”

“That’s right! We must beat them and get the water back, otherwise the Great deity will blame us for not guarding the divine water he gave us.”

Li Daoxuan spoke: “Gao Yiye, tell everyone not to pursue the water theft.”

Gao Yiye was with the villagers, indignantly condemning the theft of the Great deity’s gift, when suddenly she heard the Great deity’s voice from the sky. She gasped “Ah” and looked up, seeing the slightly visible, young and handsome face of the Great deity in the clouds.

She quickly said: “Great deity, someone stole your blessing. Aren’t you angry?”

Her shout made all the villagers look over. Seeing her speaking to the sky, they guessed she was conversing with the Great deity and covered their mouths, not daring to make a sound.

Li Daoxuan said: “Tell them, these are villagers from another village. They had no water to drink and couldn’t survive, so they came to steal Gaojia Village’s water. This bit they stole means nothing—I’ll refill it for you. No need to chase or shout threats at people who are almost dying of thirst.”

Gao Yiye quickly relayed that to the whole village.

The villagers immediately put away their fierce intent to go out and fight. They all kowtowed to the sky: “The Great deity is merciful!”

“Divine grace enlightens the world.”

“Wide compassion and great mercy.”

“Saving from suffering and rescuing the people.”

A chaotic jumble of praises, like from Buddhism or Daoism, flew up skyward.

Li Daoxuan sighed deeply, thinking: Indeed, saving just forty-two villagers was far from enough. Next, I have to save more, starting with these water thieves. I hope my funds can handle it.

That night, when darkness set in, the forty-two villagers of Gaojia Village returned to their houses to sleep, and the scenic box returned to a “non-static scene.”

But Li Daoxuan didn’t rush to sleep. He remained at his computer, reading historical records about late Ming, while occasionally glancing at the scenic box where the water thieves had come from last night.

The night grew deep—it was three in the morning.

Shuangqing City outside the window hadn’t rested, though; modern people had lively nightlife. Cars sped on the roads outside, and people on the street beyond the housing complex ate barbecue and drank night beer, shouting things like “Five loss, oh Six six six, Seven fairies…”

Li Daoxuan picked up his phone and ordered a midnight barbecue delivery.

At that moment, activity stirred in the scenic box.

A poorly dressed villager emerged from the northern edge of the box. He peered toward Gaojia Village, waved back, and then a large group appeared, each carrying buckets, bent at the waist and tiptoeing toward Gaojia Village…

Li Daoxuan closed the window to block the noise outside, making the room absolutely quiet, then pressed his ear against the scenic box.

Inside, it was silent; the villagers made no footsteps at all.

Before long, they reached the Lock & Lock box.

The leader, Brother Wang, looked inside and said in surprise: “Huh?”

A villager behind him came up and asked softly: “Brother Wang, what is it?”

Brother Wang pointed at the Lock & Lock box and stammered: “Last night, we clearly stole a big chunk of the water level. Plus, Gaojia Village folks must have used more water today, so it should have dropped even more. But look, the water is full again now.”

Li Daoxuan chuckled to himself: I added another cup of water.

The water thieves gathered around the Lock & Lock box, all bewildered, staring at the full water level and then up at the sky: “It didn’t rain at all today. How was it refilled?”

“It’s incomprehensible!”

“Where does this pond water even come from?”

Brother Wang was also totally confused. But as the leader, he couldn’t just stand there. He waved his hand and cursed softly: “Why worry about it? Get your buckets filled fast. Stop chattering—if we wake someone from Gaojia Village and get caught, we’ll all die of shame here.”

That made sense!

The group hurried to the pond, lowered the buckets in to fill them. Someone even plunged their whole head into the water, gulping eagerly…

Seeing this, Li Daoxuan felt deep pity. Poor disaster victims.

He turned his eyes to his rice bag, wanting to throw some rice down. But then he thought: If I do, the rice would grow to forty or sixty centimeters long. Their wooden buckets couldn’t hold it, and they couldn’t roll it miles back to their village like the Gaojia villagers shared rice. Better not to scare them at midnight and risk lives.

Give them something bucket-friendly instead.

He shifted his gaze from the rice bag to the flour bag nearby.

Modern flour was grinded finer than sand. Even enlarged two hundred times, it would still be coarse powder, not too alarming. This wouldn’t startle them.

Li Daoxuan grabbed a tiny pinch of flour. While they focused on drawing water, he quietly, silently placed it behind them, forming a small mound.