Li Daoxuan had noticed the problem long ago.
Gaojia Village lacked organization.
To be precise, it was not really an organization at all. It was little more than a loose collection of individuals living side by side. Apart from the Village Chief, who commanded some respect and carried a certain amount of influence, no one had authority over anyone else. Everyone acted independently.
Whenever Li Daoxuan gave them food, the villagers simply divided it among themselves. Each household took its share home, left a little extra for Gao Yiye, and that was the end of it.
No coordination. No proper management of supplies.
When Shan Shi'er and Li Da first arrived at Gaojia Village, no one had thought to welcome them or arrange a place for them to stay. Li Daoxuan had to intervene personally before Gao Yiye arranged their accommodations and provided them with food.
Frankly, it was a little frustrating.
These were not things he should have had to manage himself.
But now, with Shan Shi'er on the scene, things were different.
Shan Shi'er had just persuaded Wang Er to leave, and now Mrs. Shan had solved the problem of how to summon him. Two headaches had been dealt with in quick succession, making his life considerably easier.
He thought back to the debate he had seen on the forum earlier. The argument made by the fourth commenter had a point.
For the time being, his main priority should be to find and recruit more capable people.
---
After Mrs. Shan finished lecturing them, the villagers dispersed and returned home to get some more sleep.
The two blacksmiths, Li Da and Gao Yiyi, gathered at Gao Yiyi's house to work on a bell. There was no way they could make a proper bell in a single night, so they would have to settle for something simpler. A large, hollow iron cylinder would do for now.
They lit the furnace and got to work. As they labored, Li Da also taught Gao Yiyi some of his techniques. He was not worried about teaching his apprentice so much that he might end up starving his own master.
He had already made up his mind. Once his commoner status was restored, he would never touch a blacksmith's hammer again for the rest of his life.
Even if I starve to death or jump off a cliff, I am never going back to blacksmithing!
Early the next morning, before dawn, Mrs. Shan dragged Gao Yiye off to take a bath.
There was only one place in the village where people could bathe: the large pond. During the day, too many people gathered around it, so bathing there was out of the question. But before dawn, while everyone was still asleep, they could take a quick wash under the cover of darkness without worrying about being seen.
Of course, they had no idea that a night-vision camera outside the box was recording everything inside it through the glass, twenty-four hours a day.
If they knew…
Ahem!
That guy on the forum would probably have been over the moon.
After the bath, Mrs. Shan brought out a set of snow-white robes. The fabric was exceptionally thick and clearly expensive.
The robes hung loosely on Gao Yiye, far too large for her. But that was not much of a problem. She would not be working in the fields today, so she could simply move a little more carefully.
Gao Yiye stuck out her tongue.
"It is so hot!"
It was July, the height of summer, and the drought made the heat even more oppressive. Wearing such thick clothing in that weather was miserable.
"You will just have to put up with it," Mrs. Shan said softly as she adjusted the robes and smoothed out the wrinkles. "You must show Tianzun proper respect. Once we summon Him today, you must ask for His honored title. We cannot go on worshiping Him without knowing His name. Once we know His title, we can build Him a temple and create a golden statue in His image."
Gao Yiye nodded obediently.
"I understand."
Mrs. Shan then took out her makeup box and carefully began applying makeup to Gao Yiye, working slowly and precisely.
Li Daoxuan was awakened by a harsh clanging sound.
The previous night, he had been browsing a military history forum and reading about the late Ming dynasty. Before he knew it, he had stayed up until two or three in the morning. Naturally, he was not getting up early.
It was only when an unpleasant clang, clang, clang reached his ears that he shook his head and sat up, still half asleep.
The diorama box sat beside his bed, right up against his computer desk. The clanging was coming from inside it.
As he gradually shook off his drowsiness, he remembered what had happened the night before. That sound, like someone banging on a battered metal bucket, had to be the villagers trying to summon Tianzun.
He rolled over, crawled to the edge of the bed, and leaned over the box to look inside.
Well, look at that. The little people were certainly lively today.
The village's forty-two residents, along with the five members of Shan Shi'er's household, including his family of three, a maid, and a male servant, and the newly arrived blacksmith Li Da, made forty-eight people in all. They were arranged in a huge square formation, like a high school class assembled for a flag-raising ceremony.
Gao Yiye stood at the very front.
For the sake of the entire village's future happiness, she had clearly been given center stage. She wore flowing white robes, and her hair had been arranged in an elaborate style decorated with ornaments. She was already young and beautiful, and with the makeup on, she looked truly stunning.
In the modern world, she would easily qualify as a goddess. She would have a whole battalion of nice guys chasing after her, a company of hopeless simps, and a platoon of wealthy heirs vying for her attention.
Even Principal Wang might show up with one of his famously cheesy lines: "What IV drip did you get? The one filled with thoughts of you all night."
Li Daoxuan watched with amusement.
Not bad! This girl keeps getting prettier. Looking like that, she almost makes me want to lift her skirt…
He stopped himself.
Damn it. That idiot on the forum is rubbing off on me.
Gao Yiye raised a cup in both hands, holding it up as though offering a toast to the heavens. Her movements were a little awkward, clearly something she had hurriedly practiced. She first offered the cup to the sky, then poured the wine, which was actually water, onto the ground before kneeling.
Behind her, forty-six people knelt as well.
Gao Yiye began reciting a prayer. Shan Shi'er and Mrs. Shan had probably written it for her the night before and made her memorize it. Unfortunately, she was not doing a very good job. She stumbled over her words and sometimes managed to misread the same sentence three times.
Li Daoxuan had little interest in listening to the solemn prayer, so he paid it no mind. After a while, she finally finished and spoke up.
"We humbly ask Tianzun to reveal His honored title, so that we may build Him a temple and create a golden statue in His image."
"Li Daoxuan."
He answered, playing along with their little ritual.
Gao Yiye heard his voice and was overjoyed. She turned to Mrs. Shan and exclaimed, "Tianzun has answered me! His name is Li Daoxuan!"
"Dao Xuan?" Mrs. Shan was ecstatic when she heard those two words. This clearly pointed to a Daoist deity. She herself followed Daoism and had genuinely worried that Tianzun might turn out to be a Buddhist Bodhisattva. That would have been so awkward she might as well have burned incense to the goddess of embarrassment.
Now she could be fairly sure He was a Daoist deity. Without another word, she dropped to her knees and kowtowed.
"Hail, Dao Xuan Tianzun!"
Gao Yiye followed her example and kowtowed as well.
"Hail, Dao Xuan Tianzun!"
The other villagers immediately joined in, chanting together.
"Hail, Dao Xuan Tianzun!"
Li Daoxuan was delighted.
"Hah!! This is fun!"
In the space of a moment, he had gone from an unnamed Tianzun to Dao Xuan Tianzun. He finally had a proper title.
It feels a little strange, though.
Gao Yiye began speaking again, stumbling over her words. This was probably another part of the script Shan Shi'er had prepared. They had apparently prepared two versions, one for a Daoist deity and another for a Buddhist one.
Now she was reciting the Daoist version.
First, she thanked Dao Xuan Tianzun for granting the villagers a wall to protect their settlement. Then she explained that they needed people to keep watch at night and would have to hang lanterns all around the wall. Since the lanterns required a great deal of oil, she asked Tianzun to bestow some upon them.
Playing house like this is actually quite entertaining.
As Gao Yiye stumbled through her request, Li Daoxuan picked up his bottle of cooking oil and filled a mineral-water bottle cap to the brim. Then, slowly and carefully, he lowered the cap into the diorama box and placed it in front of her.