Chapter 313: Heaven-Sent Underworld of Dao Xuan Tianzun
A winding, uneven mountain road stretched like a pale scar across the earth, extending southward from Gao Village Family all the way toward Shi Family Gully. The path was not truly a road yet, more like a promise carved into dirt and stone, a promise that stubborn human effort refused to give up on.
Shi Family Gully itself sat at the border between Heye County and Cheng County, a remote and barren little village with barely a hundred households. It was the kind of place that even poverty would pass by, pause, and then decide it was too troublesome to stay long.
Yet this miserable village had already experienced something almost mythical in its lifetime.
Drought had once pressed down on it like an iron palm. The fields cracked open like old pottery, the wells dried to dust, and the people had been reduced to chewing on whatever bitter roots they could dig out of the ground. Until one day, the gaze of Li Dao Xuan reached them.
Rain had fallen. Food had arrived. The sky had been corrected as if someone had quietly rewritten the rules of the world.
Now the villagers were no longer just surviving. They were building.
A hundred or so villagers, in the spare moments between farming and exhaustion, were dragging, digging, and flattening the earth with stubborn determination. They were trying to build a proper cement road that would eventually connect Shi Family Gully directly to Gao Village Family. Their dream was simple and absurd at the same time. If the road existed, then the "Sun Bus Carriage" could arrive. If the carriage arrived, then they could go to Gao Village Family to work. If they could work, then life would stop feeling like slow suffocation.
But reality was laughing quietly at them. A hundred people trying to carve a road through mountains and stubborn terrain was not a construction project. It was closer to a long-term argument with geography.
On this day, while the villagers were still arguing with dirt using hoes and shovels, a convoy of single-wheel carts began rolling down the mountain path.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
The sound echoed through the valley like slow thunder.
Each cart was loaded with grain. Not a little grain. Not symbolic grain. Real, heavy, life-saving grain stacked like golden hills on wooden frames.
And behind them stood a group of fierce-looking men escorting the convoy.
The villagers froze.
The aura of these men was sharp enough to make even the wind hesitate. Instinctively, the villagers thought of bandits. But bandits would not be carrying grain. Bandits would be carrying away grain.
So confusion overtook fear.
The village chief, an old man with hands like dry bark, gathered courage and stepped forward.
"Honored guests," he asked cautiously, "may I ask who you are?"
The leading man turned his head.
He was Old Nanfeng, once a fierce commander among the rebel remnants of Guyuan. Now, under the arrangement of Gao Village Family, he had become a grain escort under labor reform supervision.
He looked at the village chief as if measuring him, then spoke bluntly.
"We are from Gao Village Family. We deliver grain. We guard grain. We kill anyone who touches grain."
Simple. Clean. No wasted poetry.
The village chief blinked slowly, trying to process whether this was a threat or a blessing.
Old Nanfeng ignored further questions and waved his hand. The convoy rolled directly into the village.
Without hesitation, he began organizing like a man who had spent his life in chaotic war camps.
"Unload everything," he ordered. "Form a perimeter."
The labor reform prisoners obeyed immediately.
The grain was moved off the carts and stacked in the center of the village edge. Thick oilcloth was spread over it like a protective skin. Then the empty carts were pushed outward and arranged wheel to wheel, forming a crude defensive wall around the grain.
A circular cart fort.
Within minutes, the temporary camp was established. Tents were erected in a ring around the grain. The whole formation looked absurdly professional for something that had been built by prisoners under guard, like a military doctrine invented by necessity and fear of punishment.
One of Old Nanfeng's subordinates leaned in quietly.
"Brother Nanfeng," he whispered, "this is a good chance. No supervisors nearby. Dao Xuan Tianzun might not be watching. If we take the grain and run now, we could vanish into the mountains."
Old Nanfeng slowly turned his head.
His expression did not change much, but his eyes carried something heavier than anger. It carried memory.
He raised his hand and slapped the man across the back of the head.
"Are you stupid?" he said coldly. "Our opponent is not a man. It is a god. A god. A god. I am repeating it three times so your brain remembers."
The subordinate staggered, clutching his head.
Old Nanfeng continued, voice low and rough.
"You think escape is freedom? The last time I tried to escape, I ended up inside that wooden fortress. Do you know what that place is? It is not a prison. It is a joke made by demons."
He paused, then exhaled.
"At least here, we are fed. At least here, we are not starving. Back in the border army, we were also controlled. Just by different people. So tell me, what is the difference?"
The men around him fell silent.
One of them muttered reluctantly.
"…At least here we do not starve."
Old Nanfeng nodded.
"Exactly."
Just as the atmosphere began to settle into reluctant acceptance, another prisoner ran over in panic.
"Brother Nanfeng! Ten men ran away! They were once under Wolf Thousand-Household!"
Old Nanfeng's eyes lit up, not with anger, but with something closer to resigned amusement.
"Oh," he said. "Then let us watch."
He lifted his head.
Far in the eastern sky, something enormous was descending.
A wooden fortress.
It hung in the air like a suspended nightmare, slowly lowering itself toward the ground.
Old Nanfeng pointed.
"See that? That is Dao Xuan Tianzun's Underworld Castle."
The prisoners gathered behind him, climbing a small hill nearby to get a better view.
From above, the fortress revealed its true shape.
It was massive. Layered wooden structures, twisting corridors, mechanical traps, strange moving shadows inside, and eyes that glowed red like living beasts. It did not look like architecture. It looked like a living system designed to break human sanity step by step.
The newcomers gasped.
"What is that thing?"
Old Nanfeng smiled faintly.
"You will find out soon enough. Watch carefully. Those ten escapees are about to experience what it means to be truly welcomed by Dao Xuan Tianzun's Netherworld."
Below, the ten fleeing soldiers were running desperately across the slope.
Then it happened.
A golden hand descended from the sky.
Not metaphorical. Not symbolic. A literal giant hand of light.
It pressed behind them like a god casually shooing insects.
"Hahaha," Old Nanfeng laughed. "That is it. That is exactly how I was forced in last time."
The ten men screamed as they were herded forward, unable to resist the pressure of divine force.
They ran into the fortress.
The moment they entered, the world became a nightmare amusement park.
One man fell into a trap pit and was chased unconscious by a mechanical insect shaped like a glowing electric cockroach.
Another triggered a floor mechanism and dropped into a pool where a rubber shark swallowed him whole, bouncing awkwardly afterward like a ridiculous prop.
A third man ran from a giant rolling iron sphere, only to fall flat. The sphere rolled over him, crushing him completely.
Then he stood up again later, because it was actually a giant inflatable ball.
Confusion and terror mixed into something absurd.
Every corridor was a joke with teeth.
Every trap was designed with the emotional intelligence of a bored god.
Within minutes, all ten men were defeated by pure psychological exhaustion.
Game over.
Silence.
Then the golden hand returned.
It scooped them up like small dolls and dropped them into a glass cup.
The hand carried them back to Shi Family Gully.
Then it tilted the cup.
Ten limp bodies rolled out onto the ground in front of Old Nanfeng and the others.
Dust rose slightly.
Old Nanfeng walked forward and kicked one of them lightly.
"Still want to run?"
The ten men lay on the ground, weak and broken in spirit.
"No more," one of them whispered.
"Never again," another said.
Old Nanfeng nodded slowly, satisfied.
"Good."
Above the valley, the mountain wind passed quietly.
Somewhere unseen, Li Dao Xuan's gaze remained steady, like a system administrator watching a world that insisted on behaving like a chaotic simulation.
And in Shi Family Gully, grain stood guarded, prisoners stood disciplined, and fear itself had learned a new shape called Dao Xuan Tianzun's Underworld.
Trivia Notes
[1] "War Crimes" (戰爭罪) — A modern legal term deliberately applied by Dao Xuan Tianzun. Late-Ming law did not classify such crimes clearly; this redefinition allows systematic punishment without feudal loopholes.
[2] Wagon Wall Defense — A real historical tactic used by Ming troops and rebels alike, especially during supply defense. Cheap, ugly, effective.
[3] Underworld Imagery — Traditional Chinese depictions of Diyu (Hell) emphasized punishment as education, not annihilation. Dao Xuan Tianzun's version follows the same philosophy—pain with a lesson plan.
[4] Sugar as Morale — In the Ming period, sugar was a rare luxury for common soldiers. Issuing it deliberately signals prosperity, control, and psychological dominance.
[5] "Return Home Bandits" — Disbanded rebel soldiers after amnesty often caused more damage than active rebels, due to hunger, resentment, and lack of resettlement support.