The seventh year of Tianqi.
Great Ming Dynasty.
Shaanxi Province.
Chengcheng County — Gao Family Village.
It was summer, scorching and merciless.
The temperature clawed its way toward forty degrees, as if the heavens were trying to steam the entire province into jerky.
Shaanxi had not seen proper rain for years. Grass and trees withered, the land cracked open, and yellow sand ruled everything.
Gao Yiye could not remember the last time she had eaten a full meal.
She had been a child marked by hardship since birth—her father died young, leaving her and her mother to rely on each other. Poverty had made her sensible far too early; she helped with farm work as soon as she could walk, and between the two of them, life had at least been survivable.
But in the past two years, even "survivable" had become a luxury.
The drought worsened relentlessly. The small river by the village dried into a dead trench, and even the well water barely sufficed for drinking. There was no water left to nourish the fields, and not a single grain could be coaxed from the soil.
Yiye could only go out each day to dig for wild vegetables.
Later, even the wild plants died.
She and her mother were reduced to chewing tree bark and scraping for roots, clinging to life with no path in sight.
And when Heaven closes a door…
It does not forget to weld the windows shut as well.
Just when their lives were already unbearable, bandits decided it was the perfect time to rob the starving.
Gao Yiye threw herself onto her mother's freshly slain body and wailed.
The bandit's grin was vile. The woman he just killed would feed his brothers for two or three days, and after chopping up the little girl… well, that was a few more days' rations.
A real bargain.
He raised his rusty blade and swung toward the back of the girl's neck.
And at that exact moment—
The sky changed.
Clouds churned violently.
From within them, a colossal hand emerged, plunging downward in a flash.
Yiye felt the sun suddenly disappear, swallowed by a shadow. She lifted her tear-blurred eyes—
And saw a sight she would remember until the end of her days.
The hand above her curled its index finger—
Snap.
A flick.
The bandit who had been mid-swing was launched skyward like a kicked pebble.
He flew fast.
He flew far.
He soared past Yiye, over the huts, over the entire village—gliding through the air like a red dragonfly in a blue summer sky—until he finally crashed into the yellow sands outside the village.
The impact shattered every bone in his body.
His neck bent grotesquely.
He was as dead as dead could be.
From above, thunder murmured.
A powerful, angry voice echoed faintly:
"Despicable bandits."
Then the giant hand retracted into the clouds and vanished.
Yiye forgot to cry.
She simply stared blankly at the heavens.
"What… what just happened?" a nearby bandit shouted. "Why did he fly off like that? Flew so far!"
"I dunno! One moment he was there, then whoosh, gone!"
"What hit him?! How hard must it have been?!"
"Was it… the girl?"
Dozens of bandits approached her.
Yiye sat on the ground, holding her mother's corpse, staring numbly at the murderous crowd. She did not think of fleeing, nor resisting. Only confusion filled her mind.
They didn't see it?
That massive hand… that enormous flick…
How could they not see it?
And why do they think it was me? What ability could I possibly have?
The bandit leader snarled, "Girl. What trick did you just use?"
Yiye shook her head blankly.
"Not talking?" He raised his blade. "I've got ways to make you—"
He stepped forward—
But before the blade could fall, the clouds above churned again.
WHOOSH.
The same giant hand burst forth.
Same curl of the finger.
Same flick.
The bandit leader screamed as he was hurled backward, flying dozens of meters before crashing into the ground. His bones snapped like twigs.
Instant death.
The remaining bandits gaped.
"What happened?!"
"Why did the chief fly backward?!"
"It's her! The girl again!"
"Witchcraft! It must be witchcraft!"
"What demon spell did you cast?!"
They shouted in fear, anger, panic.
And only then did Yiye understand—
They truly could not see the giant hand.
Only she could.
She looked up again.
This time, through a parting in the clouds, she faintly saw a man's face, vast and distant, gazing down like a deity surveying the mortal realm.
She gently laid her mother's body aside and fell to her knees.
"Great Heavenly Lord…
Please… save us…"
On the other side of reality—
Li Daoxuan frowned deeply.
He had flicked two bandit figurines to save the tiny girl and was scolding himself for being childish—
A grown man fighting with plastic toys? Seriously?
But then…
The tiny girl looked up.
And for a brief, surreal heartbeat, he felt as if their gazes met through the glass of the diorama.
Her eyes were full of emotion—real emotion.
Then she knelt and kowtowed toward him.
"Great Heavenly Lord…
Please save us…"
Something soft inside Daoxuan's heart crumbled on the spot.
"Life is already crushing them," he muttered. "And you still slaughter them? You beasts… You're not worthy of being human. You're not even worthy of being plastic."
He lifted his palm—
and slapped straight down onto the diorama.
To the bandits, the world went mad.
Just moments ago, their chief had been flung into the distance. Now they saw the girl praying to the heavens.
The next instant—
Thunder roared.
Something enormous plummeted from the sky, unseen but terrifying, stirring the yellow sands into spiraling storms.
"PA!"
One bandit was suddenly flattened into a human pancake.
Completely crushed—from above.
Blood splattered.
The others screamed in terror.
"What happened?!"
"He just—he's smashed flat!!"
"What's going on?!"
"PA!"
Another bandit became a puddle of meat.
"PA!"
Another.
"PA!"
"PA!"
"PA!"
One after another, invisible force crushed them like bugs.
They ran. It made no difference.
None escaped.
The sand in the village turned red.
Yiye lifted her mother's body again, sobbing.
"Mother… Heaven has opened its eyes. It avenged you…"