Shan Shi'er waved his hands frantically. "Wait, wait. General Cheng, how could I possibly dare to tease you? There really is no city here."
Cheng Xu exploded. He jabbed a finger at the massive wall behind Shan Shi'er and roared, "Open your dog eyes! That thing behind you is a city wall big enough to block out the sky! You dare spout nonsense at me? I will cut you down right now!"
Shan Shi'er's knees nearly folded. This man was a military officer. Crude. Violent. When he said he would cut someone down, he meant it. Shan Shi'er really did not want to get chopped.
But every word coming out of his mouth was what Tianzun had told him to say. He did not dare disobey.
Tianzun is watching from above. He will not let this guy actually kill me. Just act. Push through.
"Wait, General Cheng. Did you oversleep? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed? There really is no city here."
"Fuck!" Cheng Xu's steel saber left its sheath.
Li Daoxuan saw this and knew it was time to act.
He placed his phone inside the box. Then, in the air behind the soldiers, he opened a pre-prepared horror movie soundtrack and hit play.
"Wah... hahahahaha... wuuu... oh hehehe..."
A ghostly female laugh echoed from behind the soldiers.
The sound was loud. Overwhelmingly loud.
Horror movie ghost laughs were already creepy. Amplified, the entire world seemed to fill with that terrible, eerie laughter.
Cheng Xu had just drawn his saber when he heard the giant female laugh behind him. He nearly jumped out of his skin. The steel blade clattered to the ground. He spun around.
Every soldier under his command turned around too.
Li Daoxuan yanked his hand back and pulled the phone out.
When the soldiers turned, all they saw was yellow sand stretching out, dust swirling in the air, sand winds twisting. Nothing else.
Some of them spun in circles, searching. Others just stood there, mouths hanging open.
"What just happened?"
"What was that?"
"Who the hell was laughing?"
"I don't know! I didn't see anyone!"
"That sound... that wasn't human."
"Don't say that. Don't you dare say that."
"My grandmother used to tell stories about things in the desert. Things that laugh."
"Shut up! Just shut up!"
The soldiers muttered among themselves, eyes wide, searching desperately.
Li Daoxuan chuckled to himself.
While their attention was fixed in the opposite direction, he reached into the box and grabbed the Lego bricks that formed the city wall. He pulled them out of the diorama box. Then he reached in again and took out the Lock&Lock container filled with water. And the Pepsi can half-buried in the ground. He grabbed everything and pulled it all out.
Inside Gaojia Village, over a hundred villagers watched as the village's objects rose into the air one by one and disappeared into the clouds. The sight was beyond shocking. Absolutely stunning.
Li Daoxuan finished removing everything. He dusted the sand off his hands and went back to watching the show.
The soldiers stared behind them for a long while. They saw nothing. They could not find where that terrible female cry had come from. They had no choice but to give up, uneasy, and turn back to face Shan Shi'er.
The moment they turned, everyone froze. Like they had been hit with a paralysis spell.
They stood frozen for a full ten seconds before Cheng Xu stammered, "Fuck. Fuck, where is the wall? Such a big wall. It was right here a moment ago."
Shan Shi'er understood Tianzun's arrangement now. Confidence surged through him.
See? Listening to Tianzun was the right move. He told me to pretend I could not see the wall. So this was the plan. Hahaha. The rest is up to me.
He laughed wildly inside, but on the surface, he kept the same baffled expression. "General Cheng, what are you talking about? There is no wall here. There has never been a wall here. Things are just as they have always been."
Cheng Xu screamed at the top of his lungs. "Fuck! Fuck! I swear, there was a wall here just now. A wall this big. Two zhang tall. A full two zhang tall wall! Did you all see it? Such a big wall just now... wall... after that weird female laugh, the wall disappeared."
His words were starting to fall apart.
Shan Shi'er shook his head and sighed. "General, I did not hear any female laugh. And there is no wall here..."
Cheng Xu whipped his head toward his men and roared, gesturing wildly at the empty space. "You all heard it, right? You all saw it, right? A wall this big. It was right here just now."
His men were drenched in cold sweat. They had seen the wall. But now they really did not see it. Should they believe their past selves or their present selves?
Their minds were a mess.
Shan Shi'er grinned. A dark, eerie grin. The kind of smile a mountain ghost gives when prey finally walks into its trap. "The General must be under too much pressure chasing Wang Er. Why not come into the village and rest for the night? Tomorrow, full of energy, you can continue searching for Wang Er and his gang. Hehehe... hehehe... tss..."
He licked his lips at the end, as if he had just spotted something delicious.
Cheng Xu's gaze slid over Shan Shi'er's strange expression. Then he glanced at the village.
Dust hung thick in the air inside Gaojia Village. A large crowd of villagers knelt on the ground, their eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on something only they could see. They bowed and murmured prayers to some unseen presence.
Broken stone, scattered wood, clay molds, and dirt blocks lay piled around them. The whole village felt wrong. Off. Like a place where the rules had stopped working.
Then he remembered that terrible female laugh.
Cheng Xu's scalp prickled. "What kind of ghost village is this? I think I see my great-grandmother waving at me from inside. I am not going in. I will die before I go in. Let us go. Find Wang Er. I need to find Wang Er. I need to get far away from this place. I came to find Wang Er. Right, right. We are looking for Wang Er. Great-grandmother, I have to go. I am still young. I cannot go into the village to see you yet."
He turned and ran. After a few steps, he ran back, grabbed the steel saber from the ground, shoved it into its sheath, and turned to run again.
After a few more steps, he ran back, climbed onto his warhorse, and once again turned to flee.
He ran back and forth three times.
The Deputy Inspector, the archer Xiao Qi, and the rest all stared, dumbfounded.
After several seconds of stunned stillness, Shan Shi'er grinned again. His voice dropped to a low, rasping whisper. "General Cheng ran away. Are you not going to follow him? Or perhaps you would like to stay and be guests in Gaojia Village? Hehehe... tss... you all look absolutely delicious."
The Deputy Inspector let out a strangled cry and bolted after Cheng Xu. The hundred-plus soldiers behind him scrambled in a miserable, dusty mess, chasing after their leader.
In the blink of an eye, the whole group had vanished.
Only after they were far away did Shan Shi'er put his hands on his hips and burst out laughing. "Fun! Too fun! Hahahaha! You, Cheng, you looked down on me before. Now you know how formidable this advisor is, huh? Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Scared you half to death, you fool."
Li Daoxuan said, "The soldiers are gone. Yiye, tell everyone to move away from the original wall position. I am going to put the wall back."
Gao Yiye quickly relayed the message.
The villagers were stunned. Especially the new villagers. This was their first time witnessing Dao Xuan Tianzun's divine power. Their faces went slack, then pale. Several dropped to their knees on instinct, then scrambled back up and crawled away from the wall's original position, terrified of getting in the way of the immortal's magic.
Soon, the wall descended from the sky once more. It moved slowly, steadily, settling back into its original position. The sight of that massive structure floating down from the heavens left them speechless. Then Blacksmith Li's cylindrical house descended too, landing back where it had been. The giant pond came down as well, settling back into its original pit.