Master Bai watched the villagers' fanatical behavior, feeling a little uneasy. After recalling Shan Shi'er's earlier actions, he quickly put two and two together.
A cult. This was definitely a cult.
This was classic, textbook heresy.
That young girl was clearly acting as the Saintess, no different from the White Lotus maidens who led misguided masses to ruin. And the "Tianzun" they worshipped? In essence, no different from the "Unborn Venerable Mother."
The Great Ming Dynasty had spent centuries relentlessly suppressing the White Lotus Sect, and the crackdown had never let up.
As a gentleman who had thoroughly studied the Six Arts, Master Bai naturally wanted nothing to do with cults.
He grabbed Shan Shi'er's arm, pulling him aside for a whispered interrogation. "Is this entire village running a cult?! Why on earth are you mixing yourself up with these people?"
Shan Shi'er replied, "Worshiping an evil god makes it a cult. But if the god is benevolent, you can't call it one."
"Listen to what they're shouting!" Master Bai hissed. "'Afraid of their hammer? My ass!' What kind of slogan is that? If this isn't a cult, then what is?"
Shan Shi'er coughed softly, eyes twinkling. "Ah, well... that is simply because Tianzun is... unconventional."
"Madness. You've all gone completely mad."
Shan Shi'er chuckled. "Master Bai, I understand how you feel. When I first arrived in this village, I thought exactly the same way. That is, until I witnessed Tianzun perform a miracle with my own eyes."
Master Bai shot him a skeptical sideways glance. "That's the oldest trick in the book! Cult frauds always have some saintess or medium claim they saw a god manifest while no one else can see a thing. Spare me."
"Ah, but as for Tianzun's miracle just now... you saw it too, didn't you?" Shan Shi'er pointed out.
A giant question mark might as well have appeared above Master Bai's head.
"When exactly did I see that?"
Shan Shi'er pointed beyond the village walls. "That sandstorm that suddenly sprang up just now, the one that helped your household guards and tenant farmers escape into Gaojia Village. Tell me, did you feel any wind hitting your face?"
The question hit Master Bai like a slap.
He'd been too busy running for his life to think about it earlier. But now that he recalled what had happened, something seemed seriously wrong. The sandstorm had raged outside the village, yet even though he'd been standing only a few hundred meters away, he hadn't felt a single gust of wind against his skin.
That was strange. Genuinely strange.
"That wind," Shan Shi'er explained, "was Tianzun casting a spell."
Mister Bai stood speechless, torn between deep skepticism and creeping dread. His rational Confucian education clashed violently with the evidence of his own senses.
Meanwhile, the bandits outside the village had temporarily halted their advance. After hearing the villagers shouting together, they realized Gaojia Village had decided to fight back.
Fine. If the villagers wanted a fight, then there was no point pretending to be friendly.
They sent two men running back to inform their leader and tell him to prepare an assault on Gaojia Village. The rest stayed where they were, sitting outside the village and coldly eyeing the high wall.
Inside, the villagers were beginning to panic.
None of them had any combat experience, and faced with a situation like this, they had no idea what to do. They turned to Shan Shi'er for guidance, but he was just as clueless and could only shake his head.
With no other options, everyone looked to Gao Yiye.
Gao Yiye spread her hands helplessly. "Tianzun says we should make our own preparations first. He has something else to take care of for a while."
Everyone: "..."
Shan Shi'er immediately grabbed Master Bai by the arm.
"Master Bai, it looks like we're counting on you to take command. You were the militia instructor at Bai Family Fort. You know how to fight!"
Master Bai gave a bitter laugh. "I'm the one who lost the battle and got chased all the way here!"
"Every setback teaches you something," Shan Shi'er replied. "You're still more qualified than the rest of us."
Master Bai thought it over.
"Fine. I'll take charge."
The bandits had sent messengers to fetch reinforcements, while their main force was still busy looting his family's belongings at Bai Family Fort. The round trip would take at least four shichen, or roughly eight hours. At the earliest, the bandits wouldn't arrive until evening.
They still had time.
Master Bai began by taking a headcount. Gaojia Village had around 150 residents. After excluding the elderly, the weak, women, and children, roughly seventy people remained who could fight.
Among those who had fled into the village with him were more than a dozen household guards and over sixty tenant farmers. All the guards were capable fighters. After excluding the elderly, the weak, women, and children among the tenant farmers, another twenty-four men could take up arms.
Altogether, they had just over a hundred fighters.
A little over a hundred men defending a wall two zhang high. They had a fighting chance!
Hope surged back. Master Bai waved his hand and began issuing orders.
"All able-bodied men, get moving! Gather every stone in the village, big or small, and bring them to the walls. Use the largest stones to barricade the gate from behind. Even if the bandits smash through the wooden doors, they still won't be able to force their way inside!"
"Use the medium and smaller stones against anyone trying to climb the walls. Pay special attention to the area above the gate. Pile up plenty of medium-sized stones there. If the bandits try to force their way through the entrance, drop the stones on their heads and crush them!"
"If we run out of stones, we can dismantle the stone buildings..."
His gaze swept across the village. Almost every building was a shabby thatched hut, and only one structure was made of stone.
Looking more closely, he spotted it standing out like a sore thumb: the Dao Xuan Tianzun Cave, which was still practically brand-new.
He was just about to suggest tearing it down when Shan Shi'er interrupted him.
"That one is off-limits. If you try to dismantle it, you'll die without even having a place to bury your body."
Master Bai blinked in surprise.
So the whole village of cultists is determined to protect their shrine. As an outsider, I'd better not make trouble. A wise man knows when to back down.
He quickly moved on and raised his voice again.
"Does the village have any oil? If we do, we can boil it and pour it over the bandits when they climb the walls!"
He regretted asking almost as soon as the words left his mouth.
One look at the village was enough to tell him how poor it was. The buildings were little more than thatched huts, the villagers wore ragged clothes, and a few makeshift shelters stood along the inside of the walls. Many people didn't even have a shelter. They simply spread dry straw on the bare ground and slept there.
Where would a village this poor find oil? They would probably have to make do with boiling water instead, though it wouldn't be nearly as effective.
He'd barely finished thinking about it when Shan Shi'er began shouting orders.
"You, you, you... and you! The dozen of you, hurry to the storehouse and bring out that huge basin of oil! Get the pots, bowls, and pans ready, and have the women heat the oil until it's boiling!"
The villagers he pointed out answered immediately and rushed into a dilapidated building. Before long, they emerged carrying an enormous basin of oil.
The basin was actually the cap of a mineral water bottle. But once it was inside the box, it had become a gigantic basin nearly one zhang across.
It was less than half full. If it had been filled to the brim, a dozen villagers wouldn't have been able to move it at all.
With a heavy thud, the enormous basin of oil was set down in front of Master Bai.
He stared at it in utter disbelief.
"That's a lot of oil! And it smells wonderful. This is all top-quality rapeseed oil! In the middle of a drought like this... Gaojia Village is actually this wealthy?"
Shan Shi'er chuckled. "A divine gift from Tianzun. There's plenty more to surprise you with. Stop gawking and get back to work. What other ways can we defend the walls? Let's hear them!"
Master Bai quickly snapped out of his daze. Every second counted, and this was no time to stand around staring.
He led the hundred or so fighters up onto the walls, dividing them into squads and assigning each group a defensive position. He personally explained how they should respond if the bandits attacked from one direction, what to do if they came from another, and how to react if the enemy managed to climb onto the walls.
He worked out one messy contingency plan after another, preparing for as many possible scenarios as he could.
Meanwhile, Li Daoxuan had already gone downstairs. He was standing in a children's toy shop, scanning the rows of little toys displayed on the counter...