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Above the Hundred Play Town, the Zhao Family Master let out a low sigh, slowly rose to his feet, sleeves hanging heavy, and walked straight toward Double Steamed Wine, his voice deep: "Just to let my Zhao Family's Three Parts of the Heavenly Hand appear in the world, to be seen by those vulgar mortals, you'd even be willing to stake your life?"

"How could that be? The Zhao Family isn't worth that."

Double Steamed Wine looked over at the Zhao Family Master with a smile, and his expression gradually grew solemn: "The greatest trick in this world has nothing to do with your Zhao Family."

"Its name is: Power!"

"The Zhao Family's tricks are no more than entertainments, pilfering a bit of Silver Coin. Only this trick can plunder the whole world at will and call it righteous; after stealing, it still makes people afraid to question, willing to starve to death instead."

"That is wrong!"

"Today I'm borrowing your Zhao Family's trump card to open the people's eyes, to let them see that hand that took away their grain!"

"But this is only a beginning. I only wish to use this body as the start, to let the common folk of this world know where their grain has truly gone…"

"To know who is the mouse, and who is the human!"

"…"

The Zhao Family Master had walked halfway when he stopped again, staring at him fixedly, his voice already trembling: "You'd go so far as to let your Divine Soul shatter and be forever severed from the human world, just for this?"

Double Steamed Wine looked at the Zhao Family Master in all seriousness, and smiled: "Mr. Zhao, that's where you're mistaken."

"For me to open the people's eyes is to leave my mark in this human world. No matter where this body of mine returns to, what regret could I still have?"

"…"

At this point, his gaze no longer rested on the Zhao Family Master, but slowly lifted upward as he smiled: "Tieguanyin sneaks around all mysterious, this he won't say, that he won't say—does he really think we can't see through it?"

"The only advantage a Reincarnator has when facing the Ten Clans is that he knows in advance he is doomed to die, so he can stake his life without hesitation to accomplish what he wants to do."

"Since that's the case, what difference is there between dying early and dying late?"

"Brothers, my heart has no regrets. I'll go on ahead; the odd jobs I'll leave for you to do…"

"…"

When his fleshly body collapsed and his Divine Soul began to disintegrate inch by inch, a smile suddenly surfaced on his face, and then, very properly, he formed a spell seal with his fingers.

He did not know many spells, and had little interest in the skills along the Path; he had always just liked teaching and playing with children.

Yet after teaching for over ten years, he slowly discovered that some principles really were hard to explain clearly with his efforts alone. When he heard of the trick door turning people into mice, he was furious—but what he was even more furious at were those people who regarded themselves as mice.

He pitied their misfortune and hated their failure to fight.

"Whether in my past life or this life, there's always been this urge to crack their skulls open and pour the principles straight in…"

Fortunately, in the original world, doing that was against the law.

But in this world, in the face of the transcendent power brought by Tai Sui and certain crises that drove people to despair yet came at just the right moment, it truly could be done.

And so long as they could understand these principles, what fear need there be of the trick door?

As for himself, he was worth the price!

So he took this opportunity to enact Magic with his own body, borrowing that Copper Coin, and borrowing the altar Old Sorghum had set up for him earlier before Xinshan, to annihilate his own Divine Soul, letting it ride upon the wind, drifting faintly away.

And the moment his figure vanished, was exactly when those streaks of shadow around the town entered this Zhao Family Hundred God Conference.

Pairs of eyes simultaneously turned toward the remnant trace of Double Steamed Wine as he disappeared into heaven and earth; in that instant, they intertwined with one another, reaching a subtle consensus, then sighed softly:

"Another clever fellow, taking the chance to run off…"

"It's easy for the ones who die first; the ones who die later are still worried they won't find a suitable chance to make sure they die clean…"

"People of the trick door, make sure you don't let us down…"

"…"

Peals of loud laughter rang out as streak after streak of black shadow charged into the small town. Facing those bizarre dharma methods, they advanced with unmatched bravado, and in an instant, there were people crossing blows everywhere.

Meanwhile, before Xinshan—where who knew how many "mice" had gathered—Anzhou's Old Sorghum saw the surrounding common folk in bewilderment, as if, within the steam rising from the boiling porridge, they were seeing some uncanny vision.

In front of him, the incense he had lit on the altar began to curl into circles, as though someone were sending a secret signal.

Knowing the time was ripe, he smiled, lit more incense, and called out toward the newly built yet already emptied granary:

"God of Rice Storage, God of Rice Storage."

"Everyone treats you as dearer than their own mother. I ask the granary to open its eyes and see whether I am a mouse or a human!"

"…"

He chanted this several times in a row. The three incense before him burned down to the base, and the incense smoke drifted toward the mountain.

Suddenly, an evil wind swept down from the mountain, blowing into the eyes of the people gathered at the foot of the mountain, making them all squint and blur. In that daze, they seemed to see countless people struggling and wailing on the mountainside, shrieking in misery, forcing those below to look at what they really were.

Some faintly saw their own neighbors on that mountain, saw their relatives, saw their clansmen, and even saw themselves.

They only felt an unprecedented grief well up in their hearts, as if a piece of their heart had been cut out. When they wiped their eyes and looked again, they saw that there were no mice at all on that mountain—only stark naked, filthy humans, starved to skin and bone, with nothing but terror in their eyes.

And at this moment, Old Sorghum bowed once more, and toward Xinshan before him cried out in a loud voice:

"Mountain God of Xinshan, Mountain God of Xinshan."

"Everyone worships you into godhood. I ask Xinshan to open its eyes and see whether I am a mouse or a human…"

"…"

Again a gloomy, bitter wind blew in, lashing fiercely into the eyes of these enraged commoners. In that moment of fury, it was as if they toppled into an illusion, seeing that great hand reaching out to seize away the grain.