I died young at the start, but I'm reincarnated with unlimited skill points!

The three imperial edicts from the Great Li Dynasty were like three poisoned blades, piercing the hearts of millions of ordinary people in the capital.

Ten households were held jointly liable.

He was executed by slow slicing and displayed to the public.

A reward will be given for reporting.

On the first day after the imperial decree was issued, all three thousand elite cavalrymen of the Zhenfu Division were mobilized.

All seventy-three locations listed in the secret report were included without exception.

The courtyard involved was completely surrounded, and armored soldiers broke in like wolves and tigers.

There was no trial, no confrontation.

The men, women, and children in the courtyard, along with the neighbors from the three streets next door, totaling more than 1,700 people, were all dragged onto the city wall.

The executioner's blade swung from dawn till dusk, and blood flowed down the city walls like a river.

The corpse was hung upside down on the battlements, exposed to the scorching sun, and the stench of decay permeated the entire inner city for seven days.

Fear, like an invisible giant net, instantly enveloped the entire capital.

The person who reported it arrived the next day.

The allure of the exemption from tribute plaques was too great.

Under the Blood Tribute system, every mortal lives in constant fear of being chosen and sent to the Blood Refining Workshop.

A plaque exempting a family from paying tribute meant that the whole family wouldn't have to worry about being drained of their lifeblood for three years.

Three years of life.

This price is enough to make many people sell everything.

The first whistleblower was an old man who sold tofu.

He reported a blacksmith in the next alley, saying he heard the blacksmith muttering that incantation while forging iron.

The blacksmith's entire family of seven was taken away by the Zhenfu Division that night.

The old man received the iron plaque exempting him from paying tribute, and silently closed his door amidst the complex gazes of his neighbors.

On the third day, even more people reported it.

Someone reported their neighbor for the sake of the iron plaque.

To save their own lives, some people reported their friends.

Some people even fabricated evidence that didn't exist in order to fight for that iron plaque, framing innocent people who had never recited the incantation.

The Zhenfu Division doesn't care whether it's true or false.

They only care about numbers.

Every human head is a contribution reported to the evil spirits.

Within just seven days, more than 13,000 mortals were executed in and around the capital for committing suicide.

There were no more corpses hanging on the city walls, so they had to be piled up in the mass graves outside the city.

Flocks of vultures circled over the capital, shrouding the entire city in a stench of decay and death.

Fear did indeed have an effect.

In the capital, no one dared to mention that mantra in public anymore.

Even in their own homes, even in the dead of night in bed, people dared not make the slightest sound.

The ironclad rule of collective punishment among ten households turned everyone into a prison for each other.

You never know if your neighbor might betray you for a metal plaque.

You never know if your neighbor is secretly watching your every move.

Trust between people was completely destroyed in those seven days.

That's human nature.

Faced with fear, most people choose silence, self-preservation, and pretending nothing happened.

But Zhao Chengqian and Xue Du both overlooked one thing.

What's in a person's heart cannot be killed.

……

Deep within a narrow alleyway outside the capital city.

In the dilapidated mud-brick house, a thin, old woman was hunched over feeding her granddaughter thin porridge.

The little girl was only five years old and so thin that she was just skin and bones, but her eyes were extremely large and bright.

"grandmother."

The little girl spoke in a very, very soft voice.

"Uncle Wang from next door got arrested, was it because of that song?"

The old woman's bowl of porridge trembled slightly.

She didn't answer, but simply fed the last spoonful of porridge to her granddaughter.

"Grandma, can that song really make bad guys fall from the sky?"

The old woman froze.

She slowly put down the bowl of porridge, and a very complex look flashed in her cloudy old eyes.

She has lived most of her life and witnessed too much suffering.

Her husband was selected as a blood tribute twenty years ago, and was drained alive and sent to the blood refinery.

Her son died from exhaustion in a mine pit last year during a forced labor operation.

Now, all that's left in this world is her and her five-year-old granddaughter.

She's an old woman; if she dies, she's gone.

But her granddaughter is still young, and she wants her granddaughter to live a few more years.

but……

When have you ever seen an official forbid ordinary people from singing a song?

there has never been.

But this time they panicked and punished all ten households together, extending to the extermination of nine generations of their families.

More than 10,000 people were killed just to prevent people from reciting those few dozen words.

The old woman was illiterate and didn't understand any profound principles about cultivating immortality.

But having lived for decades, she understood one thing clearly, even though she knew nothing else.

The more you try to prevent people from talking about something, the more effective it is.

She saw it with her own eyes in the square.

Those demons that fell from the sky.

Those few dozen words can really hurt them.

The old woman remained silent for a very long time.

Then she reached out her thin, dry hand and gently touched her granddaughter's head.

"Little girl, Grandma will teach you a song."

"Remember this, but don't say it out loud, and don't tell anyone."

"Never touch it as long as it's still alive."

As she spoke, a fierce and sorrowful look appeared in the old woman's cloudy eyes.

"But what if one day you're cornered by those monsters and there's no way you can survive..."

"If you recite it again, I'll turn into a rainstorm and drag them all down with me!"

The little girl nodded obediently.

The old woman leaned close to her granddaughter's ear and whispered something only the two of them could hear.

He recited the incantation word by word.

Outside the narrow alley, the imperial guards of the Zhenfu Division were searching house to house.

The dull thud of iron hooves echoed across the bluestone slabs.

But in that dilapidated mud-brick house, the five-year-old girl closed her eyes and engraved the mnemonic into the deepest part of her heart, word by word.

She didn't know what the words meant.

But she remembered what her grandmother said.

When you feel you can't go on living no matter what, just say it out loud.

……

Such scenes are not limited to this one dilapidated house.

Every corner of the capital, and even the vast territory of Dali beyond the capital.

Before being taken away by the Zhenfu Division, one husband whispered the incantation in his wife's ear during their last embrace.

Before her execution, a mother silently gestured each word to her son in the crowd.

On the way to his execution, a prisoner suddenly recited a mantra. Although he only managed to recite half a sentence before his throat was slit, hundreds of people around him heard it.

The ban killed those who dared to speak out.

But the ban won't kill those who have memorized the mantra.

The more brutal the ban, the more it proves the same thing to everyone.

This thing can really hurt them.

Otherwise, why would they be so afraid?

Half a month later.

Three hundred li north of the capital of the Great Li Dynasty, deep in the wilderness.

In an abandoned mine half-buried in yellow sand, a camp of thousands of people is operating in extreme secrecy.

This is the temporary base of the mortal resistance army.

After Li Zizai's death, under Su Yu's covert command and Li Xiaotian's actual management, the team not only did not collapse, but also absorbed more refugees and rebels who fled from various places.

The troop strength was expanded from 10,000 to nearly 20,000.

Deep inside the mine, in a secret chamber made of rubble.

Su Yu sat cross-legged, the body of a five-year-old child forming an extremely strange contrast with his extremely calm temperament.

Seven people stood in front of him.

These were the seven key figures that Li Zizai had placed in the capital before his death.

On the day of the execution, they mingled with the crowd and witnessed Li Zizai's heroic death. Afterward, they went into hiding and operated secretly in the capital for more than half a month.

Now, they risked their lives to cross the blockade and bring back the latest intelligence from inside the capital.

"The ban is indeed effective."

The leader, a bearded man, was named Zhou Tiezhu, and had a hoarse voice.

"Openly, no one dares to read it anymore."

"With more and more people reporting the crimes, the Zhenfu Division killed more than 10,000 people, and everyone in the city lived in fear."

Su Yu nodded slightly without saying a word.

"but……"

Zhou Tiezhu paused, a glint of light flashing in his eyes.

"Secretly, the incantation was passed on faster than we imagined."

"We spent half a month staking out the outer city and discovered something."

"The stricter the ban, the more people will believe it."

"The common people aren't stupid; they've never seen the government kill so many people for a song before."

"Ten households jointly punished, with an iron plaque exempting them from paying tribute—this kind of scale isn't even comparable to a rebellion."

"What does that mean? It means this thing really works."

"The common people don't dare to say it now, but they are all thinking the same thing: those evil spirits that fell from the sky in the square have really been blown off their feet."

Su Yu listened quietly, a faint smile playing on her lips.

This is exactly what he predicted.

The ban is a double-edged sword.

It can suppress all voices with fear for a short time, but the harder the fear is suppressed, the greater the rebound force will be.

Because the ban itself is the best form of closure.

The more you ban something, the more you're telling everyone that it can hurt them.

However, relying solely on the secret transmission of mnemonic rhymes among the people is far from sufficient.

The power of the mortal self-destruction technique depends on how many mortals detonate it simultaneously at the same time.

A mortal's self-mutilation can only purify the demonic energy within a radius of several miles, and the energy will quickly recover.

But what if ten thousand, one hundred thousand, or even one million ordinary people detonated it at the same time?

That level of purification is enough to permanently reduce the concentration of demonic energy in an entire area.

And this is the real killer move that can shake the very foundation of evil.

"The capital city cannot be touched for the time being."

Su Yu finally spoke, his voice still childish, but the composure and maturity in his tone made all seven adults present subconsciously straighten their backs.

"The ban is in full swing; a direct confrontation would only be a death sentence."

"Let's look beyond the capital."

Su Yu raised his hand and pointed to several locations on the sheepskin map spread out in front of him.

"The territory of the Great Li Dynasty is vast, and the power of the Zhenfu Division can only be concentrated in the capital and a few major cities at most."

"In remote counties, towns, and villages, the enforcement of the ban will inevitably be much weaker."

"These are our main battlefields."

As a time traveler, Su Yu naturally understood the value of the tactic of encircling the cities from the countryside.

His gaze swept over the seven people.

"After you return, do not stay in the capital. Disperse to various prefectures and counties, find those who have memorized the incantation, and organize them."

"They don't need to die now."

"Just let them know what they need to do when the bugle sounds someday in the future."

What I want is a net.

Su Yu's gaze fell on the dozens of crisscrossing official roads on the map.

"A network that spans the entire territory of Dali."

"The day this net is woven will be the end of the demons."

The seven people clasped their hands in a fist salute.

"Yes, sir!"

……

In the days that followed, the mortal resistance began an extremely covert yet highly efficient infiltration operation.

The seven core members split into smaller groups, each leading their own squads, and radiated outwards from the official roads in all directions of the Great Li Dynasty.

They no longer blatantly robbed the Blood Tribute caravan like Li Zizai did.

Instead, it seeped into every remote village and town silently, like water.

Wherever they went, they didn't rush to spread the mnemonic verses.

Instead, they first sought out the most respected elders, the most prestigious village elders, and the most outspoken and unyielding people in the area.

Then, they only did one thing.

Tell a story.

Tell the story of Li Zizai.

It tells the story of the mortal leader who was burned by demonic fire in the square, yet remained silent.

Tell me about that roar that pierced through the demonic fire.

It tells of the demons that fell from the sky.

A person's ears can be sealed, and their mouth can be sewn shut.

But stories can't be killed.

A good story only needs to be told once, and it will grow wings on its own.

The story that Li Zizai wrote with his life is the best story in the world.

Because it tells every desperate mortal.

Your life is not worthless.

Your death can also make those high and mighty things fall from the sky!