If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

Early in the morning, Zhou Ming led several thousand imperial guards out of the palace. Their armor gleamed coldly in the morning light, and the horses' hooves echoed dully and rhythmically on the bluestone streets.

His first stop was Shuangshui County, which was designated as the area for the Zhang family to spread their teachings. The Zhang family was one of the few prominent families that had not sent him gifts before.

Upon entering the county town, Zhou Ming immediately ordered the Imperial Guards to gather all the people he could find in the county government office square.

Before long, the square was crowded with people looking at each other in bewilderment. There were peddlers carrying loads, women holding children, and old farmers who had just been brought from the fields, their trouser legs still covered in mud.

Zhou Ming stood on the steps of the county government office, raised the book "The Book of Peace" in his hand, and asked them, word by word, if they had read the book.

A bewildered silence fell over the crowd. Some people shook their heads blankly, while others whispered to the person next to them, "What is this?"

A thin old man who looked like a scholar tiptoed over and glanced at it twice, then shook his head.

Zhou Ming waited for a while, and after confirming that no one raised their hand, he nodded and ordered the Imperial Guards to disperse the people.

Then he mounted his horse and led the Imperial Guards to surround the Zhang residence.

When the head of the Zhang family heard that Zhou Ming had led the Imperial Guards into Shuangshui County, he panicked.

Once the Imperial Guards had sealed off both the front and back gates of the Zhang residence, Old Master Zhang, without even having time to put on his hat, staggered out, his clothes disheveled.

Upon seeing Zhou Ming, he immediately knelt at Zhou Ming's feet, his voice trembling as he begged for mercy.

Zhou Ming sat on his horse, looking down at the old man with gray hair and beard, trembling all over, without any change in expression.

He waved his hand dismissively, his voice neither hurried nor slow, yet it drowned out the wind along the entire street:

"The Zhang family of Shuangshui County has deceived the emperor, disregarded the emperor's will, defied conscience, and acted lawlessly, thus deeply betraying the emperor's expectations."

"According to the investigation, you have relied on your power to bully the countryside and exploit the people. You have seized fertile land and taken away their livelihoods, allowed your servants to commit violence and destroy people's houses, and used trickery and force to plunder, causing public resentment to boil over. The common people in the countryside have no way to seek justice."

"To undermine the foundation of the nation, to deceive Heaven and oppress the people, is the first crime. The Emperor has repeatedly and earnestly promulgated benevolent policies, yet you have turned a deaf ear, outwardly complying but inwardly opposing, causing the benefits of virtue to not reach the people, is the second crime. To be arrogant because of your favor, to oppress your hometown, causing unrest in this region, is the third crime."

"Guards, throw the entire Zhang family into the imperial prison and confiscate all their property."

The imperial guards behind them rushed into the Zhang residence like wolves and tigers, and soon brought out all of the more than one hundred members of the Zhang family.

The men of the Zhang family were chained together, while the women were held separately and wept bitterly.

A clever captain brought a grand chair from the gatehouse and placed it in the center of the Zhang residence's main gate. Zhou Ming lifted his robe and sat down.

He looked calmly at the large, dark mass of people kneeling before him.

Box after box of gold and silver treasures were carried out of the Zhang family's storeroom by the Imperial Guards. The large mahogany boxes were piled up on the open ground in front of the mansion. When the lids were pried open, the gold and silver ingots gleamed in the sunlight, making it hard to open one's eyes.

Land deeds, house deeds, and indentures were stacked in piles on the tray beside him, along with more than a dozen jars of copper coins that had been searched from the cellar in the backyard.

The onlookers initially dared not utter a sound, but simply craned their necks to stare in disbelief at the unprecedented mountains of gold and silver.

Until a gold ingot rolled out from the crack in the box, clattering as it rolled into the crack in the stone slab.

A soldier bent down, picked it up, and threw it back. The crisp sound was like a key, unlocking the grievances and resentment that had been accumulating in the crowd for generations.

"This is our hard-earned money!" someone shouted first.

A buzzing sound erupted from the crowd, quickly turning into a wave of noise.

Someone pointed to the thick stack of land deeds and burst into tears, saying that it was land that had been passed down for three generations of his family, but had been forcibly taken away by the Zhang family.

Some people trembled as they looked at the indenture, saying that his daughter was forced to sign it by the Zhang family and her fate remains unknown.

This wealth, enough to last several generations, was all scraped off layer by layer from them.

Now they are laid out and drying in the sunlight, and behind each silver ingot lies a story of blood and tears.

Some members of the Zhang family shouted that they were wronged, some pointed at Zhou Ming and cursed him, and some women and children cried so hard that they almost fainted.

Grandpa Zhang knelt on the ground, trembling all over, unable to utter a coherent sentence.

Zhou Ming remained seated in the armchair without changing his expression. Only after the Imperial Guards carried the last box of valuables out of the mansion did he stand up and shake the hem of his robe.

Just as he stood up, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted at the top of their lungs, "Your Honor!"

The sound was like the fuse of a firecracker being lit.

"Your Honor, the Just Magistrate!"

"Lord Zhou is an upright and just official!"

Shouts rose and fell, one wave higher than the next.

A gaunt old man knelt down shakily, his forehead pressed against the cold stone slab, tears streaming down his face.

The woman holding the child pressed the child into her arms and knelt down with him. The child, not knowing any better, also called out "Master" in a childish voice.

The peddler dropped his load, slammed his knees on the ground, and roared so loudly that the veins on his neck bulged.

A large number of people on the street knelt down in a sea of ​​black.

The cries of "Your Honor, the Upright Official!" echoed from the county government square all the way to the city gate, following Zhou Ming's cavalry for a long time.

Someone chased after the horse for half a block, wiping away tears as he ran, shouting until his voice cracked.

Zhou Ming mounted his horse and, amidst deafening cheers, ordered the Imperial Guards to set off.

Next stop, Wangjia Village in Anbao County.

For several days in a row, large contingents of imperial guards escorted prison carts along the official road outside Yuyang County, where once arrogant and powerful lords and their sons were imprisoned.

Zhou Ming visited five or six prominent families who had not given him gifts, and the charges against them were surprisingly consistent.

On the grounds that they deceived the emperor, disregarded the emperor's will, defied conscience, acted lawlessly, and deeply betrayed the emperor's expectations, their families were confiscated and their clans exterminated.

After the Zhang family's list of crimes was posted, it was too late for the other families to escape.

Zhou Ming's imperial guards arrived too quickly; before any family even heard the news of the previous family's property being raided, the gates of their mansions were already surrounded.

This made the other powerful families extremely uneasy.

Before Zhou Ming could speak again, an unprecedented spectacle appeared in the dissemination areas divided by each aristocratic family.

The servants of the powerful families gathered everyone in the village by beating drums and gongs at the village entrance.

A literate person stood on a high platform, holding the "Peace Sutra" and leading the reading line by line. Below, men, women, and children sat in a dense crowd, reciting in unison.

From county towns to townships, and from townships to remote mountain villages, the three thousand words of the "Peace Sutra" drifted everywhere over Youzhou.

In order to save their lives, some aristocratic families brought out the grain stored in their own granaries.

Everyone who comes to read the scriptures will be given one liter of rice, and after reading it a hundred times, an additional peck of rice will be given.

Long queues formed in front of the various dissemination points as people rushed to recite the scriptures, their chanting echoing from morning till night.

Zhou Ming returned to the Wuying Hall, sat on a low couch, and focused his consciousness into the space between his eyebrows.

Within the causal network, the rate at which tens of thousands of new phantoms were added every day began to accelerate.

Two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand—those newly born phantoms emerged continuously on the causal network like streams thawing in spring, gradually solidifying from the virtual to the real into a causal chain.

Zhou Ming withdrew his divine sense, leaned back in his chair, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.