Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

Early in the morning, Zhou Ming set out from the Imperial Palace with several thousand Imperial Guards. Their armor glinted coldly in the morning light, and their horses' hooves made dull, rhythmic echoes on the bluestone street.

His first stop was Shuangshui County. This county had been designated as the scripture-spreading region for the Zhang family, and the Zhang family was precisely one of the few aristocratic families that had not sent him gifts.

Upon entering the county seat, Zhou Ming immediately ordered the Imperial Guards to gather all the commoners they could find in the county into the plaza in front of the county government office.

Before long, the plaza was crowded with bewildered commoners. There were peddlers carrying poles, women holding children, and old farmers just dragged from the fields, their trouser legs still caked with mud.

Zhou Ming stood on the steps of the county government office, raised the copy of the Pingan Sutra in his hand, and asked them, word by word, if they had read this book.

Below, there was a silent, confused pause. Some shook their heads blankly, while others whispered to those beside them, "What is this?"

A thin old man, who looked like a scholar, stood on tiptoes to take a look, then shook his head.

Zhou Ming waited for a good while. Confirming that not a single person raised their hand, he nodded and had the Imperial Guards disperse the commoners.

Then, he vaulted onto his horse and led the Imperial Guards to directly surround the Zhang residence.

The head of the Zhang family had already panicked when he heard that Zhou Ming had brought the Imperial Guards into Shuangshui County.

By the time the Imperial Guards had sealed off both the front and back gates of the Zhang residence, the old master of the Zhang family had not even had time to put on his cap, stumbling out in disarray.

Upon seeing Zhou Ming, he flopped to his knees at Zhou Ming's feet, his voice trembling as he repeatedly begged for mercy.

Zhou Ming sat on his horse, looking down at the white-haired, shivering old man at his feet without the slightest change in expression.

He waved his hand, his voice unhurried yet overpowering the sound of the wind across the entire street:

"The Zhang family of Shuangshui County has deceived the Emperor and defied those above, disregarded the imperial will, acted against conscience, behaved lawlessly, and deeply failed the imperial expectations."

"It has been investigated that you have relied on your power to bully the countryside and prey upon the commoners. Some of you have forcibly seized fertile land, depriving people of their livelihoods; others have indulged servants in violence, destroying homes; or you have used crafty schemes to extort, causing public grievances to boil over, leaving the simple country folk with nowhere to voice their injustices."

"Shaking the foundation of the state, deceiving Heaven, and abusing the people—this is your first crime. The imperial will has repeatedly issued benevolent policies, yet you turned a deaf ear and feigned compliance, preventing these virtues from reaching the people—this is your second crime. Arrogant in your favor, you have bullied your own hometown, leaving the region in turmoil—this is your third crime."

"Guards! Throw everyone in the Zhang family into the celestial prison and confiscate all their family property for the state."

The Imperial Guards behind him charged into the Zhang residence like wolves and tigers, and before long, they had rounded up all one hundred or so members of the Zhang family, leaving no one behind.

The Zhang family's men were chained together in a line, while the women were held separately to the side, weeping in unison.

A quick-witted officer moved a grand armchair from the gatehouse and placed it right in the center of the Zhang residence's main gate, and Zhou Ming lifted his robes and sat down.

He looked calmly at the vast crowd of people kneeling before him.

Chest after chest of gold and silver treasures were carried out of the Zhang family's storehouse by the Imperial Guards. Large redwood trunks were piled on the open ground in front of the residence. When the lids were pried open, the gold and silver ingots dazzled the eyes in the sunlight.

Land deeds, house deeds, and slave contracts were stacked in piles on the trays to the side, along with a dozen jars of copper coins found in the backyard cellar.

The commoners watching the spectacle at first dared not make a sound, merely craning their necks to stare blankly at the mountains of gold and silver they had never seen before.

That was until a gold ingot rolled out from a gap in a chest, clattering into a crack in the flagstone. When an Imperial Guard bent down, picked it up, and tossed it back, that crisp sound was like a key, unlocking the grievances and resentment that had been pent up in the crowd for generations.

"This is our hard-earned money!" someone shouted, though it was unclear who.

A buzzing discussion erupted in the crowd, which quickly swelled into a roar.

Someone pointed at the thick stack of land deeds and burst into tears, saying that it was land passed down through three generations of his ancestors, only to be forcibly seized by the Zhang family.

Someone else trembled while looking at the slave contracts, saying that his daughter had been forced by the Zhang family to sign one, and he still did not know if she was dead or alive.

This silver, which could not be spent even in several generations, had all been scraped off them layer by layer.

Now that it was laid out and exposed in the sunlight, there was a ledger of blood and tears behind every single ingot of silver.

Some in the Zhang family cried out that they were wronged; some pointed at Zhou Ming and cursed him; some women and children wept until they were nearly fainting.

The old master of the Zhang family knelt on the ground, shivering uncontrollably, unable to form coherent words.

Zhou Ming sat on the grand armchair, his expression unchanged. Only when the Imperial Guards had moved the last chest of wealth out of the residence gate did he stand up and shake the hem of his robe.

At the very moment he stood up, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted at the top of their lungs: "A righteous official!"

This shout was like lighting the fuse of a firecracker.

"A righteous official!"

"Lord Zhou is a righteous official!"

The shouts rose one after another, each wave higher than the last.

A gaunt old man knelt down tremblingly, pressing his forehead against the cold flagstone, tears streaming down his face.

A woman holding a child pressed the child into her arms and knelt down together. The child, not understanding, followed along with a milky voice, shouting, "Great Official!"

The peddler dropped his pole, his knees slamming into the ground, and shouted at the top of his lungs until the veins on his neck bulged.

A vast sea of commoners on the entire street knelt down.

The cries of "Righteous Official!" followed Zhou Ming's cavalry all the way from the county office plaza to the city gate, lingering for a long time.

Some people ran after the horses for half the street, wiping away tears as they ran, their voices cracking from shouting.

Zhou Ming vaulted onto his horse and, amidst the thunderous cheers, ordered the Imperial Guards to set off.

The next stop was the Wang family in Anbao County.

For several days in a row, large detachments of Imperial Guards escorting prison carts passed along the official roads outside Yuyang Commandery. Inside the prison carts were the aristocratic masters and Young Masters who had once been overbearing in their localities.

Five or six aristocratic families that had not sent gifts to Zhou Ming were visited by him one by one, and the charges were surprisingly identical.

On the grounds of deceiving the Emperor and defying those above, disregarding the imperial will, acting against conscience, behaving lawlessly, and deeply failing imperial expectations, their families were confiscated and wiped out.

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

Zhou Ming's Imperial Guards arrived too quickly; before one family could hear the news of the previous one being raided, their own gates were already surrounded.

At this point, the other aristocratic families could no longer sit still.

Before Zhou Ming spoke again, an unprecedented spectacle appeared within the scripture-spreading regions designated to each aristocratic family.

The aristocratic family servants beat gongs and drums at the village entrance to call the whole village together.

Those who were literate stood on high platforms, holding the Pingan Sutra, leading the reading sentence by sentence. Below, men, women, young and old sat in a dense crowd, following along and chanting in unison.

From county seats to townships, from townships to remote mountain villages, the three thousand scriptures of the Pingan Sutra floated everywhere over Youzhou.

Some families, in order to save their lives, brought out the grain stored in their own storehouses.

Everyone who came to read the scriptures was given a liter of rice, and after reading it a hundred times, they were given another peck.

For a time, long lines formed in front of every scripture-spreading point. Commoners scrambled to come and chant the scriptures, and the sound of chanting was endless from morning till night.

Zhou Ming returned to Wuying Hall, sat on a low couch, and sank his Divine Sense into the center of his eyebrows.

In the Causality Web, the speed of over one hundred thousand new phantom images added daily began to accelerate.

Two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand—those newly born phantom images emerged continuously on the Causality Web like streams thawing in spring, gradually condensing from virtual to real into Causal Chains.

Zhou Ming withdrew his Divine Sense, leaned back against the chair, and picked up his teacup to take a sip.