Fire Dragon Burning the Granary

Thick smoke poured into the ground floor without obstruction along the exhaust duct, and the pungent smell of chemical synthetic combustion aids made people's throats feel salty.

Throughout history, the live broadcast across the skies never ceased despite the fire. High-definition cameras faithfully relayed this man-made disaster to every ancient person in a parallel universe. This act of "burning the granary with fire" was recorded far too often in the historical records of the Ming Dynasty's civil officials. Granary audits, fire dragons burning the granary; border inspections, fire dragons burning the granary. Now, this great fire had reached Zhu Dijun, who was exposing their past misdeeds.

In multiple parallel universes, those aristocratic families, literati, and officials who were either imprisoned or still standing in the court pretending to be upright, stared at the flames spreading across the sky. The fear of the past few days was replaced by an extremely distorted ecstasy.

Late Northern Song Dynasty.

Some people were being escorted in prison vans, their withered hands gripping the wooden bars, laughing loudly as they looked up at the sky:

"Burn! Burn it well! This brat is arrogant beyond measure, relying on his celestial magic to dishonor all scholars! He deserves this fate!"

The Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Hidden deep within his mansion, Qian Qianyi watched the flames on the screen approach Zhu Dijun's location, and his hand holding the teacup finally stopped trembling. He took a sip of Longjing tea and let out a long sigh. Once the storyteller was subdued by the heavenly fire, the secrets of those Jiangnan water-cold tales would be forgotten. A peasant is still a peasant; how could he possibly contend with the alliance of powerful and influential aristocratic families?

But the comment sections of modern live streams present a completely different picture. Viewers, even through their screens, can sense a conspiracy behind the fire. The scrolling numbers are so fast that motion capture is needed to read the content.

"This is blatant murder to cover it up! They just exposed Xu Jie and Xu Guangqi's comprador past, and then the hotel caught fire?"

"Is there even a question? It touched a nerve with certain academic cliques and vested interest groups. The fire alarm system malfunctioned at such a convenient time; they really think they can fool everyone!"

"Jun-ge, run! Forget about the equipment, Li Jiujiang, protect him and rush out!"

The Ming Dynasty, Jiajing 45th year.

Zhu Houcong, having just completed a ruthless counterattack, was still draped in his worn crane-feather cloak. The stench of blood outside the West Garden Abode was dispelled by the early winter wind, but his gaze fixed on the sky grew increasingly cold. The raging fire on the screen stirred up distant memories within him.

In the twenty-first year of the Jiajing reign, the Renyin Palace Coup occurred. Following that chaos that nearly cost him his life, a massive fire raged, burning fiercely into the sky. If it weren't for his sworn brother, Lu Bing, risking his life to rush into the inferno and carry him, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, out, the history of the Ming Dynasty would have been rewritten long ago. He knew all too well the methods of the civil official group—using others to kill and using fire to destroy corpses.

"A descendant of the King of Zhao, a descendant of the Li family."

Zhu Houcong stroked the jade ruyi, his voice hoarse.

"These pedantic literati want you dead. If you are truly consumed by this little flame, you are not worthy to sit before this sky and curse the Ming Dynasty awake. Kid, you must survive."

The Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu era.

Outside the Fengtian Hall, the purge by the Embroidered Uniform Guard was in full swing. Zhu Di stood beside Zhu Yuanzhang, arms crossed, his tiger-like eyes fixed on the sky. He saw Li Jiujiang draw his short pistol and shield Zhu Dijun as the two retreated towards the fire escape.

Zhu Di turned his head and looked at Li Jinglong, the Duke of Cao, who was standing in the ranks of military officers.

Jiujiang.

Zhu Di called out his cousin's nickname.

Li Jinglong quickly bowed and stepped forward.

"Fourth Uncle, I'm here."

"Look at that young man protecting my third son's descendant on the sky. He looks so much like you. That's a descendant of your Li family."

Zhu Di pointed to the sky,

"Give me a straight answer: do you think your descendants, along with the offspring of my Zhu family, will emerge from this fire today?"

Crown Prince Zhu Biao, Prince Qiyang Li Wenzhong, and others all turned their gazes over. Having observed them for some time, Tianmu had a clear understanding of their situation. The future bodyguard, Li Jiujiang, was a former military officer, currently holding the rank of Thousand-Household Commander (Army Colonel), and his firearms were extraordinary. However, the current situation was perilous; not only was there fire, but assassins lurked in the shadows.

Li Jinglong straightened his back, meeting Zhu Di's gaze: "Fourth Uncle, please rest assured. The men of our Li family are incredibly strong. My descendant's steps were steady, and his hand holding the gun didn't even tremble slightly. Such composure in the face of danger will surely protect the royal bloodline. Of course they will survive!"

Before Li Jinglong could finish speaking, the situation in the sky changed again.

Li Jiujiang kicked open the fire door to the stairwell. Instead of a path to survival, he was met with three fully armed assassins. They wore gas masks and carried assault rifles fitted with silencers.

Without any further words, the firefight began.

"Bang bang bang—"

Li Jiujiang reacted with lightning speed. Using the momentum from kicking the door, he leaned against the wall and repeatedly pulled the trigger of his 9mm pistol. The bullet traced a deadly trajectory in the narrow stairwell, precisely striking the weakest point in the lead assassin's armor. The man groaned and fell to the ground.

Two more assassins then pulled the triggers of their assault rifles, and a hail of bullets struck the fire door and walls, sending debris flying and forcing Li Jiujiang and Zhu Dijun back into a dead end in the corridor.

The Minister of War during the Hongwu reign and the artisans of the firearms battalion accompanying the army stopped breathing when they saw this scene.

"What...what kind of musket is that?"

An old craftsman lay on the ground, trying to get a closer look. There was no fuse, no match, and even the act of loading gunpowder was omitted. A man held a metal tool the size of a fire poker, from which projectiles were sprayed out in a continuous downpour, shattering the wall bricks.

Zhu Di's eyes shone with an alarming light. He had devoted his life to studying military strategy and firearms, and he knew that if such a musket, capable of continuous firing without the need for reloading, were equipped on the Ming army, the nomadic cavalry of the north would be nothing more than moving targets.

"Watch closely! Memorize the design of that firearm and the ejection mechanism!"

Zhu Yuanzhang slammed his palm on the jade railing.

"Such a powerful weapon, the Ming Dynasty will surely build it sooner or later!"

the other side

In the hotel's single-level corridor, the fire, fanned by the wind, had already spread to a third of the area. The high temperature caused the air to distort.

Li Jiujiang crouched behind the support column, removed the empty magazine, and pulled a new magazine from his tactical vest with one hand, slapping it into the grip. He peeked out to check the situation in the fire escape. In the previous firefight, he had taken down one enemy, but the two assault rifles on the other side had formed a crossfire, completely blocking their retreat.

"Brother Jun, something's wrong."

Li Jiujiang spoke calmly, his tactical acumen on full display at this moment.

"These people are professionals. The area downstairs is blocked off, and they've definitely tampered with the surrounding traffic to create artificial congestion. Our ground support can't get in. We can only wait for helicopter rescue from the air. But judging from the fire and the speed of their advance, we won't be able to hold out until then."

Judy leaned against the wall, took off his gas mask to get some fresh air, and coughed twice from the thick smoke. In this life-or-death situation, his fearless, barefoot-and-not-afraid-of-shoes spirit was unexpectedly brought out.

"I dug up their ancestral graves, so it's perfectly reasonable for them to want my life."

Zhu Dijun shook the sweat from his brow.

"It's a pity that the fruits of the Longqing New Deal haven't been cut yet, and the hidden details of the Wanli Three Great Expeditions haven't been fully revealed. I haven't yet nailed these compradors to the pillar of shame."

Just as Judy was figuring out how to survive from this high floor, an extremely abrupt electronic voice, completely out of place with the tense atmosphere around him, rang out deep in his mind.

[Ding! A fatal physical threat has been detected against the host. Current emotional energy collection has reached the target. The interdimensional live streaming channel is stable, and backup energy is sufficient.]

"The Ming Dynasty 99K System has officially granted you the highest level of access control."

Zhu Dijun was stunned for a second. Since being bound to the system, it had been playing dead all day, except for the initial mission to find Hong Xiuquan and other Taiping Heavenly Kingdom leaders. Now that things were urgent, it had come back to life.

["This system adheres to the Ming Dynasty's tradition of protecting its own, and now loads a special survival assistance module for you—'Grey Wolf Template'. Authorization complete."]

"The Grey Wolf template?" Judy asked in her mind.

"No matter how extreme the environment, as long as basic materials are available, the host can forcibly handcraft any mechanical creation that meets their inner desires. Drawings are unnecessary, gravity is ignored, and the first law of thermodynamics is disregarded."

The system's mechanical prompts carried an eerie hint of pride.

Judy felt the strange power surging through his limbs and bones, and countless diagrams of meshing gears and laid-out circuits appeared out of thin air in his mind. He let out a cold laugh.

"Uncle."

Zhu Dijun scoffed inwardly.

"If you have this ability to defy fate, why didn't you show it sooner? If I had known you had this power earlier, why would I have bothered with all this history popularization? I could turn this Earth red right now!"

[Ding, host. If you truly possessed the power of the two-dimensional Big Bad Wolf to change the world's格局 (geju, a concept encompassing the overall structure and overall character), do you think the Earth would be blue or red now?]

Judy leaned against the scorching wall and grinned.

"red."

Two words that were unequivocal and resolute.