Chapter 22: To Inflict Violence Upon Others Is to Manifest Divine Power!

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【Amidst the surprised gazes of the crowd, you actually sat down inside the prison cell of your own accord...】

【Some were left in confusion: You went to such great lengths, was it really just to fight someone to the death? Was it truly necessary to go to such extremes over a mere matter concerning the title of a Ju-ren?】

【After all, you are still young and a prodigy; there will be plenty of opportunities to pass the exams in the future. As long as you study hard, becoming a Ju-ren is not difficult, and even becoming a Jin-shi is not impossible. Why, then, be so unwise and so extreme?】

【The Provincial Administration Commissioner and the various Prefects were puzzled, as were the Embroidered Uniform Guards; they could not understand you at all.】

【However, the Embroidered Uniform Guards did not pay much attention to this, as they had never intended to let you go in the first place. Throughout this entire incident, the courage and insight you displayed far exceeded what was appropriate for your age. Out of an instinctive sense of vigilance, they could not possibly let you off.】

【Secondly, you were the direct participant and mastermind of this whole affair. You knew all the unspeakable schemes and underhanded dealings involved, so even if only to silence you, they would find a pretext to dispose of you!】

【Thirdly, your own stance was too ambiguous, making it impossible for the Guards to judge whether you were truly connected to the Rebel bandits. To be safe, they would rather kill an innocent person than let a potential threat slip through their fingers!】

【With three charges against you, it would be difficult for you to escape death!】

【(You: I have three sins...)】

【And now, since you have effectively branded yourself as an "accomplice to the Rebel bandits," you have essentially passed a death sentence upon yourself, saving the Embroidered Uniform Guards the trouble.】

【For a moment, everyone felt a mix of astonishment, resentment, bewilderment, and suspicion toward you...】

【...】

【However, you yourself did not care about their opinions, as you were currently stirred by your own startling discovery.】

【"The Tyrannical Divine Power... has it increased?"】

【You sat cross-legged on the floor of the cell, ostensibly closing your eyes to rest, but in reality, you were carefully "looking inward"...】

【To call it looking inward is not quite accurate, as you cannot "see" your meridians, spiritual energy, or magical power like the cultivators in a cultivation realm. Your "inner vision" is actually just a subtle, ethereal, and special sensation.】

【And the thing triggering this special sensation is a wisp of "Qi"... this is precisely the wisp of Tyrannical Divine Power bestowed upon you by the County Magistrate years ago!】

【Back then, due to excessive studying, your body was weak. Your master, seeing you as a cash cow, secretly took you to find the County Magistrate, and thus you obtained this wisp of divine power.】

【The master's original intention in asking the Magistrate for the power was to help you regulate your health, so that his rare human cash cow wouldn't wither away prematurely. But I fear that neither he nor the Magistrate expected that before you even started printing money for them, you would have already whipped them into spinning tops and thrown them into prison...】

【However, what you care about now is not the origin of the divine power, but the power itself: it has increased!】

【This is very confusing, for divine power is precious. You only knew that it was a salary bestowed by the God-Emperor upon officials, and that every bit used is a bit less. Therefore, even though you knew the divine power had infinite wonders, you never actively used it.】

【In the two years since you obtained it, you had let it circulate naturally within your body, helping to regulate your health, treating it entirely as an "automatic fitness device" and a "permanent personal buff," which is why it has remained until now.】

【However, ever since you have been busy running around between Northern Shaanxi and Xi'an these past few days, this wisp of Tyrannical Divine Power, which you had almost forgotten, has actually been increasing out of thin air...】

【Previously, you were busy seeking revenge and arresting people, leaving you no time to pay attention to it. Now that you have some leisure in the prison, you have begun to carefully consider the reason behind it.】

【"Divine power... actually increasing out of thin air..."】

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【This leaves you deeply puzzled: If divine power could really increase out of thin air, why hadn't it changed at all in the past two years? Furthermore, taking your master and the Magistrate as examples, if their divine power could grow, they would have long since stopped hiding it. Why would they bother living among mortals in such a low-profile manner?】

【In other words, if their divine power had an independent and stable source, then the world would not be dominated solely by the God-Emperor. Instead, divine wars would have broken out long ago, plunging the world into chaos, fracturing it, and repeating the old histories of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Five Dynasties...】

【"Therefore, the fact that divine power can grow is inherently abnormal... at the very least, it is not a universally existing phenomenon."】

【You furrowed your brows and began to recall the special experiences you had these past few days, attempting to find the answer to the problem...】

...

"Whatever the case, at least the great revenge is finally achieved!"

While the simulated character was lost in self-reflection, Zhou Liang couldn't help but feel a surge of satisfaction:

Good heavens! Wiping out the entire bureaucratic system of the Shaanxi region in one go—from the Provincial Administration Commissioner, the high official holding the administrative and financial power of the province, down to the County Magistrate and minor clerks of Mizhi County, not to mention that whole slew of prefectural officials whose names he hadn't even heard before...

How should one put it?

"Your performance this time, kid, has already far exceeded the results of my 'Pig-Slaughtering Society' after thirty-eight years of continuous assassinations of officials!"

Zhou Liang was simply awestruck:

Under normal circumstances, such a feat would be impossible to achieve. Mortals are, after all, mortals; in the face of the God-Emperor's lackeys, whose combat prowess completely crushes that of any mortal, even the most perfect execution would be useless.

The Pig-Slaughtering Society, at its best, could only stab a few county magistrates in remote areas. This kid, however, started right at the level of a Provincial Administration Commissioner...

"Although he didn't use his own strength, but instead relied on the internal power struggles within the Ming Dynasty to achieve this, it wouldn't be enough to shake the rule of the Ming Dynasty. Regardless, he has truly transcended the limits this time..."

Zhou Liang couldn't help but give him a thumbs up:

Incredible!

As for the subsequent death... does the simulator need to care about that?

As the saying goes, if you want to play the simulator smoothly, you have to die more! The more the protagonist dies, the more information is collected, and the smoother the next run will be after restarting.

"And then there is the question of the divine power."

Watching the problem that "another himself" was contemplating, Zhou Liang couldn't help but feel a wave of curiosity:

Divine power is not something unfamiliar to him. In his many years of anti-Ming activities, he had encountered attacks from holders of divine power more than once!

However, Zhou Liang had never truly mastered divine power, so he knew very little about it.

He only knew that there is one, and only one, source of divine power in the world, and that is the God-Emperor himself!

All the divine power of the officials was distributed and bestowed by Him. As for whether any official could generate divine power on their own... the answer was simply no. If there were any, they would be blasted into dust by the God-Emperor in no time.

After all, while the Chongzhen Emperor might be incompetent at other things, he was a master at consolidating power. Countless historical examples show that this last emperor of the Ming Dynasty never relinquished his supreme power and status. Whoever wanted his power, he would take their life—a typical feudal authoritarian monarch...

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Therefore, the matter of "Zhou Liang" generating divine power on his own should be quite rare.

But what could be the principle behind it?

Zhou Liang began to recall what was different about him:

"The points where he differs from others, besides his identity as the simulator's protagonist, are only the two rewards the simulator gifted him."

One is "Me and My Animal Friends," and the other is "The Spirit of the Sacrificed."

These two things had long since blended into the plot itself. Although the simulation logs didn't specifically mark when they took effect, they had actually been working all along. The reason "Zhou Liang" was able to reach this point was inseparable from their silent assistance.

"However, there is no inevitable connection between their effects and the increase in divine power. Furthermore, if it were because of them, the increase in divine power should have started long ago, rather than being suddenly discovered by him in the last few days."

Therefore, the problem must lie in the experiences of these past few days.

But... Zhou Liang carefully reviewed the historical information for a long time and couldn't find anything special:

"He hasn't consumed any heaven-sent treasures like the protagonists of Jin Yong's martial arts novels, nor has he practiced any martial arts or immortal techniques, and he certainly hasn't had any one-night stands with bewitched demonesses or fairies... This shouldn't be, right?"

These past few days, aside from running around everywhere, all he did was arrest enemies and villains—from the bureaucracy to the common folk, from corrupt officials to school bullies—and then whipped them all into spinning tops one by one and threw them into jail. His main theme was doing as he pleased, and his main theme was upholding justice...

"Could it be... because he was punishing evil and promoting good?"

Zhou Liang had a sudden inspiration.

But he immediately shook his head and denied it himself:

"No... I haven't seen the God-Emperor punishing evil and promoting good, have I? He spent his days massacring towns and suppressing uprisings, killing countless innocent people. Upholding justice? What a joke, yet his divine power remains infinite..."

Thinking of this, Zhou Liang seemed to have grasped something critical:

"The God-Emperor didn't really uphold much justice, but he certainly killed a lot of people, massacring from south to north, from east to west..."

"And while the simulation protagonist didn't kill people, he certainly whipped a lot of spinning tops, beating corrupt officials and evil merchants until they were wailing in misery..."

There seemed to be some common ground between the two...

"And the name 'Tyrannical Divine Power'..."

Zhou Liang muttered to himself, and a bold yet reasonable guess gradually emerged in his heart:

"Could this increase in divine power... be dependent on inflicting violence upon others?!"

...