Tires screeched up the mist-shrouded Sichuan mountain highway as thirty-six Golden Rolls-Royce Phantoms tore through the hairpin turns in a single unbroken line.
Azure-and-gold levitation runes hummed beneath every chassis, keeping the six-ton sedans floating three inches above the wet asphalt. Even taking sixty-degree cliff bends at a hundred miles an hour, the hotpot broth inside the catering car didn’t ripple once.
Inside the lead Phantom, Xiao Fan and Lin Wan’er pressed their noses against the tinted window glass.
“Boss Lin, right around that pine ridge is Mount Qingcheng’s Outer Cloud Gate!” Xiao Fan said, pointing through the swirling mountain fog. “That’s where all mortal visitors and outer-sect servants have to get off their horses and crawl up the Nine-Bend Sword Stairway.”
Lin Wan’er gripped her knees nervously. “The gatekeeper is Senior Brother Zhang Hu. He’s Deacon Zhao Kuang’s nephew. Whenever outer-sect sweepers finish their morning shift three seconds late, he uses an iron-tipped whip on their backs.”
“Sounds like a serious HR violation,” Lin Mo said, sipping a cup of warm roasted-barley tea from the center console. “Tie Niu, pull up right in front of the sign. Let’s inspect their reception desk.”
“Copy that, Boss,” Tie Niu rumbled.
With a synchronized roar of thirty-six twin-turbo spirit engines, the golden convoy burst out of the pine mist and slammed to a halt in a wide semicircle across the outer mountain plaza.
