Sect Master Xuanji slumped back onto the broken paving stones, staring at Lin Mo like a man who had lost his mind.
“A... a tourist resort?” Xuanji stammered, his soot-streaked face twisting in horror. “Mount Qingcheng is a sacred cradle of Daoist sword refinement! Our ancestors meditated under these ancient pines for three thousand years! You cannot sell admission tickets to mortal peasants!”
“Why not?” Lin Mo asked, tilting his head. “They have better manners than your elders, and unlike your sect, they actually pay their bills.”
Jian Wuchen dragged himself across the ground, clutching Xuanji’s torn robe.
“Master,” Jian Wuchen whimpered, shivering violently. “Did he say eighty million spirit stones? Three hundred years? We are Daoist immortals! We cannot be day laborers!”
“You aren’t day laborers,” Shen Qiaoqiao corrected cheerfully, stepping down from the ancestral hall with a golden ledger tablet in hand. “You are non-exempt debtor personnel undergoing structured statutory restitution. Under Section Twelve of the Receivership Code, every hour of certified public service credits against your outstanding principal.”
Master Lu Jian unrolled a colossal six-foot holographic blueprint directly across the grand plaza.
Luminescent blue light shot into the morning sky, casting an intricate three-dimensional model of Mount Qingcheng and the neighboring Kunlun peaks.
