“Scrub harder on that port-side rune, Envoy Zhao!” Tie Niu barked, his boots planted wide on the foredeck. “If Grandma Chen slips on spirit-condensation oil while carrying her soup pot, it comes straight out of your labor sentence!”
The 500-meter Taichu Golden Sky-Cruiser roared out of the bronze arches of the Kunlun Immortal Gate. Violet-gold clouds parted like torn silk around the ship’s armored prow. Behind the stern, the dimensional whirlpool leading back to Earth hummed with steady golden light, locked wide open by Master Lu Jian’s gate-ram.
Down on the port walkway, Envoy Zhao Wuji dropped to both knees and scrubbed the brass array plates with a stiff bristle brush. A neon-pink vest hung over his scorched sect robes. Bold black letters across his back read: [TAICHU LABOR-REFORM DEBTOR #001 — CURRENT GOODNESS: -74.]
“I am an Early Golden Core elder of the Raging-Flame Sword Sect,” Zhao Wuji hissed through swollen teeth, keeping his voice low so Tie Niu would not hear. “When my sect master learns a lower-realm merchant put me in a pink vest to scrub kitchen grease, he will melt this ship into slag.”
Beside him, Deacon Qian of the Immortal Merchant Pavilion wrung out a bucket of gray mop water with trembling hands. His own vest flashed [-69] in bright reflective thread.
