“Put the lower-realm charity merchant’s table next to the spirit-horse latrines.”
Holy Son Ye Chen adjusted his flowing violet-gold silk sleeves, his handsome lips curling into a cold, superior sneer. He stood on the grand observation terrace of the Sky-Mirror Palace atop Cloud-Peak Immortal Mountain, looking down over the sprawling white-jade courtyards below.
A sickly crimson number hovered over Ye Chen’s pristine golden headpiece: Goodness: -35/100.
To the outside world across the Nine Prefectures, Ye Chen was celebrated as the Righteous Junior Hero of the Central Continent. He had a spotless public smile, polite manners, and an immaculate record of slaying minor rogue beasts and funding decorative orphan shelters. But beneath that polished veneer lay an arrogant, manipulative predator who routinely plundered the bloodlines and treasures of anyone weaker than himself.
Beside him, an inner-sect steward bowed ninety degrees, rubbing his palms together with a greasy smirk.
“Directly beside the stables, Holy Son?” the steward asked with a quiet chuckle. “Won’t the lower-realm bumpkin complain about the smell of horse manure?”
“Let him complain,” Ye Chen said smoothly, picking up a crystal goblet of chilled dew-wine. “Today, ten thousand sect leaders and imperial dignitaries are gathering for the decennial Fairy Banquet. Lin Mo thinks that buying up a few thousand discarded dirt-farmers and obsolete blacksmiths in the outer borderlands makes him an immortal emperor. Today, this Holy Son will show his CEO Su Wan and swordswoman Chu Lingxiao the difference between copper-smelling nouveau-riche money and ten thousand years of orthodox…
