Thick clouds of rose-scented steam drifted across the marble colonnades of the Sima Clan’s private bathhouse pavilion.
“Lin Mo broadcasts free Grade-9 Qi in the air? Turn on our illegal Siphon Array and suck it all into my private hot-spring pool!”
Sima Ao stood at the edge of the sunken bathhouse pool, his voice echoing off the gold-veined marble walls.
His face was still bruised from his auction fall, but his eyes glittered with spiteful, unchecked arrogance: [Sima Ao | Goodness: -19/100].
Beside the steaming pool stood twelve senior elders of the Sima Clan.
They were wrinkled, scowling men wrapped in white silk towels, each displaying negative scores between negative twenty-five and negative forty. They held gold goblets filled with spiced pear wine, laughing as they dipped their toes into the warm water.
“A brilliant maneuver, Young Master Ao,” Elder Sima Feng praised, stroking his thin grey beard with satisfaction. “Why should the Sima Clan pay for leylines? Lin Mo spent billions activating thirty-six nodes like a naive provincial bumpkin. Commoners are like cattle—they don’t need refined immortal energy. Our ancestral array will siphon the cream off his hard work for free!”
Another elder chuckled, sipping his wine. “Once our pool is full of liquid Grade-9 nectar, we can bottle the excess and sell it back to the merchant guilds at fifty thousand Jade per flask. Lin Mo does the spending, and our Sima House collects the harvest!”
