The chime of the Planetary Heavenly Dao Altar echoed across the plaza like the toll of a bronze guillotine.
[HEAVENLY DAO FORECLOSURE EXECUTION: SIMA MANOR, WANG MANOR, QIAN MANOR & 7 ARISTOCRATIC ESTATES SEIZED!]
[REMAINING INTEREST DEFICIT: 120,000,000 IMMORTAL JADE.]
[EXECUTING PERSONAL PROPERTY ATTACHMENT UPON ALL SIGNING GUARANTORS!]
Grand Preceptor Sima Quan did not wait to hear the rest of the decree. He grabbed his embroidered hem, turned on his heel, and sprinted toward the side colonnade with speed that defied his three-hundred-year-old joints. Behind him, Minister of Revenue Qian Wansan paddled his fat legs like a terrified badger, his gold-trimmed shoes slapping against the marble floor.
“Run!” Qian Wansan wheezed, his triple chin wobbling violently. “Get to the ancestral teleportation arrays in the side garden!”
They made it exactly four strides.
From the golden vortex above the Dragon Dais, ten thin golden chains of heavenly law shot downward. They moved faster than lightning, humming with the pure, inexorable gravity of an unpaid debt.
