The thunderous growl from Old Master Xuan’s stomach echoed across the sapphire rotunda of the Stellar Real Estate Exchange.
Several nearby brokers blinked, looking around to see if a subterranean star-beast had woken up beneath the floor tiles.
Old Master Xuan—a three-million-year-old Peak Rank 9 Turtle Dao-Lord whose gleaming Immortal Diamond-Gold Cosmic Dao-Shell had just terrified half of Galactic Wall Street—blushed bright crimson beneath his snow-white beard.
He pulled his broad shoulders inward and coughed awkwardly into his fist.
“Forgive this old man’s lack of manners, Chairman Lin,” Old Master Xuan murmured sheepishly. “Spirit-grain in the Frost-Ring Galaxy has been scarce since our sun began dimming ten millennia ago. Every bowl of porridge I didn’t eat meant fifty mortal toddlers could have a warm supper, so I simply closed my stomach meridian and drank melted frost.”
Lin Mo looked at the ancient guardian through his [Pure-Heart Eye].
Even though the Chaos-Dragon Nectar and the new Diamond-Gold Shell had restored Old Master Xuan’s cultivation to Peak Rank 9, his stomach had literally been empty for ten thousand years.
He carried twelve billion orphans on his back for three million years and drank melted ice so the kids could eat, Lin Mo thought, a warm, quiet respect settling in his chest. Meanwhile, the bankers across the hall spend five billion crystals on a single bottle of wine and still try to steal his shell.
