Morning sunlight broke over the grand compounds of the Three Thousand Great Dao Sects, but not a single rooster crowed.
Inside the lavish private quarters of the Blazing-Greed Sect, Elder Wu rolled off his silk feather mattress. He rubbed his swollen eyes, yawning loudly as he stretched his arms.
“Boy!” Elder Wu bellowed, his voice echoing through the empty courtyard. “Where is my morning bird-nest soup?! Where is my hot scented foot-bath?!”
Silence answered him.
Elder Wu frowned, his goodness score of negative sixty-two pulsing with irritated red qi. He grabbed his embroidered robe and marched out onto the veranda.
The wide flagstone courtyard, usually scrubbed spotless before dawn by twenty junior herb-boys, was covered in fallen pine needles and dead leaves. The bronze washing basins sat bone dry on the stone benches.
“Lazy little dogs!” Elder Wu cursed, stomping down the covered walkway toward the kitchen pavilion. “I will flog every one of them twenty times with iron thorns!”
He kicked open the kitchen doors.
