Dusk settled over the Floating Mountain of Myriad Spirits with the quiet, lingering warmth of burnished copper.
The first evening stars ignited against the deep purple canopy of the sky. Then, the Great Bell Tower at the center of the campus began to sing. The thirty-thousand-jin sky bronze bell, swung by four black glass golems with rhythmic, easy grace, released three deep, ringing tolls that echoed across the cloud sea:
DONG... DONG... DONG...
The sound was not an alarm of war, nor the summons of a royal decree demanding taxes or conscripts. It was a deep, ringing wave of pure peace that rolled down from the floating plateaus. It swept across the emerald canopy of the Grand Desolate Forest, cascading over the fertile mortal valleys. Then it shook through the quiet mountain hamlets three thousand leagues away.
Wherever the chime reached, people paused in their doorways, tilted their heads back toward the sky, and smiled. In bustling mortal market cities, tavern keepers set down their ladles. In mountain villages, elderly farmers resting on their porches tapped their pipe stems in time with the bronze rhythm. And on distant coastal docks, fishermen paused in mending their nets to listen to the sweet, lingering shaking.
