A brass abacus clinked with crisp, rhythmic snaps in the cool shade of the outer turnip shed.
Deacon Vane leaned over a broad cedar counter, his narrow mustache twitching with predatory delight.
Before him stood six elderly men in lavish, gold-bordered robes.
Each wore the ceremonial jade headdress of a grand sect master. Each radiated the heavy, pressurized aura of a Golden Core expert.
Yet at this moment, all six men stood with their hands tucked into their sleeves, hunching their shoulders like truant schoolboys.
“Step forward, Patriarch Zhao,” Deacon Vane murmured, his voice oily and hushed. “Silence deposit is five hundred and twenty-five Mid-Grade Spirit Stones. Plus fifty for the basket.”
Patriarch Zhao, the seventy-year-old leader of the Iron-River Sect, did not utter a single complaint.
He hastily pulled a heavy brocade pouch from his robes, sliding it across the counter.
