The mockery that erupted across the Grand Bell Plaza was loud enough to drown out the mountain gale.
Ten thousand high-tier fighters, royal ministers, and sect patriarchs in the surrounding galleries pointed downward at the central stone dais, laughing with unrestrained high-born delight.
“A tin horn!” an elder from the Nine-Dragons Principality snorted into his grey beard. “He brought a street vendor’s vegetable-shouting horn to commune with the sacred Bells of Clarity!”
“Look at the dents!” a young noblewoman laughed behind a peacock-feather fan. “Does this borderland bumpkin think he’s hawking smoked radishes in a rural fish market?!”
At the edge of the performance ring, Young Master Zhang Wuheng leaned against his zither stand. It shook his head.
“Lu Zhen!” Zhang Wuheng shouted, his violet eyes flashing. “If that piece of gutter scrap manages to elicit even a single dying groan from the sacred bells, I shall personally smash my Phoenix Jade Zither over my knee and eat the soundboard in front of twelve mortal empires!”
Frank didn’t look at the galleries.
He didn’t look at Zhang Wuheng.
