The main avenue of Black-Rock Border City had never been this lively, even during the New Year Lantern Festival.
All eighty-five thousand townspeople poured out of their houses, lining both sides of the wide stone street as Pei Xuan rode Old Yellow slowly toward the Iron-Wolf Marquis’s Mansion.
Behind Pei Xuan rolled the fifty mobile kitchen wagons. Old Guo’s thirty apprentices stood on the wagon beds tossing out hot, fist-sized Meat-Potatoes and freshly steamed Mutton-Stuffed Buns to every child, old granny, and hungry worker along the road.
“Long live the Ninth Young Master! No—long live Lord Pei!”
“Look at the Ninth Young Master! When he was driven out ten months ago, he was as skinny as a bamboo pole! Now he looks like a Heaven-Descending General!”
“Thank heavens Lord Pei came back! This meat bun has so much lamb fat inside that the juice ran all the way down my elbow!”
Every time a hungry citizen bit into a hot meat bun, the grey Doubtful icon above their head flipped into a bright green Loyal! badge:
[Black-Rock Blacksmith Zhang — Loyalty: 45 -> 84/100!]
[Widow Liu from East Alley — Loyalty: 50 -> 91/100!]
[Old Carpenter Sun — Loyalty: 48 -> 87/100!]
Behind Pei Xuan’s camel walked two guards leading Lady Wang and Second Brother Pei Bao, who had been lowered from the flagpole and were still wrapped up in the dirty guard-barracks bedsheets like two giant caterpillars.
Every few steps, townspeople who had been starved by Lady Wang’s grain-hoarding threw rotten cabbage leaves and wet mud balls at the pair.
“Bah! Evil witch! You sold our emergency war grain to buy gold hairpins!”
“Look at Second Young Master Pei Bao! He’s still got a gold candlestick sticking out of his left sock!”
Lady Wang’s face was purple with shame and fury, her hair covered in cabbage leaves. “You lowly mud-legs! Wait until my eldest son Heng’er comes out! Heng’er has a natural Fire Spirit Root and was trained by a wandering Immortal! He can burn all of you to ash with a wave of his hand!”
Just as the procession reached the wide stone plaza in front of the Iron-Wolf Marquis’s Mansion, the main gates of the mansion burst open.
Thirty heavy horse-carriages—piled sky-high with iron-bound treasure chests—tried to charge out of the courtyard toward the side alley leading to the East Gate!
Riding on the lead carriage was twenty-year-old Eldest Brother Pei Heng, wearing a flashy crimson silk robe embroidered with gold flames.
However, before his horses could even take three steps into the plaza, General Tie Zhan rode his massive Armored Scorpion King right into the middle of the gateway!
CLANG!
The Scorpion King slammed its two barn-door-sized iron pincers down onto the flagstones, blocking the entire twenty-foot gate like a wall of red steel. The carriage horses shrieked in terror at the giant monster and reared backward, tangling their harnesses into a helpless knot and jamming all thirty treasure wagons right inside the doorway!
“Out of my way, you lowly slave!”
Pei Heng stood up on the driver’s box of the first carriage, his face pale with panic as he saw Pei Xuan riding forward on Old Yellow.
“Pei Xuan!” Pei Heng shouted, trying to sound like the bossy eldest brother he used to be. “How dare you bring desert bandits to block the Marquis’s Mansion! I am the legal First Heir of the Iron-Wolf Marquisate! Step aside and let my carriages pass, or I won’t spare you even if we share the same father!”
Pei Xuan stopped Old Yellow ten paces away, took a sip of sweet Spirit Well tea from his canteen, and looked at his eldest brother with an amused smile.
Pei Xuan read the floating tooltip above Pei Heng’s head and nearly laughed into his teacup.
So the “Immortal Genius” of the Pei family—who had spent four hundred thousand taels of public silver over ten years—hadn’t even opened his dantian yet! He was only a shaky Rank 2 Early Martial artist who had been scammed into buying a fake spirit-dagger coated in glow-in-the-dark phosphorus powder!
Sure enough, Pei Heng’s fierce expression suddenly melted into a fake, tearful smile.
He hopped down from the carriage, hid his right hand behind his wide silk sleeve, and walked toward Pei Xuan with his arms half-open.
“Ah! Ninth Brother!” Pei Heng sighed, squeezing two crocodile tears out of the corners of his eyes. “Look at me, losing my temper out of worry for Father! In truth, for the past ten months, I couldn’t eat or sleep thinking about you suffering in Dry-Well Village! It was all Mother’s fault for forcing Father to send you away! Come, let Big Brother give you a hug and hand the Marquisate’s seal over to you personally!”
Behind Pei Xuan, Old Wei’s single hand twitched toward his saber, and Hong Ling raised her kitchen cleaver, ready to chop Pei Heng’s sneaky hand off.
Pei Xuan gave a tiny wave of his fingers to tell them not to move. He dismounted from Old Yellow and stood calmly in the center of the torchlit plaza with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Oh? Big Brother wants to hand the seal over to me in person?” Pei Xuan smiled mildly. “Come closer, then.”
Pei Heng’s eyes flashed with cruel joy as he stepped within three feet of Pei Xuan.
Die, you lowborn maid’s bastard!
“Take the seal in hell, Ninth Brother!” Pei Heng roared, whipping his right hand out from behind his sleeve!
A foot-long dagger glowing with eerie green phosphorus sparks lunged forward with all of Pei Heng’s Rank 2 strength, aiming straight for the side of Pei Xuan’s neck!
In the crowd, several kind-hearted grannies gasped in fright: “Watch out, Lord Pei! He has a knife!”
On the sideline, Lady Wang’s eyes lit up with vicious excitement: “Yes! Stab him, Heng’er! That’s a fifty-thousand-tael Immortal Spirit Dagger!”
Pei Xuan didn’t dodge an inch. He didn’t even blink.
He just let a tiny wisp of Rank 4 Furnace-Blood True Qi circulate under the skin of his neck.
TING—CRACK!
The tip of Pei Heng’s “Immortal Spirit Dagger” struck the side of Pei Xuan’s neck.
It didn’t draw a single drop of blood. It didn’t even leave a white scratch mark on Pei Xuan’s skin!
Instead, it sounded like a brittle glass icicle hitting a ten-ton cast-iron anvil!
The cheap pig-iron blade snapped cleanly into three pieces with a loud SNAP, and the recoil vibrations shot straight back up Pei Heng’s wrist, spraining his thumb and sending the broken hilt spinning into the air!
“OWWWWW! MY HAND!”
Pei Heng screamed, clutching his swollen right wrist as he stared in utter disbelief at the broken pieces of metal lying on the ground—and then at Pei Xuan’s completely unharmed neck.
“My... my Immortal Spirit Dagger snapped in half against your bare skin?!” Pei Heng’s eyeballs nearly popped out of his sockets. “What kind of monster skin do you have?! Are you made of black iron?!”
“First of all, your ‘Immortal Spirit Dagger’ is five-copper pig-iron rubbed with graveyard phosphorus powder,” Pei Xuan said calmly, reaching out with two fingers and flicking Pei Heng lightly in the center of his forehead.
FLICK—THUD!
Just one casual flick of a Rank 4 cultivator’s finger felt like getting hit by a swinging temple bell.
Pei Heng’s feet lifted off the ground, and he flew backward fifteen feet before landing flat on his backside right next to Lady Wang and Second Brother Pei Bao!
“Second of all,” Pei Xuan continued, dusting off his collar, “trying to murder a reigning City Lord while attempting to flee with public funds is a double felony under Dry-Well Municipal Law. Abacus Su, come read the family bill!”
“Right away, My Lord!”
Abacus Su stepped out from behind the Scorpion Cavalry, pushing his round spectacles up his nose as six accounting clerks carried out a stack of confiscated ledger books from the mansion’s study.
Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack!
Abacus Su’s golden abacus rattled like summer rain in the quiet plaza while eighty-five thousand citizens listened with bated breath.
“According to the secret ledgers found under Lady Wang’s bed,” Abacus Su announced loudly, “over the past ten years, Prisoner Wang Cuihua (Lady Wang), Prisoner Pei Heng, and Prisoner Pei Bao have embezzled a total of 340,000 silver taels from the Black-Rock City Road & Canal Repair Fund! In addition, last month they illegally sold 40,000 sacks of public emergency war grain worth 60,000 silver taels!”
A furious roar went up from the eighty-five thousand townspeople in the plaza!
“Three hundred and forty thousand taels?! No wonder the city walls were crumbling while we paid heavy taxes every year!”
“They sold forty thousand sacks of our life-saving grain!”
“Wait, there is more!” Abacus Su raised one finger, his spectacles flashing coldly in the torchlight. “Just now, Prisoner Pei Heng attempted an illegal assassination that resulted in three broken pieces of pig-iron littering the public square (Littering Fine: 50 taels), and caused slight wear-and-tear to the outer skin cuticle of City Lord Pei’s neck (Medical Compensation Fee: 100,000 taels)!”
Abacus Su slammed his ledger shut with a loud SMACK.
“After seizing all thirty wagons of stolen gold and silver in the courtyard to refill the public treasury, Prisoners Wang Cuihua, Pei Heng, and Pei Bao still owe the city a net penalty of 100,050 silver taels! Guards—put on their uniforms!”
Two burly Scorpion Cavalrymen marched forward holding three bright yellow Debtor Vests with big black numbers painted on the front and back: #888, #889, and #890, along with three black-iron work collars!
“No! Don’t touch me with that ugly yellow rag!” Lady Wang shrieked, kicking her legs as the soldiers cut away the bedsheet and slipped the yellow Debtor Vest right over her expensive fox-fur cloak. “I am a noble lady! Even if Marquis Pei Zhan were here, he wouldn’t dare let you humiliate me like this!”
“Oh? Really?”
A tired, hoarse voice called out from the back of the third kitchen wagon.
The canvas curtain of the dish-washing cart parted, and Marquis Pei Zhan—wearing bright yellow Debtor Vest #402, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and soapsuds covering his beard—stepped out onto the wagon footboard holding a wet dish-rag!
“Husband?!” Lady Wang gasped in shock.
“Father?!” Pei Heng and Pei Bao cried out together. “Father, tell Ninth Brother to take these vests off us! And why are you holding a dirty dish-rag?!”
Marquis Pei Zhan looked at the thirty wagons of stolen family silver that Lady Wang had tried to run away with—leaving him behind in the desert without sending a single soldier to rescue him—and then looked at the forty thousand sacks of missing emergency grain that had nearly ruined the Pei Clan’s six-generation ancestral home.
All the remaining affection Marquis Pei Zhan had ever held for Lady Wang and Pei Heng vanished into thin air, replaced by boiling rage!
“You venomous woman! And you two useless bastards!” Marquis Pei Zhan roared, jumping down from the wagon and slapping Pei Heng across the face with the wet, greasy dish-rag!
SLAP!
“While I was locked up in Dry-Well City washing bowls to pay off my road-damage fine, you didn’t send a single tael of silver to bail me out! Instead, you sold the city’s war grain and tried to run away to the capital with all my money?!”
Marquis Pei Zhan turned toward Abacus Su and bowed ninety degrees.
“Sir Accountant! As Prisoner #402, I request that these three unfilial thieves be assigned to the West District Public Latrine Scrubbing Team! And don’t give them long-handled brooms—give them short bamboo toothbrushes!”
“A very sensible suggestion from Senior Prisoner #402!” Abacus Su nodded approvingly, handing three tiny bamboo toothbrushes and three wooden night-soil buckets to Lady Wang, Pei Heng, and Pei Bao. “For your helpful attitude, Prisoner #402, your own dish-washing debt is reduced by five copper coins!”
“Thank you, Sir Accountant!” Marquis Pei Zhan beamed proudly as if he had just won a royal medal, then cracked his wet dish-rag at Lady Wang and his two sons. “Move it, #888, #889, and #890! The thirty public toilets on West Market Street haven’t been scrubbed in two weeks! If I see a single stain on the bricks before sunrise, none of you get morning porridge!”
“NOOOOOO! MY SILK ROBES!” Lady Wang wailed as she and her two sons were marched down the street carrying wooden toilet buckets and tiny toothbrushes.
Across the entire plaza, all eighty-five thousand citizens of Black-Rock Border City burst into thunderous cheers and laughter, clapping until their palms turned red!
At that exact moment, a series of golden system chimes rang inside Pei Xuan’s mind as the entire Iron-Wolf Marquisate officially merged into his territory!
Pei Xuan walked up the stone steps of the Marquis’s Mansion—where he had once been forbidden to use the front door—and looked out over the sea of cheering torches and smiling faces.
Nine hundred thousand Loyalty Points a day!
At midnight tonight, his balance would jump past 1.4 million LP!
Just as Pei Xuan stepped into the grand hall, however, a dusty border merchant on a lathered mule came galloping wildly through the East Gate of Black-Rock City, shouting in panic:
“Help! Lord Pei! The three western provinces of the Great Yan Kingdom have been hit by the Great Spring Drought! The rivers have dried to cracked mud, the county magistrates locked the royal granaries, and half a million starving refugees are fleeing west toward your desert right now!”