Inside the courtyard of the Dry-Well Five-Star VIP Diplomatic Guesthouse, Eunuch Cao was sitting on a carved sandalwood sofa, sipping a bowl of hot water with a single green onion ring floating on top.
“Mm! What a clean, refreshing broth!” Eunuch Cao smacked his lips, not realizing that Old Guo had simply scooped a ladle of boiled Sweet-Spring well water out of the noodle pot and tossed in a scrap of chopped scallion. “Waiter! Bring me three more bowls of this ‘Imperial Emerald Dragon-Spring Broth,’ and turn up the cool breeze in this room!”
“Right away, Your Excellency!”
Standing by the door in a crisp waiter’s vest, Junior Brother Liu—one of the captured Rank 4 Crimson Cloud Sect disciples who was still working off his latrine-roof debt—bowed politely and made three neat checkmarks in a small leather bill-book:
Item 14: Three bowls of Boiled Water with Scallion — 15,000 Silver Taels. Item 15: Requesting Mint-Breath Bullfrog #12 to burp harder through the window vent — 20,000 Silver Taels. Item 16: Twelve white horses pooping in the courtyard garden — 6,000 Silver Taels.*
Once the door clicked shut, Eunuch Cao wiped his mouth with his silk sleeve and let out a shrill, gleeful cackle.
