Clang! Clang! Clang!
Four iron pickaxes rose and fell in neat rhythm along the main road of Golden-Crow Civic Plaza.
“Swing those hips, Brother Nine-Swords! Put your lower back into it!”
Master Pill-Fire wiped the sweat from his bald head with the hem of his bright yellow cotton vest. Printed across his chest and back in thick black ink was a single giant word: DEBTOR.
Beside him, Perfected Nine-Swords—once the proud Chief Immortal Advisor of the Great Yan Kingdom—wore the exact same yellow vest over his patched white robes. His four missing front teeth made a whistling sound every time he breathed out. Around his waist hung nine famous flying swords, though right now he was using all nine of them like spinning iron trowels to scrape extra wet cement off the edge of the curb.
“Shut your mouth, Pill-Fire!” Nine-Swords hissed through the gap in his teeth. “If you hadn’t thrown that red brick at the back of my knee during the palace battle last week, my fine wouldn’t be twelve million Spirit Stones! Look at my swords! These are Cold-Star Spirit Blades forged in the Azure-Sword Sect! Now they smell like wet gravel and limestone!”
“Stop complaining and smooth that corner before Judge Su walks over with his ruler,” Daoist Rotten-Bone muttered from three paces away. The skinny old necromancer was pushing a heavy iron wheelbarrow full of white lime powder. “Last Tuesday, my shovel left a bump the size of a peanut on Third Street, and Judge…
