Night fell across the vast mountain ranges of the Central Continent, and a freezing wind blew down from the snow-capped peaks of the Four Great Sects.
Normally, at ten o’clock at night, the three hundred leaky wooden dormitory camps scattered across the outer valleys of the Azure-Sword Sect, Joyous-Gold Sect, Heavenly-Lock Array Sect, and Myriad-Pill Pavilion would be full of exhausted groans as Outer Disciples tried to catch two hours of sleep before the dreaded Midnight Overtime Bell rang at twelve o’clock.
Tonight, nobody was sleeping.
Under thousands of thin, patched blankets, tiny paper Sound Transmission Talismans were glowing softly as whispered voices echoed from hand to hand across every camp!
Inside Dormitory Shed #44 of the Azure-Sword Sect’s Northern Iron Mine, a twenty-two-year-old Outer Disciple named Zhou Tie held a glowing paper talisman up to the ears of twenty crowded roommates.
Out of the paper talisman came the excited, booming voice of Chen Laoliu—a man every miner on the mountain knew as “Old Gray-Hair Chen,” who had been stuck at Rank 4 Peak for twelve years:
“Brothers! It’s me, Chen Laoliu! Do not believe a single word the Sect Elders told us! Our Spirit Roots are NOT Grade-9 trash! The sects put lead dust in our wells and rigged the Testing Stones! Today I soaked for one hour in Lord Pei Xuan’s Public Root-Washing Bathhouse at the Great Yan border, washed twenty years of black sect mud out of my meridians, and broke through to Rank 5 Foundation Establishment…
