At the top of Myriad-Pill Mountain, inside the golden Grand Pill Hall, Pavilion Master Yao was having the worst morning of his two-hundred-year life.
A pile of red paper bills sat on his carved sandalwood desk. Next to the bills sat an empty bronze treasure box that used to hold three million Spirit Stones. Now, the only thing inside the box was a dead moth and an IOU note written by Elder Dan before he got captured at the border.
“Zero?!” Pavilion Master Yao slammed his wrinkled palm onto the desk so hard that three teacups bounced into the air and shattered on the marble floor. His long white beard trembled like dry grass in a storm. “What do you mean our monthly income across all twelve provinces is zero?! We are the Myriad-Pill Pavilion! We control eighty percent of the medicine in the Central Continent! Even if mortal kings have to sell their own pants, they still have to buy our healing pills!”
Below the steps, twelve white-robed Rank 5 Foundation Establishment Grand Elders stood with their heads bowed so low their noses almost touched their belt buckles.
First Grand Elder Mo, a thin old man with green fingernails from forty years of mixing poison herbs, swallowed hard and stepped forward.
