On the eastern cliff of the Middle-Peak Plaza stood the most heavily guarded building on Myriad-Pill Mountain: the 1,000-Year Sacred Herb Vault.
Built like an eight-story fortress out of black meteoric iron and plated in shining gold leaf, this pagoda held eight hundred years of tribute herbs, rare monster cores, ancient pill recipes, and emergency Spirit Stone reserves collected from across the entire Central Continent.
As soon as Pei Xuan waved his folding fan and gave the order, Hong Ling hopped down from the Treasury Wagon with her twin Rank 5 Fused Black-Gold Kitchen Cleavers spinning around her wrists like two dark moons.
“Treasury & Kitchen Maid Squad—on me!” Hong Ling called out, her crisp sixteen-year-old voice ringing clearly over the bubbling sauerkraut plaza. “Bring the five-hundred-pound hemp sacks, the red seizure stickers, and the portable abacuses! Today we count every single blade of grass inside this pagoda! Remember Young Master’s rule: if it can be eaten, it goes to Chef Guo; if it can explode, it goes to Minister Sun; and if it shines like gold or silver, it goes into my vault!”
“YES, SISTER LING!”
Two hundred fierce young maids—all former desert refugee girls who had been raised on Sweet-Spring water, Meat-Potatoes, and Pei Xuan’s Furnace-Blood Scripture until every single one of them was a Rank 4 Peak Qi Gathering martial-cultivator—leaped off the supply trucks in neat blue aprons. Each maid carried a pair of heavy iron kitchen cleavers on her belt and a stack of red “CONFISCATED…
