Five miles east of the Great Yan border stood Seven-Roads Market Town, the largest neutral caravan hub in the Central Plains. Eight thousand small and medium merchant families lived here, running silk looms, tea warehouses, horse stables, and wagon-wheel smithies that kept goods moving across twelve provinces.
As the evening sun dipped below the hills, however, not a single cooking fire was lit in Seven-Roads Town.
In the center of the town square, fifty black-robed Rank 5 Foundation Establishment cultivators stood on the roofs of the merchant guildhalls, their flying gold abacuses spinning around their shoulders like buzzsaws. At their head stood Elder Suan, Chief Enforcer of the Joyous-Gold Sect’s Debt Court, holding a thick stack of blood-red loan contracts.
Down on the cobblestones, three thousand heads of merchant households knelt in the dirt beside their loaded wagons. Behind them, wives held crying babies and young daughters huddled together in fear.
“The sunset bell has rung!” Elder Suan’s cold, raspy voice echoed across the quiet town. “After your little friend Pei Xuan dared to insult our Joyous-Gold Bank with his paper notes today, Sect Master Jin ordered a full recall of all commercial loans in Seven-Roads Town! Including the three-hundred-percent early recall penalty, you eight thousand families owe Joyous-Gold Bank a grand total of forty million Spirit Stones!”
