“What... what in the name of the Ancestral Fox is THAT?!”
On the third floor of the Mirage Silk Pavilion, Fox Steward Hu Xiaohong gripped the wooden windowsill so hard her painted fingernails cracked.
Yesterday evening, when she went to sleep counting her eighteen million Spirit Stones, the lot across the street was an empty patch of gravel where rhino-carts parked. Now, a gigantic ten-story building made entirely of flawless, diamond-clear crystal glass towered over her little three-story wooden shop like a mountain standing over a mushroom!
Even worse, her shop was now completely in the shadow of the giant glass building, while across the avenue, the golden sign reading [ DRY-WELL MEGA DEPARTMENT STORE #1 — 100% REAL GOODS, HONEST COPPER PRICES, ZERO FOX FARTS! ] was drawing hundreds of thousands of curious demon-folk and humans into the square!
“Steward Hu! Steward Hu, bad news!”
A young fox girl came running up the stairs in a panic, holding a stamped piece of yellow municipal paper. “Our thirty silver wagons at the south gate were stopped by Abacus Su’s highway patrol! They said our wagons don’t have ‘Anti-Skid Winter Brake Pads’ or ‘Valid Municipal Sales Tax Receipts,’ so not a single Spirit Stone is allowed to leave town until our tax audit is finished!”
