Tuesday morning, 7:30 AM.
Just twenty-four hours earlier, the thirty outer-sector billionaire merchant clans had sailed into World 40’s port with their chins pointed at the clouds, plotting to bankrupt Dry-Well Kingdom before lunch.
Now, before the morning mist had even cleared from the white-stone plaza of the Central Exchange Bank, all thirty billionaire clan patriarchs—led by Patriarch Jin of the Gold-Toad Clan and Patriarch Qian of the Thousand-Ship Consortium—were kneeling in a neat, straight row right outside the bank’s locked front doors!
Every single one of them had dark circles under their eyes, green potato leaves stuck in their hair, and tear stains on their silk sleeves.
Behind them in the plaza sat their remaining cargo ships, stacked high with golden statues, ancestral jade swords, rare star-iron ore, and the deeds to two hundred outer-sector mines. And tied up with a thick hemp rope at the very front of the kneeling line—like a sacrificial pig waiting for the New Year’s butcher—was Lord Silver-Tongue!
“Patriarch Jin, why did you tie me up?!” Lord Silver-Tongue whimpered through the gag of green potato leaves stuffed around his collar. “We were partners! I am the Chief Royal Banker of Planet 50!”
“Partners my fat backside!” Patriarch Qian reached over and smacked Silver-Tongue on the back of his head with an empty velvet Spirit-Stone bag. “You told us Pei Xuan’s granaries were empty! Then you told us dumping Spirit Stones would crash his paper money! Then you told us to lock the potatoes in…
