CLINK—CLANK—RUMBLE!
Down the grand marble steps of the Supreme Sun-Emperor Palace rolled Abacus Su’s magnetic luggage cart, piled fifty feet high with glowing chests of Primordial Sun-Gold and topped by a single, pulsing crimson-gold sphere the size of a millstone.
Right behind the cart walked Chief Treasury Steward Jin Suan and fifty palace eunuchs, all happily wearing yellow Dry-Well civil-service vests and spitting black watermelon seeds over the balustrade while enjoying the 70-degree breeze.
“Young Master! Look what Steward Jin just handed over from Vault #1!” Hong Ling skipped onto the front observation deck of Dry-Well Express No. 1, holding up the millstone-sized crimson-gold sphere with one hand as if it were a giant cabbage. “It’s the 100-Sun Resonance Heart! For a hundred thousand years, the Golden-Crow Clan used this treasure to suck heat and luck out of all one hundred solar systems in this sector!”
Up on the Nine-Sun Ancestral Altar, Patriarch Jin Taiyang spun around so fast his golden neck-bones popped. When he saw his most trusted treasury steward spitting watermelon seeds on the palace steps while Hong Ling held his clan’s supreme core treasure, blood spurted three feet out of his nose.
“Jin Suan! You old dog!” Patriarch Jin Taiyang howled, clutching his chest as his heart nearly stopped. “Your family guarded the Ancestral Vault for twelve generations! You sold out our sacred 100-Sun Resonance Heart for a slice of cold watermelon?!”
