Clack-clack-clack-clack!
Standing beside the schoolyard sandbox of Elementary School #42, Abacus Su flicked the golden beads of his abacus so fast his fingers left afterimages in the morning sunlight.
Down in the sand, First Young Master Zi Ao and the nineteen other Royal Young Masters of the Five Celestial Clans were being pulled out by their ankles by Old Wei and two Titan teaching assistants, who lined them up in a neat row on the grass and shook the sand out of their hair like dusty rugs.
“Let me go! Do you know who my father is?!” First Young Master Zi Ao coughed out a mouthful of yellow sand, his handsome face purple with humiliation as his torn white silk robe flapped around his knees. “My father is Patriarch Zi Haotian of the Purple-Crown Celestial Clan! If you dare lock us in a dark dungeon, five million Royal Blood-Cavalry will flatten your red-brick schools before sunset!”
“A dark dungeon? Who said we are wasting perfectly good dungeon space on you?”
Abacus Su pushed his spectacles up his nose and held up a three-foot-long itemized bill printed on crisp yellow paper.
“Let us review your group’s property damage and civic violations from five minutes ago!” Abacus Su read aloud in a ringing voice. “Item One: Flying twenty unregistered swords and peacocks into a School No-Fly Zone without a permit—20 Trillion Grain-Notes! Item Two: Young Master Huang Jinfeng’s left elbow hit the stainless-steel playground slide on the way down, leaving a two-inch…
