“Lord Pei! Debtor #109 has finished his orientation bowl and is ready for his tool assignment!”
Ye Guhan marched Sword Emperor Bai Xinghe over to the front of Engine #1, where Pei Xuan was reviewing the holographic blueprints for the Galactic Core transit loop alongside Abacus Su and Hong Ling.
Bai Xinghe stood with his back straight in his neon-yellow Debtor vest, trying his best to maintain the dignified air of a fifty-thousand-year-old supreme expert despite the round bump still fading on top of his head and the delicious smell of Old Guo’s beef soup clinging to his silver beard.
“Pei Xuan,” Bai Xinghe said in a deep voice, glancing sideways at the wooden crate where Hong Ling had locked up his Silver-River Sovereign Sword. “Your bookkeeper said that my divine sword is only being held as security deposit for those three bridges I cut earlier. Tell me plainly—are you really going to return a Peak Rank 9 divine weapon once the bridges are fixed, or is this just an excuse to keep my sword forever?”
Pei Xuan looked up from the blueprint and smiled.
“Dry-Well Village has grown from thirty-five broken mud huts in the desert to forty-eight trillion citizens across a galaxy arm on one simple rule, Mister Bai: we always keep our word, and we never cheat on our account books,” Pei Xuan said clearly. “Your Silver-River Sovereign Sword is impounded under Receipt #88,402. Work alongside Supervisor Ye Guhan for one week to rebuild Bridges #104, #105…
