CREAK—BANG!
The carved wooden doors of the Dragon-Blood Tavern swung wide open.
Three towering figures stepped out onto the marble porch side by side, blocking out the late-morning sun like three iron pagodas!
On the left stood General Tie Zhan (“Iron-Head Tie”), wearing black-iron scale armor, holding a half-eaten basket of steaming pork buns in his left hand while chewing a mouthful of meat.
In the center stood Chief Hulun of the Frost-Mane Barbarian Tribe, seven feet tall with a white wolf-skin draped over his broad shoulders, picking a piece of roast duck out of his teeth with a bamboo toothpick.
And on the right stood Chief Toll Officer Hei Feng—the Rank 3 Peak Black-Wind Bandit King—who had taken the underground Frost-Sandworm subway tunnel from the East Gate and arrived at the tavern five minutes before the Marquis!
“Did someone say twenty fools are drawing blades in front of our favorite roast-duck shop?”
General Tie Zhan swallowed his pork bun and took a single heavy step off the porch onto the cobblestones!
BOOOM!
At the exact same instant, Chief Hulun and Hei Feng stepped down beside him!
Three terrifying pillars of Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster Internal Qi—each one refined and supercharged by Pei Xuan’s fused [Rank 3 Dragon-Blood Anvil Manual]—erupted into the sky above the Central Market Plaza like three invisible crimson volcanoes!
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Deputy Captain Wu and the nineteen Rank 2 Peak family guards who were mid-leap in the air didn’t even get a chance to swing their swords!
It felt as if an invisible ten-ton iron anvil had dropped out of the blue sky and slammed straight onto their backs!
All twenty elite guards of the Iron-Wolf Marquisate let out muffled groans as their knees buckled in midair. Like twenty dumplings dropped onto a chopping board, they crashed flat onto their bellies on the marble street tiles—chins pressed against the stone, arms pinned to their sides, and all twenty iron broadswords clattering out of their nerveless fingers!
“Ugh—my chest! I can’t breathe!”
“What kind of monster Qi is this?! There are THREE Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters here?!”
Deputy Captain Wu tried desperately to push himself up with his elbows, only for his face to turn purple as the crimson blood-heat radiating from General Tie Zhan’s boots pressed his helmet right back down against the flagstones!
And standing ten paces behind them, Marquis Pei Zhan froze as if struck by lightning!
All the blood drained out of the Marquis’s arrogant face in a single second, leaving him as pale as a sheet of funeral paper!
“T-Tie Zhan?!” Marquis Pei Zhan’s voice shook so violently that his heavy wolf-head broadsword trembled in his hand. “Aren’t you the disgraced Northern Border Commander who had his meridians crippled in a prison cart six months ago?! How are your meridians completely healed—and how are you at Rank 3 Mid Grandmaster?!”
Marquis Pei Zhan jerked his head toward Chief Hulun next, his eyeballs nearly splitting their sockets.
“And you—Hulun, the Chief of the Frost-Mane Barbarian Tribe! And Hei Feng, the Black-Wind Bandit King!” Marquis Pei Zhan took two stumbling steps backward, his boots scraping against the stone tiles. “Why are the three fiercest Rank 3 Grandmasters of the northwest all drinking together in a tavern and taking orders from a fifteen-year-old kitchen maid?!”
General Tie Zhan popped the last half of a pork bun into his mouth, dusted the crumbs off his iron gauntlets, and looked at Marquis Pei Zhan as if he were looking at a stray dog.
“Why?” General Tie Zhan sneered, his deep voice booming across the quiet plaza. “Because Lord Pei Xuan cured my crippled meridians with a single bath of Sweet-Spring Spirit Water, gave my soldiers warm houses, and feeds me fifty pork buns a day! Meanwhile, back in the Great Yan army, corrupt nobles like you stole our winter grain and sold our armor for silver! Compared to our Lord Pei Xuan, what is a tiny Iron-Wolf Marquis worth?”
“Well said, Brother Tie!” Chief Hulun spat out his bamboo toothpick—which shot through the air like a steel needle and pinned Pei Heng’s purple silk sleeve straight to the floorboards of the fish stall! “During the Hundred-Year Black Frost, my five thousand Frost-Mane tribespeople almost froze to death in the snow! It was Lord Pei who opened the city gates, gave our children hot ginger-lamb soup, and built us heated stone houses! Anyone who dares raise a blade in Lord Pei’s market will have to step over Hulun’s axe first!”
Hei Feng adjusted his blue peaked traffic cap and grinned fiercely, tapping the brass [STAR EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH] badge on his chest.
“And don’t look at me, Old Man Pei!” Hei Feng laughed loudly. “Your vicious wife Lady Wang paid me fifty thousand silver taels to attack Dry-Well Town last month—and Lord Pei beat me across three stone outhouses with his bare hands! Even when I was a Rank 3 Peak Bandit King, I couldn’t bend the hair on Lord Pei’s forearm! Working as Red-Sand City’s Chief Toll Officer gives me three bowls of braised pork trotters a day and heated bathroom tiles! Why would I ever work for a broke Marquis who can’t even afford five copper coins for horse manure bags?!”
“What?! Pei Xuan beat you across three stone outhouses with his bare hands?!”
Marquis Pei Zhan’s brain buzzed like a hive of angry bees!
Wait—Hei Feng was a Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster whose physical strength was famous across three provinces! How could Pei Xuan—the ninth son who was born with a weak, cracked dantian and couldn’t even lift a bucket of well water at age fourteen—beat a Rank 3 Peak Grandmaster with his bare hands?!
Before Marquis Pei Zhan could process that terrifying revelation, Abacus Su clapped his hands together with a bright, businesslike smile!
“Thank you for your cooperation with municipal law enforcement, Generals!” Abacus Su cheered, motioning to ten burly Rank 2 market bailiffs who came jogging over carrying bundles of bright yellow vests and fused iron ankle-weights. “Bailiffs! Put the [90-Day Public Safety Debtor Vests] on these twenty guards who drew weapons in the market!”
“Wait! You can’t put Debtor Vests on the Marquis’s personal guards!” Deputy Captain Wu cried out from the floor—only for two Rank 2 Peak barbarian bailiffs to pick him up by his armpits, strip off his iron breastplate as “collateral for the fine,” and slip a bright yellow canvas vest over his tunic that read: [MARKET DEBTOR #4,102 — UNLAWFUL SWORD-DRAWING CREW]!
Within thirty seconds, all twenty of the Marquis’s proud family guards were standing in a neat row wearing bright yellow Debtor Vests and holding bamboo street-sweeping brooms that had been shoved into their hands!
Then, Hong Ling walked over to where Pei Heng was still lying on the cobblestones with green camel cud glued to his face and three missing teeth.
In her small hand, she held the extra-special yellow vest she had sewn the night before: [VIP DEBTOR #8,888 — YOUNG MASTER PEI LONG (ARROGANT BRAT DIVISION)].
“No! Don’t put that ugly yellow rag on me! Father, thave me!” Pei Heng lisped in horror, kicking his feet as he tried to crawl backward. “I am the future Iron-Wolf Marquith! If people in the capital hear that I wore a yellow debtor vetht, how can I ever show my fathe?!”
“Hold still, Debt-Boy #8,888!”
Hong Ling didn’t even use a bailiff. She casually stepped one small embroidered boot onto Pei Heng’s chest—pinning him flat with two thousand pounds of Bone-Tempering weight—grabbed him by the collar with one hand like a wet puppy, and yanked the bright yellow [VIP DEBTOR #8,888] vest right over his head and arms!
RIP-SNAP!
She tied the yellow cloth strings behind his back in a neat double bow, then tapped his swollen cheek with the flat of her ledger.
“Three hundred silver taels for the fish barrel, plus another two hundred silver taels for attempting to rob a city official’s coin purse!” Hong Ling announced crisply. “Until your father pays five hundred silver taels in cash, you are assigned to the Fish-Gutting & Barrel-Scrubbing Squad right here at Stall #14!”
“You—you dare put my eldest son in a debtor vest?!”
Marquis Pei Zhan’s chest heaved up and down like a bellows. His hand gripped the hilt of his wolf-head broadsword so tightly his knuckles turned white, and his Rank 3 Peak Internal Qi flared up around his body in a dark gray wolf-shaped shadow!
“I am a Marquis appointed by the King of Great Yan! Even if you have three Rank 3 Grandmasters here, if I fight with my life on the line—”
CLACK!
Right before Marquis Pei Zhan could swing his sword, Abacus Su stepped right between General Tie Zhan and Hei Feng, holding up the largest, brightest yellow vest of all—the one with little red cloth tassels on the shoulders that read: [SUPREME DEBTOR #9,999 — FORMER MARQUIS, CURRENT DITCH-DIGGER CAPTAIN]!
At the same time, not only did General Tie Zhan, Chief Hulun, and Hei Feng lock their three Rank 3 Grandmaster auras onto Marquis Pei Zhan’s throat, but up on the roofs of the three-story shops surrounding the plaza, twelve more Rank 3 Early Grandmaster Captains from the [Lv.4 Dragon-Blood Martial Academy] stepped out onto the eaves with heavy Rank 3 iron crossbows aimed straight at the Marquis’s head!
And down at the end of the street, inside the central Sweet-Spring Well, Ao Ming poked his giant silver dragon head out of the water and burped a tiny ball of blue dragon-lightning, staring at Marquis Pei Zhan like a cat looking at a mouse!
One... two... three... fifteen Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters?! Plus a live Flood Dragon sticking its head out of a well?!
The dark gray wolf-shadow around Marquis Pei Zhan’s body popped like a soap bubble!
CLANG!
Marquis Pei Zhan’s knees went so weak that he hastily shoved his broadsword back into its scabbard with both hands just to keep from dropping it! Cold sweat poured down his forehead like rain, soaking his gray beard.
“Wait! Wait! I didn’t swing my sword! It only came halfway out of the scabbard!” Marquis Pei Zhan shouted in a high, cracked voice, all his noble bluster evaporating in the face of fifteen Grandmasters and a Flood Dragon!
Abacus Su looked at the Marquis’s scabbard through his magnifying glass and sighed with deep disappointment.
“Tsk, only three inches out of the scabbard... According to Article 9, Paragraph 2, drawing a blade less than four inches counts as a Minor Unsheathing Misdemeanor, which carries a fine of one hundred silver taels or wearing this [SUPREME DEBTOR #9,999] vest over your armor as a probation warning!” Abacus Su held out the yellow vest with both hands. “Since you already spent your pocket silver at the toll booth, My Lord Marquis, please put on your Probation Vest!”
“I...” Marquis Pei Zhan looked at the fifteen Rank 3 Grandmasters staring coldly at him from the street and rooftops. Knowing that refusing meant getting beaten into the cobblestones alongside his guards, the proud Iron-Wolf Marquis closed his eyes in utter humiliation, held out his arms like a wooden puppet, and let Abacus Su slip the bright yellow [SUPREME DEBTOR #9,999] vest right over his wolf-iron armor!
Just as Abacus Su tied the yellow bow behind the Marquis’s back, a calm, clear voice echoed from the grand marble steps of the Lord’s Keep at the north end of the plaza.
“Well, well. That yellow color really brings out your complexion, Father.”
The crowd of laughing citizens parted respectfully into two neat lines.
Wearing a spotless robe of snow-white silk embroidered with silver cloud patterns, his shoulders broad and his eyes shining with the deep, unshakeable might of a Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster, Pei Xuan strolled leisurely down the marble steps of the Keep.
Behind him walked Old Wei, carrying a ceremonial black-iron saber, and Boom-Pot Sun, tossing a golden stamina pill from hand to hand.
Marquis Pei Zhan slowly raised his head and stared at the tall, handsome young man standing before him.
Was this really the pale, sickly ninth son he had kicked out into the desert to die a year ago?!
“Pei... Pei Xuan?!” Marquis Pei Zhan stammered, his lips trembling as he stood in the middle of the street wearing a yellow Debtor Vest. “You—this whole city is really yours?!”
Pei Xuan smiled faintly, his gaze sweeping past the yellow-vested Marquis and the green-faced, toothless Pei Heng without a trace of warmth.
“Welcome to Red-Sand Oasis City, Marquis Pei,” Pei Xuan said calmly. “Since you marched three hundred miles through a drought and even put on our city’s guest vest, come inside the Keep. Old Guo just steamed a fresh pot of Golden-Blood rice—let’s sit down and talk about the price of grain.”
Wait—as Marquis Pei Zhan and the limping, toothless Pei Heng were escorted up the marble steps of the Lord’s Keep by General Tie Zhan and Chief Hulun, they passed the shaded courtyard of the central noodle shop right next to the Keep entrance.
Sitting on a cooling-jade bench under a willow tree was a cold-faced young swordsman in patched white robes, holding a pair of bamboo chopsticks in one hand and an ancient bronze-hilted spirit sword across his lap.
It was Ye Guhan—the Rank 5 Foundation Establishment Sword Genius!
As Marquis Pei Zhan walked past the willow tree in his bright yellow [SUPREME DEBTOR #9,999] vest, Ye Guhan happened to look up from his fifth bowl of braised beef noodles because Pei Heng’s green camel-spit hair smelled unpleasant.
“Hmph. Keep your smelly head ten feet away from my soup bowl,” Ye Guhan said coldly, flicking his sleeve by half an inch.
WHOOOOSH!
A tiny, invisible wisp of Rank 5 Foundation Establishment Sword Intent brushed past Marquis Pei Zhan’s cheek and sliced off three smelly green hairs from Pei Heng’s head—while neatly blowing all the remaining camel-spit odor thirty feet upwind without disturbing a single willow leaf!
Marquis Pei Zhan stopped dead on the third marble step!
His knees buckled so hard that his iron knee-guards struck the stone step with a loud CLANG!
Even though Marquis Pei Zhan was only a mortal Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster, he had once knelt fifty feet away from an Immortal Elder of the Crimson Cloud Sect when Pei Heng was tested for a Spirit Root. He knew what true Immortal Cultivation Qi felt like!
And the casual sword pressure coming off this young man in patched white robes eating beef noodles under the tree was ten times more terrifying than the Qi Gathering Envoy from the Crimson Cloud Sect!
“An... an Immortal Sword Cultivator?!” Marquis Pei Zhan’s voice came out as a strangled squeak as he stared at Ye Guhan in sheer terror. “And he’s sitting at a street stall in Pei Xuan’s city eating beef noodles?!”
Up ahead on the steps, Pei Xuan didn’t even pause.
“Don’t bother Brother Ye while he’s having lunch, Marquis Pei,” Pei Xuan called back casually over his shoulder. “He still owes the city twelve days of canal-slicing labor for cracking half a curbstone yesterday. If you make him spill his soup and break another brick, Abacus Su will put the bill on your tab.”
Slicing canals to pay off a cracked curbstone?!
Marquis Pei Zhan felt the sky spin above his head. An actual Immortal Sword Cultivator was working as a ditch-digger in Pei Xuan’s city to pay for a road brick and a bowl of noodles?! Just how deep was the water in this Red-Sand Oasis City?!