“LONG LIVE LORD PEI! LONG LIVE RED-SAND CITY!”
“A single black-iron brick knocked the Immortal out cold!”
“Who says mortals are ants before Immortals?! In Red-Sand Oasis City, even a cloud-riding Immortal has to kiss our cobblestones if he doesn’t pay his parking ticket!”
A tidal wave of cheers erupted from forty-four thousand throats at once, shaking the white clouds above the oasis!
Drums pounded on the city walls, gongs clanged at every street corner, and farmers threw their straw hats thirty feet into the air. Even the six hundred and ninety newly arrived refugees—who had been trembling behind the shield wall ten minutes ago, terrified that Envoy Lin would turn them all into mine slaves—dropped to their knees cheering and weeping with relief.
Above the crowd, a sea of floating green Loyalty bars turned blinding gold all at once!
Pei Xuan stood with one boot planted firmly on Envoy Lin’s bare, soot-streaked back, waving a hand to the cheering crowd across the plaza before bending down to inspect his prize.
Tied to the yellow string of Envoy Lin’s pink-flowered silk underpants was a palm-sized gray cloth pouch embroidered with silver cloud patterns. Even though the pouch was only the size of a steamed bun, it didn’t burn when the six hundred fireballs blew up Envoy Lin’s outer robe.
“A Rank 4 Spatial Storage Bag,” Pei Xuan said, his eyes lighting up as he pulled the gray pouch off Envoy Lin’s waistband.
Over by the noodle counter, Ye Guhan stood up and walked over, his pale face much rosier now after swallowing Pei Xuan’s Rank 3 Stamina Pill.
“Lord Pei, be careful,” Ye Guhan reminded him respectfully. “Every Spatial Storage Bag is branded with its owner’s spiritual soul-mark. Unless Envoy Lin wakes up and willingly erases his mark—or unless you kill him and spend seven days grinding the seal away with Rank 4 Spirit Qi—anyone who tries to reach inside will have their hand cut by spatial blades.”
“Grind it for seven days? Who has time for that when we have a city budget to balance?” Pei Xuan chuckled.
Without letting anyone else see his system screen, Pei Xuan tossed the `[Locked Rank 4 Spatial Storage Bag]` into Slot 1 of his Fusion Cube, added a single drop of `[Sweet-Spring Well Water]` into Slot 2, and paid a tiny 100 LP cleaning fee!
DING!
Pop!
The silver strings of the gray cloth pouch untied themselves in Pei Xuan’s palm!
Ye Guhan blinked twice, rubbing his eyes in total disbelief. “It... it opened in half a breath?! Did you wash off a Rank 4 Immortal soul-mark with a drop of well water?!”
“Our Sweet-Spring Well water is very good at removing stubborn stains,” Pei Xuan said with a straight face.
He tipped the mouth of the Spatial Storage Bag upside down over a clean wooden table that Hong Ling and Old Wei carried out from the noodle shop.
CLATTER—CLINK—THUD!
A dazzling mountain of glowing treasures, gold ingots, jade bottles, and silk books poured out of the tiny palm-sized pouch, piling three feet high across the table!
“Five hundred Spirit Stones! And five hundred gold ingots!”
Hong Ling’s dark eyes turned into spinning copper coins as she hugged the pile of sparkling white Spirit Stones and yellow gold ingots with both arms, giggling happily. “Young Master! Look how shiny these white rocks are! Just holding one makes my fingers feel warm and tingly!”
General Tie Zhan picked up one of the three spare Rank 4 Red-Copper Flying Swords and tapped the flat of the blade with his finger. Zing! “Good copper! Even if we don’t fly on them, we can melt these down or let Brother Ye use them as toothpicks!”
Pei Xuan, however, ignored the gold and the swords. His hand reached straight for the thick, crimson-silk booklet resting at the very top of the pile: `[Crimson Cloud Qi-Gathering Manual (Rank 4 Complete)]`.
For the past three months, ever since Pei Xuan had arrived at Dry-Well Village with a crippled dantian, his RTS System and his citizens had advanced rapidly through Rank 1, Rank 2, and Rank 3 of the Mortal Martial Path.
But above Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster stood the great wall separating mortals from Immortals: Rank 4 Qi Gathering!
With this complete Rank 4 Immortal Manual in his hands—and his Fusion Cube waiting to merge it with the Dragon-Blood Anvil Manual—the door to true Immortal Cultivation was finally wide open!
Pei Xuan tucked the crimson silk booklet and the jade slip safely into his inner robe pocket with a satisfied smile.
Down on the cobblestones at his feet, Envoy Lin let out a weak groan as the cold well breeze blew across his bare buttocks.
“Ughhh... my head... who dropped a mountain on my forehead...”
Envoy Lin slowly opened his swollen eyes.
The first thing he saw was not the clouds of the Crimson Cloud Sect. It was a pair of thick round spectacles perched on the sharp nose of Abacus Su, who was squatting six inches in front of Envoy Lin’s face holding a brass abacus and a thick stack of yellow paper!
And around Envoy Lin’s neck—locked shut with a heavy padlock forged from Ao Ming’s gravity scale and black magnet-iron—was a five-pound [Rank 4 Spirit-Sealing Debtor Collar] that kept his dantian completely numb!
Even worse, while he had been unconscious, One-Eyed Jack had pulled an extra-large, sleeveless Bright Yellow Cotton Vest right over Envoy Lin’s head! Across the chest and back of the yellow vest were painted four huge black characters:
`[MUNICIPAL DEBTOR #216 — DO NOT FEED FOR FREE]`
“Wha—what is this yellow rag on my body?! Why is my dantian sealed?!” Envoy Lin shrieked, trying to scramble backward on the cobblestones, only for Old Wei’s mechanical iron hand to press his shoulder right back down. “And where is my Spatial Storage Bag?! You thieves! Give me back my five hundred Spirit Stones and my sect manual!”
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
Abacus Su tapped his brass abacus with a bamboo pen and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Calm down, Debtor #216! Nothing was stolen—your assets were legally seized under Article 9 of the Red-Sand Oasis City Bankruptcy & Property Damage Act!”
Abacus Su held up a six-foot-long yellow scroll covered in neat red ink numbers and unrolled it right in front of Envoy Lin’s bruised nose.
“Let us review your final statement! Airspace violation and bird-manure cleanup: thirty-two thousand, four hundred and fifty taels! Attempted extortion tax: sixty-seven thousand, five hundred and fifty taels! Five soot smudges on elastic city walls: twenty-five thousand taels! Destruction of Old Guo’s noodle shop awning, fifty gallons of twelve-hour dragon-marrow broth, thirty catties of prime beef tendon, and Ye Guhan’s emotional distress over one burnt scallion leaf: one hundred and forty-five thousand taels! Three smashed vegetable carts and one vat of thirty-day fermented stinky tofu: seventy-four thousand, three hundred taels! Six hundred rounds of Rank 4 Gatling fireball ammunition plus barrel-cleaning tip: sixty-six thousand taels! And finally, eighty-nine thousand, seven hundred taels for chipping the corner of Lord Pei’s black-iron brick with your abnormally thick skull!”
Envoy Lin stared at the scroll, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “You’re charging ME eighty-nine thousand taels because HE hit MY forehead with a brick?!”
“City road bricks are public property, Debtor #216!” Abacus Su said sternly. “Your grand total comes to five hundred thousand silver taels! After confiscating the twenty-five thousand taels of silver and five hundred gold ingots in your bag—which were clearly stolen from poor mortal villages anyway—and crediting you twenty-five thousand taels for your bald-butted crane’s manure-hauling value, you still owe Red-Sand Oasis City four hundred and twenty-five thousand silver taels!”
Abacus Su pulled out a big red wooden stamp, breathed on it, and slammed it down onto the scroll with a loud THUMP:
`[APPROVED FOR KITCHEN & QUARRY LABOR — 130 YEARS]`
“Take him to the back of Old Guo’s noodle shop!” Old Guo stepped forward, twirling his twenty-pound iron soup ladle with a fierce grin as two burly Rank 2 kitchen helpers hauled the weeping Immortal Envoy up by his armpits. “Since you spilled my twelve-hour beef broth, you’re going to wash ten thousand bowls a day and peel five hundred pounds of desert onions every night before bed! Move it, #216!”
“Noooo! I am an Outer Deacon of the Crimson Cloud Immortal Sect! I don’t know how to peel onions! Brother-in-Law Pei Zhan, save meeeee!”
Envoy Lin was dragged away toward the kitchen sink in his yellow Debtor Vest and pink peony underpants, his cries echoing across the square.
At that moment, the entire plaza fell quiet again.
Slowly, Pei Xuan, General Tie Zhan, Old Wei, Chief Hulun, the Black-Wind Bandit King, and Ye Guhan all turned their heads at the exact same time—and looked toward the stone horse-trough at the edge of the square.
Hiding behind the horse-trough were Marquis Pei Zhan and his eldest son Pei Heng.
As for the remaining two hundred “elite family guards” who had stayed loyal to the Marquis earlier that morning?
Every single one of them had already thrown their Iron-Wolf spears onto a neat pile, taken off their helmets, and formed a single-file line in front of Abacus Su’s assistant desk, waving their hands eagerly:
“Sir! Put us down for Red-Sand City citizenship too! We saw nothing! We have no relation to that old man behind the horse-trough!”
Behind the trough, Marquis Pei Zhan and Pei Heng sat frozen like two clay statues.
They had just watched a genuine Rank 4 Peak Immortal Envoy of the Crimson Cloud Sect get dropped out of the sky by a red lever, blasted out of his green turtle shell by a six-barrel alchemy cannon, knocked toothless by Pei Xuan with a black-iron street brick, robbed of his Spatial Storage Bag, and dragged into a noodle shop kitchen in a yellow vest to peel onions for one hundred and thirty years!
Pei Xuan walked slowly toward the horse-trough, his boots clicking rhythmically against the flagstones.
As he walked, he casually reached into his right sleeve and pulled out the [Fused Rank 3 Black-Iron Road Brick], tossing it lightly up and down in his palm—toss, slap, toss, slap.
“Father,” Pei Xuan called out warmly, stopping five paces in front of the horse-trough. “Big Brother Pei Heng. What were you two shouting a few minutes ago while Uncle Lin was in the sky? Something about burning my city down and pulling my teeth out one by one?”
Marquis Pei Zhan stared at the rectangular black-iron brick bouncing up and down in Pei Xuan’s hand—which still had a tiny smudge of Envoy Lin’s eyebrow soot on the corner.
Then he looked behind Pei Xuan at five Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters, one Rank 5 Foundation Establishment Sword Genius, and a smoking six-barrel Gatling cannon.
Hisssssss...
A dark, warm puddle spread rapidly across the cobblestones underneath both Marquis Pei Zhan’s purple noble robes and Pei Heng’s silk trousers.
“Guh—!”
Without uttering a single word, father and son rolled their eyes back, foamed slightly at the mouth, and fainted dead away on top of each other in the middle of their own warm puddle!
“Tsk, tsk. Such weak nerves,” Pei Xuan sighed, shaking his head. “Old Wei, help my father and big brother wash their faces.”
“Yes, Young Master!” Old Wei grinned, scooped up a full wooden bucket of icy horse-trough water, and splashed it straight into the two noblemen’s faces!
SPLASH!
“Ahhhh! Don’t hit me with the brick! Don’t hit me with the brick!”
Marquis Pei Zhan woke up sputtering and coughing, immediately scrambling onto his hands and knees in the wet mud and banging his forehead on the cobblestones in front of Pei Xuan’s boots!
“Ninth Son! No—Lord Pei! City Lord Pei! It was all your stepmother Lady Wang and this idiot Pei Heng who tricked me!” Marquis Pei Zhan bawled at the top of his lungs, snot and horse-water dripping off his nose as he pointed at his own eldest son. “I never wanted to call Envoy Lin! Please don’t hit my old head with that black-iron brick! I have high blood pressure!”
“Father! How can you blame me?!” Pei Heng shrieked in horror as his father threw him under the cart without a second thought.
“Shut up, you toothless waste!” Marquis Pei Zhan slapped Pei Heng across the back of his head, then crawled forward on his knees and pulled a thick leather folder of stamped golden land deeds out of his inner coat. “Lord Pei! Look! These are the official land deeds and tax seals for the Six Eastern Border Counties of the Iron-Wolf Marquisate—half of our entire family territory, along with four thousand border farmers and two iron mines! I give them all to Red-Sand Oasis City for free as compensation for today’s noise!”
Abacus Su’s eyes lit up behind his spectacles. He swooped in like an eagle, snatched the leather folder of six county deeds, checked the imperial watermark against the sunlight, and gave Pei Xuan a huge thumbs-up!
“Wait a minute,” Abacus Su frowned, clicking his abacus twice. “Six border counties covers half of the conspiracy fine, Marquis Pei—but what about the remaining fifty-thousand-tael fine for insulting Chef Guo’s noodle shop and inciting an unlicensed fireball attack? Someone of noble rank has to stay behind in Dry-Well City as collateral while a messenger rides back to the Marquisate for the silver!”
Before Marquis Pei Zhan could grab his son, twenty-year-old Pei Heng panicked—and with a desperate burst of unfilial speed, shoved his own father straight forward into One-Eyed Jack’s hands!
“Father! You are the head of the Marquisate—only your signature is heavy enough to serve as collateral!” Pei Heng shrieked righteously, already backing toward the south gate as fast as his legs could carry him. “Stay here and wash dishes for a few days to show Ninth Brother our sincerity! I will run back to Black-Rock City right now and tell Mother to open the family vault and send your ransom silver!”
“Pei Heng, you unfilial bastard! Get back here!” Marquis Pei Zhan roared in disbelief as his beloved eldest son hiked up his wet silk trousers and sprinted out the south gate faster than a rabbit chased by wolves!
One-Eyed Jack grinned from ear to ear, happily slapping Yellow Debtor Vest #402 onto the sputtering Marquis Pei Zhan and handing him a wooden dish-scrubbing brush right beside Envoy Lin (#216)!