Twelve silver wind-chimes rang through the pink fog, their notes slow and sticky like warm syrup.
A hundred feet above the western eaves of Sky-Border Pass, the [Lv.3 Flying Courtyard Carriage] hovered silently inside a bank of white mountain cloud. Gu Changsheng had tapped the porch railing twice with his [Iron Wok Spatula], switching the courtyard’s outer array to cloud-camouflage mode so the Four Sects’ lookouts below wouldn’t spot the grey roof tiles.
On the front porch, the [Ever-Boiling Copper Hotpot] was turned down to a gentle simmer, while Auntie Qin wiped a stray drop of sesame oil off the table with a clean linen cloth.
Ten-year-old Gu Nian leaned his elbows on the carved wooden balustrade, his yellow bunny apron tied neatly over his blue jacket. He squinted down through a gap in the clouds at the sprawling white-jade central plaza of Sky-Border Pass.
“Dad,” Gu Nian said, pointing a finger toward the crowded square below. “Everyone down there looks weird. Their mouths are hanging open, and their eyes are all shiny and pink, like they forgot how to blink.”
Gu Changsheng stood beside his son with a porcelain bowl of six-bird ginger broth in one hand and [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] in the other.
