At the foot of Supreme Sword Mountain, a warm mountain breeze rustled the pine trees. All eighteen rescued heiresses and their eighteen clan patriarchs knelt in neat rows before the front porch of the [Lv.3 Flying Courtyard Carriage].
Behind the closed blue light curtain of the Supreme Sword Sect’s mountain barrier, Sect Master Jian Jue and his elders could only watch in suffocating, impotent silence. The eighteen wealthiest cultivation clans of the central and southern provinces—clans that the Supreme Sword Sect had spent fifty years trying to swallow through marriage alliances. Chu Tian’s harem plots—offered their allegiance directly to a father in a white kitchen apron!
Yet at the very back of the eighteen kneeling delegations, three conservative. White-bearded Second Elders from the smaller herb-and-mining clans exchanged nervous glances and hesitated with their hands hovering half an inch above Grandpa Fu’s golden [Gu Family Citizen & Clan Protection Ledger].
“Patriarch Mu, Patriarch Lei,” one of the hesitant old clan elders whispered nervously, casting an anxious glance toward the southern horizon where the alchemy towers of Myriad Pill City stood. “There is no question that Master Gu is our eighteen clans’ greatest benefactor! Put if all eighteen of our clans publicly sever our tribute treaties with the Four Great Righteous Sects today and merge our twenty million citizens into Master Gu’s network.
