Down in the crowded square of Harvest Plaza. Across the three billion home projection screens of Worlds #8 and #9. Thousands of ordinary wheat farmers, lantern makers, and grocery shopkeepers stood with their arms crossed, watching eighteen-year-old Dark Emperor Ye Ming stand under his watering-can “rainstorm”
on top of the bell-tower.
Directly below the tower, five hundred teenage cultists of Ye Ming’s “Forsaken Midnight Legion.” Led by a sixteen-year-old boy in heavy black eyeliner named Cult-Leader Xiao—dabbed at their eyes with black lace handkerchiefs and sobbed dramatically in unison:
“Waaah! Listen to how raspy Lord Ye Ming’s voice is! Ten years ago, the cold-blooded hypocrites of the Lin Lantern-Keeper Clan must have shattered his meridians, locked him in an ice dungeon, and fed him broken glass! Only a man who has suffered the deepest betrayal in history could carry such bottomless sorrow in his forty-five-degree side profile!”
Tied to the sagging papier-mâché gargoyle ten feet below Ye Ming’s boots, seventy-eight-year-old Elder Lin rolled his eyes so hard he nearly strained his neck.
“Little Ming, stop letting those two boys pour cold well-water on your head while you’re sweating in that winter coat. You’re going to catch a summer cold just like you did when you were nine!” Elder Lin called up in a warm, grandfatherly voice, shaking his head at the boy he had practically raised.
