The heavy bronze portcullis of Barrier Gate #5 ground to a halt across the obsidian bridge, sealing the tunnel ahead.
Standing in the center of the inspection platform, flanked by fifty black-robed alchemical guards, was Chief Poison-Tester Elder Gu. A gaunt, sallow-faced Rank 7 Peak alchemist whose pinched nostrils. Moreover, Sunken eyes carried the permanent sneer of a man who had spent three centuries testing lethal venoms on lab rats and junior disciples.
In Elder Gu’s bony right hand gleamed a three-foot-long [Heaven-Sniffing Silver Needle]. Engraved with seven rings of soul-piercing detection runes, the needle could sense a single drop of foreign blood, a hidden spatial fold, or a concealed breath within ten yards.
“Halt the catering wagon!” Elder Gu rasped, his voice scraping like rusted iron across glass. “Gates #1 through #3 failed to file their quarter-hour austerity reports. By order of the Central Censorate, no cauldron passes Gate #5 without a full core-piercing needle inspection!”
Inside the hidden living room of the [Trojan Nine-Grid Hotpot Cart], twelve-year-old Gu Nian, thirteen-year-old Ye Xiao, ten-year-old Su Nuannuan, and nine-year-old Jiang Tuntun all looked up at the center ceiling dome.
Right inside the padded observation dome beneath Grid #5, toddler Little Fifth (Ao Xing) was crouched under his three-foot emerald spirit-cabbage leaf, holding his chubby hands over his mouth so he wouldn’t hiccup.
