Vice-Principal Qian kicked the heavy ironwood door of his executive suite shut with a thunderous bang.
The walls of the circular tower room shook. Three thousand jade ink-stones and two centuries of extortion ledgers rattled on their gilded shelves. Outside the frost-glass windows, five thousand examinees were still whispering across the plaza about how Jiang Tuntun and Little Fifth had crunched the Hundred-Foot Destiny Crystal Pillar down to a stub.
Vice-Principal Qian’s round, pudgy face was the color of a bruised plum.
He did not look like a serene Star Realm scholar. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps as he clutched his swollen right ribs with one hand and slammed a heavy bronze abacus onto his mahogany desk with the other.
CLACK-CLACK-HUM!
Crimson array lines shot out from the bronze abacus, crawling across the ceiling, floor, and frost-glass windows in a tight geometric web. It was a Rank 8 Blood-Abacus Lockdown Trap, designed to seal the room and drain the marrow of any debtor who refused to pay up.
“Fifty billion high-grade spirit stones!” Vice-Principal Qian choked out, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Gu Changsheng across the wide mahogany desk. “That Destiny Pillar was carved from a dead star’s heart! Do you have any idea what Headmaster Hong is going to do to me tonight when the daily luck-quota comes up empty?!”
