Licking the last drop of star-plum roast-duck gravy off his thumb, Vice-Principal Qian marched out of his private office with the energy of a man thirty centuries younger.
His round belly practically bounced under his golden administrative robes as he led the Gu family down the Grand Executive Corridor of the 1,000-Sun Astral Protagonist Academy. Two paces behind him, shadow assassin Old Blade hurried to keep up, carrying three empty porcelain lunch platters like sacred relics.
“Right this way, Brother Gu! Right this way, Empress Luo!” Vice-Principal Qian beamed, kicking open the thirty-foot double doors of the Executive Board Hall with a resounding BOOM.
“We still have ten minutes before the noon bell! If we stamp the emergency charters now, not even the Central Sun’s orbital defense array can question your campus credentials!”
Inside the domed marble chamber, five towering obsidian thrones encircled a floating holographic star-table.
Four of the five thrones were empty in the flesh, occupied instead by shimmering, twenty-foot-tall astral projections of the Academy’s Department Deans. There sat Professor Ao Man of the Auction Department, Dean Hua Cong of the Harem Department, Warden Gui Suo of the Ring-Grandpa Plant, and Chief Elder Sha of the 500 Training Planets.
