Saturday morning dawned under a garish neon-pink artificial sky above the North Campus of the 1,000-Sun Astral Protagonist Academy.
At the base of the three-thousand-foot Rose Dungeon Tower, the grand amphitheater known as the Simulated Peach-Blossom Cave was packed to capacity.
Inside the underground cavern, fake plastic peach trees dripped with glowing pink heart-shaped lanterns, artificial waterfalls of scented rosewater trickled down the quartz walls. Five hundred sleazy male trainees of the Harem & Cold-Beauty Taming Department lounged on silk-cushioned benches.
Every single one of these five hundred trainees—ranging from Rank 7 Early freshmen to Rank 7 Peak seniors. Wore an open-chested silk robe soaked in cheap musk cologne, held a folding paper fan printed with cheesy pickup lines. Had a glowing pink Artificial Peach-Blossom Charm Halo spinning above his greased hair!
At the front of the cavern, sitting on a golden peacock chair inside the glass-walled Master Control & Ventilation Booth, sat the head of the department: Dean Hua Cong.
Unlike the fat, blustering Director Jin, Dean Hua Cong looked like a pale, sharp-featured middle-aged scholar wearing a robe embroidered with nine hundred weeping orchids. Yet beneath his refined facade, a pulsing crimson vein of stolen female lifeforce ran down his neck. Linked directly to the three thousand captive Saintesses locked in the Rose Dungeon fifty yards below his boots.
