The first alarm chime sounded like a cheerful morning bird trapped inside an iron bucket.
DING-DONG-CLANG.
The metallic note vibrated straight through Headmaster Hong’s skull, bouncing off his parietal bone and rattling his back molar teeth.
Headmaster Hong’s bloodshot eyes snapped wide open. He wasn’t dead. In fact, his spiritual consciousness was horrifyingly sharp.
A pungent aroma of boiled ten-thousand-year rhubarb, wild peppermint, and sour fermented prunes filled his sinus cavities with overwhelming intensity.
“Get off me!” Headmaster Hong roared, scrambling backward across the greasy brass floor plates like a crab dropped onto a hot iron shovel.
His fingernails dug frantically into the skin between his eyebrows. Under his fingertips, he felt a cold, rounded porcelain surface embedded deep inside his glabella. It wasn’t merely resting against his forehead skin.
Its glowing pink roots were burrowing straight into his Rank 8 Peak Script-King Clone soul platform!
