TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK!
Across the outer stone plaza of the Galactic Flying Courtyard, one hundred manic red lights blinked in perfect synchronization inside the green thumb rings of the one hundred frozen clones.
Even through six inches of Empress Luo Qingxue’s absolute-zero blue crystal ice, a tinny, prerecorded voice crackled out of all one hundred rings at the exact same pitch:
*“Kid! Your fiancée is humiliating you! Burn your bloodline essence and detonate your dantian right now!
This old master inside your ring will rebuild your body with a divine phoenix bone after the explosion! Count to ten: nine, eight, seven—”*
Down by the kitchen stove, fourteen-year-old Jiang Tuntun lowered her wooden rice spoon and blinked.
“Huh? Why do all one hundred of their Ring-Grandpas sound like the exact same old guy reading off a teleprompter inside a tin bucket?”
“Because that’s not a real Ring-Grandpa!” Grandpa Yao roared, his white beard bristling like an angry porcupine’s quills as he adjusted his brass soul-loupe over his right eye.
