Through the crystal-clear floor of the Ink-Sea Library, a million glowing sky-windows opened like morning lanterns across the starry expanse below.
Standing beside the Master Index Table in his blue cotton apron, Gu Changsheng rested one hand on Luo Qingxue’s waist and looked down at the live feeds. Around them, fifteen-year-old Gu Nian, seventeen-year-old Ye Xiao, thirteen-year-old Su Nuannuan, fourteen-year-old Jiang Tuntun, and eleven-year-old Little Fifth leaned forward to watch.
Behind the children, Grandpa Fu, Auntie Qin, and Grandpa Yao stood shoulder to shoulder with ten thousand cheering Smiley-Face Ink Golems.
Let’s see how the Chief Author’s third-page execution traps hold up against a real household stamp, Gu Changsheng thought with a calm, steady smile.
Down in Sky-Window #0001, a heavy winter blizzard howled across the wooden square of Iron-Leaf Town on Planet Frost-Leaf.
On the snow-covered execution platform knelt a broad-shouldered mortal blacksmith named Old Chen, his wrists bound in cold iron chains. At the foot of the wooden steps, Old Chen’s eight-year-old son was crying his throat raw in the snow, held back by two sneering town guards.
High above them at the official desk, a corrupt county magistrate had just tossed a black wooden execution token onto the snow. The magistrate was grinning as he waited for the executioner’s ghost-headed broadsword to take the honest blacksmith’s head on the third page of the local chronicle.
