The grand stairs of the Central Peak was a monument of three thousand steps carved from pure white marble. He rose from the outer court courtyards to the supreme court cathedral of the Hall of Decrees.
For hundreds of years, this stairs had been the private domain of Inner Court prodigies and elder palanquins. debt-bound laborers from the melted rock waste pits were forbidden to set foot upon the marble on pain of having their tendons cut. Even junior deacons were needed to climb with downcast eyes, reciting old family repentance mantras with every hundred paces.
Today, the marble stairs belonged to two men in patched linen and scarred bronze.
Lin Tao walked with steady, unrushed strides, his heavy iron-shod boots clicking crisply against the white stone. At his chest hung the Golden Phoenix Medallion. Its star-gold surface reflected the morning sunlight in dazzling, rhythmic flashes. At his right hip, the dark star-iron token of Chief Regional Checker swung in perfect clockwork exact timing with his steps.
The three thousand marble steps were lined with ancient bronze urns burning aged sandalwood. Their fragrant smoke mixed with the cool, dew-scented mountain breeze. Outer court students who had spent their entire lives memorizing lineage charts and cultivating old family humility stared at Lin Tao’s unarmored figure in stunned, breathless silence. To their traditional minds, a mortal laborer was a creature of dirt, incapable of touching the higher mysteries of heaven. Yet here was a boy with a broken dantian who had toppled…
