Dawn over the Green-Willow Valley was a quiet, deceptive paradise of white mist, terraced water chutes, and hundred-acre fields of radiant healing herbs.
Located in a sheltered limestone depression two leagues behind Boundary Pylon Three, the valley enjoyed a warm microclimate kept by the underground heat channels siphoned from the main formation grid. Hundreds of box-shaped stone greenhouses lined the valley floor. Their glass panes glowed with the gentle emerald soft glow of high-grade spirit plants absorbing stolen energy.
At the center of the agricultural terraces stood the manor of Outer Sect Deacon Sun—a lavish, two-story compound of white plaster and red cedar tile. He was surrounded by decorative koi ponds and manicured peach orchards.
Deacon Sun sat on his open porch. He was wrapped in a stitched silk dressing gown of peacock blue, sipping hot silver-needle tea from an eggshell fine china cup.
He was a slender, delicate-looking man of fifty years, with long, manicured fingernails, a neatly trimmed goatee. The soft, flawless skin of an official who had never lifted a shovel in his life. Before him stood a private dark wood desk. There, two apprentice clerks were busily recording the expected profits from the morning’s harvest.
“Three hundred crates of Crimson-Root Ginseng,” Sun murmured. His thin lips curved into a delighted smile as he dipped his brush in ink. “At eighty silver bits per crate on the southern black market... That’s twenty-four thousand silver bits net profit. After paying Captain Zhao his cut and settling Commander Yue’s…
