Players: All NPCs in the Sect Are Moles

Wang Sheng’s hands trembled as he fumbled in his coin purse and pulled out a large silver ingot—far more than he usually spent on bribes for his business. He offered it over, forcing an ugly, fawning smile onto his face.

"Sirs, my good sirs, please don’t report this to the authorities! It’s just a small matter, no need to trouble the officials, right? Let’s settle this privately, how about it?"

When Zhang San and Li saw the silver, however, they turned their heads away.

"What?!" Zhang San’s voice rose. "You’re trying to shut us up with money?! You’re obstructing us from reporting a crime! You have a guilty conscience! So it *was* you! Come on! Let’s go down to the magistrate’s office and have a chat!"

Wang Sheng: "..."

’My ancestors! I have a guilty conscience because I *do* have a guilty conscience! But it’s not the same guilty conscience you think it is!’

He was so frantic he was practically bowing nonstop, lowering his voice to a desperate plea. "No, no! My good sirs, you’ve misunderstood! It really wasn’t us! It’s just... it’s just that my wife and I are easily embarrassed, and if word gets out, it will ruin our reputation... This silver, just take it as... take it as something to calm your nerves, buy a round of drinks..."

As he spoke, he gritted his teeth, pulled another piece of silver from his robes, and shoved it into Li’s hand.

Zhang San and Li looked at Wang Sheng’s subservient demeanor—he looked like a man with a guilty conscience, terrified of a knock at the door. Although they didn’t quite understand why this NPC was such a coward, they reluctantly accepted the silver ingot.

Zhang San made a show of checking his tattered pants, confirming his belt was still tied, while Li followed suit by straightening his collar.

The two then exhaled in tandem. Another delightful day of the Nine Schools Sect’s daily business of messing with people!

HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!

"Sigh, forget it. Seeing as your attitude is sincere enough, we’ll let you off the hook this time."

"That’s right. Look, because of your little mess, I’m late for my begging rounds."

"I haven’t even steamed my buns for the day! Since we didn’t suffer any real losses, let’s just part ways here!"

Wang Sheng and Mrs. Li looked as if they’d been granted a royal pardon, their backs soaked with sweat. They quickly plastered on smiles and escorted the two to the door as if seeing off gods of pestilence.

"Take care, my good sirs! Take care! What happened today, heaven knows and earth knows..."

And so, the four of them walked out of the guest room together.

Zhang San and Li walked in front, with Wang Sheng and Mrs. Li following behind. The latter pair exchanged a glance, each seeing in the other’s eyes the relief of having survived a catastrophe. ’Thank goodness, our spouses won’t find out now.’

But the moment they stepped out of the room and onto the corridor, Zhang San and Li stopped in their tracks, their gazes drawn to the sky above the inn’s courtyard.

"Whoa!"

"Badass!"

The two exclaimed in unison.

Wang Sheng and Mrs. Li followed their gaze and looked up. Then, they too froze on the spot, dumbstruck, even forgetting the terror of their recent illicit rendezvous.

The sky, just beginning to show the pale light of dawn, was dominated by a spectacle that defied description.

High in the distant sky, a somewhat blurry triangular marvel rested atop a platform supported by a heaven-piercing pillar to the north of the city. Beside it hovered another, irregularly shaped shadow.

And extending from beneath that triangle was a... a line?

A winding black line snaked across the sky above Anhe City, descending from the blurry shadow high above and piercing through the thinning morning mist.

As it descended, the line’s silhouette grew clearer and wider.

Wang Sheng’s eyes widened. He could see clearly now—it wasn’t a line. It was... a road suspended in midair!

It was an aerial road made of wood and stone, twisting and spiraling through the sky at impossible angles. He could even faintly make out strange-looking obstacles on its surface.

Another, straighter line extended vertically downward from a platform beneath the triangle, eventually disappearing below the horizon outside the city.

Wang Sheng’s brain crashed once again.

’What is going on? What in the world happened last night?!’

’Is this a warning from the heavens about my illicit affair? Weren’t two strange men appearing in my room enough? Why is there this thing in the sky now, too?’

On the street outside the inn, a growing crowd had already gathered.

Everyone was looking up, craning their necks and pointing at the incredible spectacle in the sky, a clamor of discussion rising from all around.

"Good heavens! What... what is that thing? Is it... a mirage?"

"A mirage doesn’t look like that! Look, that thing isn’t moving! And... and there seems to be a pillar that goes all the way into the city! Was it made by Immortals? Have the Immortal Masters of the Celestial Furnace Sect returned?"

"Isn’t that a ladder over there, too? It looks like it reaches all the way outside the city! Could that be the Heaven-Ascending Ladder?!"

"Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s check it out outside the city! It might be a real chance at immortality! If I could become an Immortal, who’d want to stay here being a poor schmuck!"

"Let’s go to the north of the city! The pillar is over there! For an Immortal to make such a grand display, something major must be happening!"

People pushed and shoved, running in two different directions, forming two great tides of humanity.

...

Su Ling’er woke up.

She had slept soundly all night, the most peaceful she’d slept in months. There were no strange behaviors from her fellow sect members, no surprise attacks from her Senior Brother—only the familiar scent of her own bed.

Su Ling’er stretched, pushed open her door, and prepared to go into the courtyard to breathe in the fresh morning air. But the moment she stepped outside, she felt something was wrong.

’The sky today... why is it a bit overcast?’

She looked up.

And then she saw it. In the direction of her family’s guest rooms, a wooden pillar shot straight into the sky, disappearing deep into the clouds. Following the pillar upward, she could faintly discern the silhouette of a massive complex of buildings high in the distant, mist-shrouded sky.

In an instant, Su Ling’er’s pupils shrank to pinpricks, and her mind went blank.

She rubbed her eyes, then rubbed them again, hard. The scene before her didn’t change in the slightest.

Instinctively, she raised a hand and pinched her arm, hard. A sharp pain followed.

’This isn’t a dream... It’s all real.’

She slowly turned her head to look at the "heaven-piercing pillar" rising from the location of her family’s guest rooms, and her knees nearly buckled.

’No, S-Senior Brother?! Didn’t you promise last night that you "had a plan" and would "not make waves"?! So... *this* is what you called a "plan"? *This* is what you meant by "not making waves"?!’

’In the storybooks, when mighty experts battle, the most they do is cleave a mountain with a single sword strike. But you... you silently built a heavenly palace over my family’s guest rooms in a single night!’

’Don’t tell me that in Senior Brother’s eyes, as long as you don’t blow up Anhe City, it doesn’t count as making trouble?’

Su Ling’er gazed up at the structure soaring into the clouds, her inner snark instantly dissolving into profound awe and fear.

’What kind of power is this?’

He didn’t use any craftsmen, didn’t make a single sound, and didn’t even alert the mansion’s guards.

He just created a miracle out of thin air!

’If he had wanted to kill someone last night... I’m afraid everyone in Anhe City could have been wiped out without a single scream being heard, right?’

’And this method of announcement is just too high-profile, too eye-catching. Weren’t we supposed to be keeping a low profile?’

’It’s practically writing "I’m a total badass, come and look at me" across the sky...’

Su Ling’er stared at the pillar, her feelings a tangled mess.

’Senior Brother, this... this is too much! It’s really too much! I’m afraid the humble foundations of the Su Mansion can’t bear the weight of your great favor!’