"Honored guest, please follow me." The attendant kept his head deeply bowed as he led Anyuan up the stairs, past the guards, and finally to a vermilion gate embossed with golden dragons.
Grasping the pure-gold lion-head door knocker, the attendant knocked three times. "The honored guest has arrived!"
With a creaking groan of heavy wooden hinges, the enormous vermilion gate opened. The attendant retreated to one side and bowed deeply, burying his face so low that he seemed insignificant beyond mention. "Please."
Anyuan walked inside.
From beginning to end, the attendant did not even dare lift his head to look at Anyuan.
He was afraid.
What he feared was not Anyuan, but that the longing for power and status in his heart would burst from his eyes uncontrollably and draw the disgust of a great figure.
Yet amid the creaking of the hinges as the gate slowly shut, the attendant could not resist stealing one last glance through the narrowing crack.
The world beyond those gates was Buxu Gui's inner courtyard of power. He had never been permitted to enter it.
But one day, everything inside will be mine!
The attendant's face twisted with desire, then swiftly returned to calm. When he raised his head and descended the stairs, he became Buxu Gui's senior steward once more. His back was straight, his expression arrogant. The other employees all had to curry favor with him, because despite his youth, he still had a chance to rise to the Third Heavenly Layer.
That was the benefit brought by strength and potential.
That was the norm in the Lower World beneath the East Heavenly Gate.
Beyond the vermilion gates lay a world of birdsong and fragrant blossoms.
Unlike the resplendent gold and jade outside, this place held pavilions and waterside terraces, a world