Red Maple Valley, the site of the Hundred Kings Sect.
Two days earlier, Sect Master Guo Xiang had celebrated the birthday of his seventh concubine. With music blaring and red decorations everywhere, the entire Hundred Kings Sect had been thrown into a lively uproar.
Just as host and guests were enjoying themselves, terrible news arrived: Eldest Young Master and Young Sect Master Guo Rui had been captured.
Guo Xiang's face fell at once, but a moment later, he recovered and carried on with the birthday celebration.
It wasn't that Guo Xiang cared more for his concubine than his eldest son. Strictly speaking, he wasn't especially fond of women.
Yet in recent years, he had brought home one concubine after another. He didn't just hold wedding banquets for them—he even went to the trouble of celebrating their birthdays.
Though it looked as if he, as sect master, had nothing better to do, the truth was that he had his reasons.
Keeping the Hundred Kings Sect afloat was no easy task. If he hadn't found every excuse to collect gifts, its day-to-day expenses would have become unsustainable long ago.
That day, Guo Xiang sat brooding in the hall, poring over the account books. Looking at the ever-shrinking gift money, he was beset by a headache and secretly wondered whether he should issue a new sect rule: no gift could be less than one silver coin. He was the head of a sect, after all. Didn't he deserve to save face?
Suddenly, Guo Xiang turned to a page in the gift ledger and couldn't tear his eyes away. His anger flared. "You little rat, Mao Er! Three copper coins, and you actually had the nerve to put that in the ledger?"
Just then, Fang Zongdao entered, worry written across his face. "Sect Master,