There was still one bonus chapter due on the first. With this, the debt was finally paid off...
Elsewhere.
At an estate outside Pass Mountain City.
No, "estate" was not quite accurate. The grounds covered several acres. It was less an estate than a lavish manor.
Of course, just a few months earlier, the land had been farmland worked by seven or eight families. But once word came from the Immortal Palace that the Tianyuan Conference would be held here, several of the Thirty-Six Sects seized it with ruthless speed.
There was no such thing as relocation compensation in those days, and the sects were used to getting their way. They tossed the farmers a little loose silver as compensation. Most took the hint and moved away, but as the saying went...
There were always a few fools who could not read the room.
As for what happened to those fools...
They and their entire families were buried beneath the foundations, in the land their ancestors had passed down for generations.
Seated in the manor, built in mere months without regard for cost or labor, True Person Chang Qing drummed his fingers on the table impatiently.
"Listen, everyone. I didn't gather you here to sit like clay statues. Say something about the situation we're in."
No one answered. Apart from him, everyone sat with their eyes lowered, looking determined to stay out of it.
True Person Chang Qing's eyelid twitched, and anger crept into his voice.
"What kind of attitude is this? I'm your alliance leader, at least. Why are you all pretending to be mute?"
Only after a long pause did an old man speak at his leisure.
"Alliance Leader Changqing, it's not that we don't want to speak. We don't know what to say."
"...What do you mean?"