Great Wall Prefecture, Cloudrest Posthouse.
This was an official relay station dedicated to receiving officials traveling to report on their duties and envoys from other regions. Though called a relay station, its accommodations were divided into sharply distinct tiers.
The outermost "Human-tier" rooms were merely wooden compartments that were somewhat clean, intended for minor clerks without an official rank.
Farther inside, the "Earth-tier" private courtyards came equipped with Spirit-Gathering Formations and maids, offering ordinary immortal officials below the seventh rank a place to rest.
As for the "Heaven-tier" towers suspended in midair, anchored to the spiritual wellspring of the local earth vein and wreathed in clouds and mist year-round, only distinguished guests had ever been qualified to stay there.
Today, however, the heavens above Cloudrest Posthouse had changed.
"Hurry! Get moving, all of you! Straighten that pot of Purple Jade Dragon Saliva Incense! If you so much as chip it, selling the lot of you wouldn't cover the cost!"
"Why isn't the spirit tea ready yet? Use the rootless water collected this morning! Have you got a pig's brain? You're going to fob that lord off with stale tea?"
Relay Head Wang, the posthouse's chief steward, was drenched in sweat as he directed more than a dozen servants, rushing about outside the Heaven-tier Hidden Dragon Pavilion without a moment to catch his breath.
His plump face, usually stiff with official pomposity, was now plastered with a fawning smile. He was so nervous that even his official hat sat crooked.
Outside the posthouse gates, luxurious carriages of every description were parked in rows.
They were drawn not by ordinary fine horses, but exclusively by spirit beasts.
There were the Astronomical Bureau's distinctive star-patterned unicorns, Red-Scaled Horses raised by the great aristocratic clans, and even several snow-white immortal cranes circling low overhead—the