The Mid-Autumn Festival had arrived in the mortal world.
Not only did mortals celebrate this festival with bustling merriment, but the immortals of the Heavenly Court did too.
Mid-Autumn was not a holiday. It was the annual assessment.
There was no such thing as time off for the immortals of the Heavenly Court. The Great Heavenly Venerable would host a banquet for them in Lingxiao Palace, and the grand finale of its immortal cuisine had always been the mooncakes from Guanghan Palace.
And so, the pounding of pestles filled Guanghan Palace, shaking osmanthus blossoms loose in fluttering showers.
Jade rabbits stood in square formations, swinging their pestles so quickly that they left afterimages.
"Hurry! Furnace A isn't hot enough. Add two more measures of osmanthus honey to batch B." Chang'e paced back and forth, her brows tightly knitted.
At her words, the jade rabbits' red eyes widened further, and they swung their pestles hard enough to nearly throw sparks.
Guanghan Palace was racing toward the finish.
Meanwhile, in Chen Wei's residence, a life-and-death tribulation was unfolding.
The dining hall.
A sandalwood food box sat on the table. Its lid was not fully closed, and an eerie purple glow seeped through the gap. Worse still, faint roars came from inside.
Chen Wei sat at the head of the table, smiling.
Yang Chan held a bowl of plain tea, her eyes expectant and her voice gentle. "Qingquan, these are the all-nourishing mooncakes I made after three days in seclusion, refining them with Samadhi True Fire. I added peach pits from Yaochi and the pills I swept up from the Eight Trigrams Furnace on our last visit to Tusita Palace, melting everything together. You toil day and night to uphold discipline in the Heavenly Court. No one works harder than you. Hurry and