A pretender to wealth led eleven wastrels through the streets on Fire Qilin Horses, making a spectacle of himself as he tried desperately to show off before his poor brothers; the truly wealthy man commanded an entire nation's riches, yet arrived quietly and unassumingly, dressed in rags like a beggar.
Big Fat Dragon, Second Prince of the Southern Border Witch-Demon Kingdom, an "incarnation" of Emperor Wanwu, was known throughout the martial world as Dragon Three Billion. I don't know how much money you all have, but next to me, you're all trash.
During Borderland Turmoil, Qingliang Prefecture had joined forces with the Southern Border, invaded the Great Qian Dynasty's Shangyu Nine Lands, and expanded their territory to encompass an entire commandery. After that battle, the Great Qian Dynasty had issued more than thirty decrees targeting the Southern Border in succession. In more fashionable terms, it had imposed sanctions like mad, while fighting occasionally broke out along the border as well.
Big Fat Dragon had previously been stationed at the border, and he had come from there this time too. There was also a story that had long circulated throughout the borderlands of the "three nations."
The story went that when Qingliang Prefecture and the Southern Border attacked, Great Qian's Emperor Jing had not been at court. Instead, he had left a puppet behind and secretly gone exploring in a secret realm himself. Only when he returned home did he discover that his home had been raided and he had lost a full nine lands along the border. And the reason was actually that Han Chan had wanted to plot with the Celestial Surveillance Bureau to take the entire Southern Border, preparing a grand gift for him.
Allegedly. Allegedly, mind you!
Faced with this "grand gift," Emperor Jing had been so