Chapter 49 - Lou's Final Message
Lou's token opened one last memory after Mason reached Golden Wheel Peak.
The old man appeared exactly as Mason remembered him in the alley.
Red bowling shirt.
Gray beard.
Tired eyes.
"If you're seeing this, kid, you made it farther than I did."
Mason sat alone in the chapel after everyone else slept.
Lou continued.
"Central isn't the disease. It's scar tissue. Ugly, painful, sometimes necessary."
Mason frowned.
"You could've mentioned that."
The recording obviously did not answer.
Lou explained the deeper xianxia truth.
Fortune was not infinite.
It flowed from choices.
But civilizations created so many linked choices that probability developed pressure.
Enough pressure awakened entities ancient cultivators called Heavenly Creditors.
Things that fed on unrealized futures.
The Clearinghouse had formed to keep human fortune orderly enough not to attract them.
Then it became corrupt.
"That's the trap," Lou said. "You build a cage to keep out monsters. Then somebody starts charging rent."
Mason smiled sadly.
Lou's final instruction was simple.
Do not destroy every structure.
Build better ones faster than bad people could capture them.
The memory faded.
Then a new message appeared.
Not from the Ledger.
White letters burned across the wall.
[DEBTOR MASON REED.]
[YOUR PLANETARY ACCOUNT IS OVERDUE.]
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