Chapter 18 - Eight Hundred Dollars for Dinner and Treason
Jade Table occupied the forty-third floor of a glass tower.
Its elevator required a reservation code.
Grant had one.
The hostess looked at Eli's borrowed suit and then at his sneakers.
"Sir, athletic footwear is discouraged."
Eli looked down.
"These are my formal sneakers."
Tasha coughed to hide a laugh.
Inside, billionaires ate food arranged with tweezers while hidden cultivation arrays hummed beneath marble floors.
Eli's Appraisal nearly overloaded.
[Spirit saffron]
[Moon-salt]
[Contract wine]
[This butter has a trust fund.]
The Nine Banquet emergency council met in a private dining chamber.
Twenty-four elders sat around a circular table.
Victor Vale stood at the center.
He looked like Grant twenty-five years later: silver hair, calm posture, expensive restraint.
"Eli Chen," Victor said. "Jian's boy."
"Victor Vale. Grant's problem."
Grant whispered, "Please don't antagonize him before the vote."
"Too late."
Victor presented his emergency proposal.
Containment failing.
Ash Pavilion attacks increasing.
Jian compromised.
Therefore Seattle required temporary Sovereign Appetite Authority.
The elders were scared.
Scared people liked central solutions.
Madam Sato challenged the hidden taxes.
Victor did not deny them.
"Civilization has always taxed survival."
Eli stepped forward.
"You keep calling theft a tax because the word sounds respectable."
Victor smiled.
"And you keep calling charity a system because you haven't tried scaling it."
The council laughed softly.
Eli felt the old humiliation—the dishwasher in a room where everyone knew which fork to use.
Then his system chimed.
[Social pressure detected.]
[Reminder: Everyone here must eventually poop.]
Eli almost lost composure.
Victor offered proof his model worked. Seattle's Hollow incidents had declined 63% under NourishNow expansion.
That statistic was real.
Again, the villain brought receipts.
Eli had one answer.
"Give me twenty-four hours."
Victor raised an eyebrow.
"For what?"
"To demonstrate a distributed Hearth at city scale."
Murmurs spread.
"You have one node," Victor said.
"Two thousand volunteers."
"Potential volunteers. Not stabilized nodes."
"Then bet me."
Nine Banquet law loved contests almost as much as paperwork.
The system opened a challenge seal.
[Grand Culinary Wager available.]
Eli set the terms.
If he established one thousand stable Hearth nodes in twenty-four hours, the council would delay Sovereign Authority and suspend school Appetite Tax seals.
If he failed, he would surrender the Heavenly Kitchen Ledger to Victor.
Madam Sato grabbed his arm.
"You cannot surrender a bonded artifact."
[System correction: Host can die. Artifact then becomes available.]
"Very encouraging."
Victor accepted.
The challenge seal ignited.
Then one elder asked a small question.
"What happens if the Maw breaches during those twenty-four hours?"
Victor looked at Eli.
"Then the wager becomes irrelevant."
Jian's status flashed.
[Living Keystone corruption: 17%]
Eli had won time.
The price was giving the enemy a deadline too.
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