The day of the Acting Lord Magistrate always began early. He awoke with the dawn. After a brief moment of taking his bearings, he would reach over to his bedside table and spin over the artifact hourglass he had. Then, he would stare at the ceiling of the Magisterial Suite in the palace for five minutes. In those five minutes, he would breathe in and out, staving off the worst of the existential dread that filled his soul—all the work, how his actions would be judged, the lies he had told his parents, all of it settled upon him like the rock that had sealed away the Great Sage Wukong. It had been worse, ever since that delivery had come, indicating that his parents knew of his deception. Every day he worried about them, what they would try to do to protect him. His poor, sickly mother, his aging father. Even with the news of scandal, and some kind of fall from grace by the Wu Clan, which was still trickling out into the Grass Sea, they were still more powerful than anything his parents could hope to do anything about. And all because he had lied. All because he had been foolish and gotten caught up in all of this. He would swallow the slowly building scream, feel the sweat build on his face—which was about when the hourglass would chime that his five minutes were over. His moments of contemplating his own mortality and failings over, he would rise from his bed and begin the day. Thankfully, there were at least some comforts to being the Acting Lord Magistrate of Grass Sea City. His rooms were vast and well appointed; the Magisterial (...)