The Wish Tower stood in the western district of the Royal Capital of the Tiangui Kingdom. This area had always been one of the liveliest parts of the capital.
The Wish Tower was indeed a tower — one of the sacred sites of the Tiangui Kingdom.
Every year during the holidays, the Wish Tower would buzz with activity.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival in particular, it was practically a sea of people. In the Tiangui Kingdom, the osmanthus tree was their national tree.
And the osmanthus had always been closely associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The area around the Wish Tower was planted thick with osmanthus trees. At this time of year, the osmanthus had already bloomed, wafting their fragrance far and wide — a scent that carried for ten miles.
With the Mid-Autumn Festival fast approaching, the next half month or so would be the liveliest and most exciting period at the Wish Tower.
After making some inquiries, Jiang Chen learned what the Wish Tower was all about.
It turned out that the Wish Tower was a tradition passed down for a thousand years in the Tiangui Kingdom. From royalty down to commoners, anyone who had a wish they couldn't fulfill on their own could place it inside the Wish Tower.
Every wish came with an offering of compensation.
If someone could help fulfill that wish, they would receive the compensation. Of course, every wish submitted went through a strict review process to ensure the compensation could actually be paid out.
The Wish Tower opened roughly once a month.
However, during the month of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Tower stayed open for over half a month straight, and the floors opened were far more numerous than usual.
The entire Wish Tower had sixteen floors in total.
On ordinary days, depending on the month, the number of floors open would be six or fewer — or perhaps eight or fewer on a busier month.
During the New Year month, they would typically open up to ten floors, or even twelve.
But during the Mid-Autumn Festival month, it was open every single day, with a minimum of ten floors accessible. Sometimes eleven, twelve, or even more.
On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival itself, all sixteen floors would be opened.
Of course, no one had ever gone up to the sixteenth floor. Whether there were even any wish scrolls up there, nobody knew.
Even if there were, those wishes would be practically heaven-defying — virtually no one could fulfill them. At that level, it was more symbolic than anything.
To submit a wish scroll to the Wish Tower, you had to pay a fee, though it wasn't much. You could come submit wishes every day with no restriction.
To draw a wish scroll from the Tower, however, you had to wait for an opening day.
Today, with the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, was an opening day — it was extremely lively.
Of course, not just anyone could draw wish scrolls. Drawing a wish scroll required a fee as well, and the fee was considerably higher than the submission fee.
Entering the first floor cost ten silver taels.
The second floor: twenty silver taels.
The third floor: fifty silver taels.
The fourth floor: one hundred silver taels.
The fifth floor…
By the tenth floor, it cost ten thousand silver taels for a single draw!
Higher floors cost even more.
It had to be said, the Wish Tower was fascinating, but also extremely expensive.
"Whoever came up with this Wish Tower idea — this is nothing short of outrageous money-making," Qiao Baishi marvelled.
Looking at the Wish Tower packed with people, there was no telling how many of them wanted to draw wish scrolls. Judging by this, the Tower must be raking in a staggering fortune on its opening days.
Qiao Baishi had always thought the Alchemist Hall was good at making money, but this Wish Tower was even better. And the money was made with ease.
Open the front doors, and people would be clamoring to squeeze inside, practically begging to hand over their money.
"Young Master, shall we go check it out?" Qiao Baishi suggested, figuring that his master, with his youthful temperament, would probably find this interesting.
"Let's go. Up we go."
If Jiang Chen was going to play, he naturally wouldn't bother with any floor below the tenth. He walked straight up, making his way to the tenth floor of the Wish Tower.
At the tenth floor, ten thousand silver taels got you a single draw.
If the wish scroll you drew turned out to be something you couldn't fulfill, the ten thousand silver taels were non-refundable.
Of course, if the wish did turn out to be achievable, the returns could easily be a hundred times, a thousand times, or even more than the fee.
It had to be said, the Tiangui Kingdom had no shortage of wealthy people. Even at the tenth floor of the Wish Tower, there were still quite a few people.
Ten-thousand-tael banknotes kept being handed over.
Some even threw down hundreds of thousands of taels at once, buying up entire bundles of wish scrolls and retreating to a corner to examine them one by one.
These people were typically wealthy merchants — titans of the business world.
They had money, but their social standing was low. They couldn't gain much recognition and couldn't break into the upper echelons of the capital or gain entry into noble circles.
They came to the Wish Tower purely to try their luck, hoping to find some wish submitted by a powerful figure that they might be able to fulfill.