The first forty-pound iron cask weighed as much as a young heifer. But Lu Chen lifted it with one hand.
He tore the iron rim away with his thumb.
Inside, the rendered highland yak animal fat was cold and thick as river clay, pale yellow and flecked with gray flakes of boiled bone meal.
He pressed both palms against the iron stave.
Tssss—
His resting baseline body heat—locked at one hundred and twenty degrees—conducted through the three-quarter-inch pig iron.
Within three heartbeats, the solid lard melted.
The animal fat broke into boiling, golden grease. It bubbled at a rolling two hundred degrees against the iron rim.
