The Southern Azure Gate of Canglan had never seen a checkout line like this.
Half a million citizens, merchant princes, master blacksmiths, wandering sword-hermits, and city officials lined the royal arterial highway for three straight miles. Golden dragon-banners whipped from the ninety-foot stone watchtowers. Nine hundred palace trumpeters blasted silver horns until their cheeks turned purple, shaking the morning mist off the battlements. Hundred-maiden choruses scattered woven baskets of plum petals and mountain blossoms across the red carpets rolled out over the stone flags.
Leading the parade out of town was Austin.
He wore his standard Master Contractor field kit: midnight-blue hard hat pulled low, grease-stained denim dungarees, and scuffed steel-toed boots that struck the cobblestones with monolithic weight. Balanced across his right shoulder was his five-foot, iridescent blue Stellar-Steel pipe wrench. Around his shins, eighty-four tiny river pebbles, pine needles, and Cold-Iron shavings drifted in three concentric, counter-rotating planetary rings, humming like pocket gyroscopes.
To his left marched Li Xiaoyao. Freshly minted at Foundation Realm Stage 1, the boy practically floated. He held the lead ropes of the two spirit pack-mules with easy confidence, his birch clipboard tucked under his arm, swollen with manifests, bill-of-lading copies, and axle-load calculations.
Behind them came Southern Sword Saint Jiang Taixu.
The four-hundred-year-old living legend had traded his shredded silk robes for a tailored suit of dark-gray carpenter linen. Across his broad shoulders rested two massive oak crates packed with lathe tooling, blueprint scrolls, and brass valve bodies—an eight-hundred-pound payload that the newly ascended Nascent Soul sovereign carried like two sacks of dry leaves. Behind his right ear sat his freshly sharpened blue carpenter’s pencil. Strapped over his nose were his dark-tinted UV safety goggles, reflecting the morning sun like a blast shield.
Whenever an over-eager spectator drifted too close to Austin’s tool belt, Jiang Taixu would swivel his head, his hand twitching toward an invisible void-cut:
"Keep the three-meter clearance zone, mortals! Unshielded eyes shall not gaze directly upon the Master's spanner!"
Trotting happily between them was Cerberus Pug.
The eight-hundred-pound beast sported a custom leather pack saddle. Nested right in the center basket was the forty-pound First Epoch server cube, wrapped in three layers of quilted wool and Austin’s clean spare wool socks to keep the chassis from getting scuffed on the trail. All three pink tongues lolled out in dumb contentment. His three heads swiveled back and forth, vacuuming up flower petals off the carpet, stubby tail ticking back and forth like a metronome.
At the gateway threshold, Provincial Governor Zhao and Grandmaster Ouyang dropped to their knees on the flagstones:
"Canglan Province bids farewell to the Supreme Patriarch of the Cosmic Spanner!" Governor Zhao bellowed, his voice echoing off the gate arch. "May the celestial foundations of Sunset Peak endure across ten thousand years!"
"SEND OFF THE PATRIARCH!" half a million throats roared in unison, a concussive shockwave that rattled roof tiles for six blocks back into the city.
Austin pulled up at the gate threshold. He pushed his spectacles up his nose with a gloved thumb, looking down at the kneeling governor.
"Governor," Austin said, his flat contractor voice cutting through the brass horns. "Before the seasonal rains start next month, have your maintenance crews clean the dead leaves and silt out of the parapet drainage scuppers along the eastern wall. Trapped water pressure behind an un-drained stone revetment is no joke. You leave water trapped behind that curtain wall, and you'll have forty yards of masonry sliding into the vegetable market."
Governor Zhao blinked through his tears, nodding frantically. "We obey! The scuppers shall be cleared before dusk!"
"Good," Austin nodded. "First of the month for the copper delivery. Don't forget to chock the wagon wheels on the grade."
He turned south onto the open highway.
*Clomp, clomp, clomp.*
***
The haul back south along the Great Northern Imperial Highway was pure tradesman bliss.
With the tournament deadlines dead and buried, Austin kept the pace to an easy, methodical twenty miles a day. He took his time inspecting bridge abutments, testing gravel compaction with his heel, and eyeballing ditch lines.
On the afternoon of the third day, the limestone bluffs tightened around the road as they entered the Red-Rock Gorge.
Austin slowed his stride, looking around in surprise.
The rough log barricade that had blocked the gap back in Chapter 049 was completely gone. Every loose boulder had been hauled off the shoulder.
Instead, thirty former highway cutthroats stood along the ditch line, wearing high-visibility neon-orange cloth armbands. They held flat-nosed wooden shovels, iron gravel tamping bars, and brass spirit levels, wheeling crushed red aggregate out of hand barrows to dress the wagon ruts.
At the head of the crew, Bandit Chief Scar-Face Zhang spotted Austin’s blue hard hat.
Zhang snapped his heels together and threw up a crisp, military salute with his shovel handle:
"REPORTING TO CHIEF HIGHWAY INSPECTOR!" Zhang roared with chest-swelling pride. "The Red-Rock Gorge arterial segment has been fully resurfaced! Crown slope is pitched to an exact two point zero percent cross-fall for clean drainage runoff! Potholes excavated, backfilled with three-quarter-inch minus crushed limestone, and hand-tamped in six-inch lifts! Drainage swales cleared of all deadfall and willow roots!"
Austin stepped off the road and gave the surface a hard test with his work boot, twisting his full weight into the gravel.
The aggregate locked tight. Zero rutting. Minimal deflection.
Austin gave a low nod of approval.
"Solid sub-base work," Austin said. He reached into his tool pouch, pulled out a leather drawstring sack containing forty heavy silver coins, and tossed it to Zhang. "Uniform stone grading, correct crown pitch, and clean ditch lines. Excellent road maintenance, Zhang. You keep this stretch clean, and I'll see about getting your crew put on the regional Department of Transportation payroll with full pension credits."
Zhang caught the silver sack with trembling, calloused hands. Hot tears cut through the stone dust on his heavily scarred face, soaking into his orange armband:
"THANK YOU, CHIEF INSPECTOR! WE WILL DEFEND THIS RIGHT-OF-WAY AND ITS DRAINAGE EASEMENTS UNTIL WE ROT!"
"Just keep the ditches clear," Austin said, tapping his wrench. "Standing water kills roads faster than heavy axles."
***
At noon on the fourth day, the caravan reached the crossroads by the ancient locust tree.
The greasy, soot-stained roadside noodle shack from Chapter 052 had completely vanished.
In its place stood the **Immortal Wheat Pavilion**—a bustling, two-story timber lodge built from fragrant kiln-dried cedar, crowned with glazed jade roof tiles and ringed by dozens of expensive carriages. Hundreds of traveling cultivators, sect disciples, and merchant caravans stood in a disciplined, four-column queue that stretched two hundred yards down the shoulder, all waiting for a single bowl of the legendary noodles of enlightenment.
The instant Austin’s blue hard hat bobbed into the courtyard, the chatter died like a cut string.
Disciples on the second-story balcony froze mid-chew. Golden Core merchants dropped their bamboo spoons in sheer terror.
*BANG!*
The kitchen doors burst open.
Out bolted Old Man Liu. The stooped, graying noodle cook had transformed into a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick black hair, clear skin, and the humming aura of a Late Foundation Realm master.
Liu crossed the flagstones in three blurred strides, throwing himself flat at Austin’s boots. Tears of boundless devotion soaked his crisp white apron:
"Patriarch! Disciple Liu has rested the dough for twelve hours! The gluten network is fully developed!"
Five minutes later, regular kitchen operations stopped entirely to accommodate the Master.
Four steaming, oversized ceramic bowls of rich braised beef noodles landed on the premier cedar table for Austin, Xiaoyao, and Jiang Taixu. Down on the pavers, an eighty-pound cast-iron livestock trough filled with sixty pounds of hand-pulled noodles and braised beef shanks was set before Cerberus Pug.
Austin picked up his bamboo chopsticks, lifted a thick noodle ribbon, and checked the surface finish against the light.
He took a long, loud slurp: *SLUUUUUURP.*
He chewed slowly, rolling the noodle across his palate.
"Hydration holds at sixty-four percent," Austin announced, wiping his chin with a clean paper napkin. "Gluten tensile strength hits a solid four hundred kilopascals with excellent spring-back recovery. Broth emulsification achieves ideal oil-to-collagen suspension. Flawless execution, Uncle Liu. A solid five-star roadside establishment."
Old Man Liu wept openly, pressing his apron to his face in religious ecstasy.
Austin unzipped his rucksack, retrieved a fresh, unopened box of twelve yellow wax grease pencils, and set it on the table.
"Your tip," Austin said. "Industrial marking wax. Mark your proofing tubs and inventory bins. Won't wipe off in steam or cooking grease."
To the watching cultivators, the yellow pencils radiated the terrifying aura of sacred heavenly talismans. Old Man Liu accepted the cardboard box with trembling, cupped hands as if receiving the imperial seals of heaven itself.
***
At dusk on the fifth day, the jagged, mist-wrapped ridgelines of the Southern Cloud Mountains broke against the violet horizon.
Towering above the forest canopy, the twin granite peaks of Mount Clear Sky rose sharp and familiar.
Austin halted on the final crest overlooking the valley, resting his knuckles against his tool belt.
He squinted down toward the mountain access road.
Along the lower hairpin turn, the newly poured reinforced concrete culvert headwalls and retaining footings were still wrapped in damp burlap curing blankets. Austin pulled out a small brass inspection probe, checking the remote moisture readings. The hydration cycle had progressed smoothly; seven full days of damp cure had passed with zero shrinkage cracking, zero spalling, and uniform color across the entire pour.
"Culvert footings cured out solid," Austin noted, jotting a quick checkmark in his head. "Hydration held steady under the burlap. When the imperial copper wagons hit that grade next week, the concrete will handle the axle loads without flaking."
Up above the tree line on Sunset Peak, the three Golden Sun-Crows swept through the evening clouds in wide, lazy arcs, their plumage trailing thin ribbons of warm ruby light across the darkening sky.
And from deep within the mountain's granite roots, fifty meters beneath the solid earth, a steady fifty-hertz hum vibrated through the bedrock like the contented purr of a massive, well-lubricated machine.
Plant Superintendent Tie Kuang and his five hundred yellow-helmeted miners were on shift, keeping the line moving.
Austin filled his lungs with the sharp mountain pine air, savoring the familiar mix of crushed stone, fresh wood sap, and hot turbine oil.
"Home sweet home," Austin murmured, reaching down to scratch Cerberus Pug behind his middle ear. "Time to unload the freight, run the EMT conduit, and bolt down the fifty-ton hydraulic press. The weekend trip is over, boys. Back to the job site."