Lin Mo looked down at the yellowed silk scroll resting on the cedar drafting table.
The fabric was thin as cicada wings, yet tough as woven steel wire. Intricate diagrams of gear assemblies, subterranean drainage channels, and circular geometric trigrams were drawn in faded cinnabar and gold leaf.
Master Lu Jian stood beside the table, his breath shallow with nervous hope.
“Chairman Lin, this manual was passed down through nine generations of my Lu clan,” Master Lu explained in a hushed tone. “Our ancestors served as chief mechanism architects for the imperial palaces. They knew that buildings are not dead stone. They are living vessels that interact with the magnetic veins of the earth.”
Master Lu ran his weathered thumb over a faded section of the silk where several diagrams had deteriorated into blank holes.
“My grandfather buried this scroll in an oilcloth sack during the famine years,” Master Lu said softly, remembering the past. “Corrupt merchants offered him bags of gold for it, but he refused to sell. He told my father that our knowledge belonged to the people, not to tyrants who build vanity palaces. Sadly, during the wars two centuries ago, the central scroll portion detailing the sovereign array matrix was burned. For thirty years, I have tried to calculate the missing resonance formulas using modern structural physics. But without the original celestial harmonic ratios, the ancient mechanism cannot awaken.”
Lin Mo reached out and placed his fingers against the cool silk.
A crisp, clear chime sounded inside his mind:
[DETECTED ANCIENT HERITAGE ITEM: HEAVENLY LUBAN MECHANISM & NINE-PALACE ARRAY MANUAL (DAMAGED: 38% CONTENT LOST)]
[SYSTEM SCAN: ARCHITECTURAL QI-FOCUSING & SEISMIC DISSIPATION MATRIX]
[RESTORATION OPTION: EXPEND 1,000 BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS TO SYNTHESIZE COMPLETE MODERN ARCHITECTURAL EDITION]
Restoring a three-hundred-year-old architectural secret for a thousand points is an absolute bargain, Lin Mo thought deadpan. Most tech firms burn hundreds of millions in research and development to build earthquake dampers that barely function. The system delivers ancient imperial engineering for the price of a few good deeds.
“System,” Lin Mo commanded silently. “Expend one thousand points. Restore the complete manual.”
HUM.
A warm golden current flowed from Lin Mo’s fingertips into the ancient silk.
Before Master Lu’s astonished eyes, the blank, burned fibers on the yellowed silk scroll began to knit together. Faint golden lines blossomed across the silk, forming crystal-clear geometric formulas, pressure tolerances, and subterranean resonance equations calculated down to the micrometer.
Master Lu fell back a step, clutching his chest with both hands.
“The celestial ratios...” Master Lu stammered, tears pooling in his eyes. “The lost trigrams of the subterranean bedrock! They are complete! Look at the stress dissipation curves! They align perfectly with modern finite-element structural models! It maps the nine subterranean dragon veins of Jiangcheng directly into the foundation!”
“Master Lu, read the material requirements,” Lin Mo said calmly. “What do we need to build this array?”
Master Lu adjusted his glasses, devouring the golden schematics with hungry eyes.
“It requires nine high-density tectonic jade cores,” Master Lu said, his voice trembling with professional excitement. “Deep-earth nephrite with zero structural fractures, carved into trigram cylinders. We need titanium-clad conduit sleeves to channel the gathered earth qi directly into our foundation pillars. And we need four high-precision five-axis diamond carving stations to engrave the micro-gears within twelve hours!”
Master Lu paused, looking up with sudden hesitation. “Chairman Lin, raw tectonic jade of that purity costs over a million yuan per block. With the diamond carving stations and titanium sleeves, building this foundation array will cost at least fifteen million yuan!”
Fifteen million yuan to turn an office tower into an indestructible fortress, Lin Mo thought. Corrupt developers like Zhao Tianxiong steal fifteen million by swapping steel with bamboo and end up facing life sentences. Spending fifteen million to protect two thousand workers returns one point five billion in cash. Real virtue is simply the highest form of financial intelligence.
Lin Mo pulled out his phone and called Su Wan.
“Su Wan, execute an immediate procurement order,” Lin Mo commanded. “Purchase nine certified tectonic nephrite jade cores from the National Mineral Reserve warehouse. Lease four five-axis diamond CNC carving stations with emergency air freight. Total budget: fifteen million yuan. Have everything delivered to the Sky-Tower site within two hours.”
“Understood, Chairman,” Su Wan replied. “The logistics convoy is rolling immediately.”
Ninety minutes later, four heavy flatbed trucks entered the site gates under police escort.
Crews unloaded nine massive wooden crates lined with red velvet. Inside rested nine cylinders of pure, translucent green tectonic jade, each two meters tall and half a meter thick. Beside them, specialized technicians wheeled four robotic diamond CNC carving machines into the workshop.
Master Lu called his twenty loyal apprentices together.
“Brothers!” Master Lu shouted, his voice ringing with pride. “Our ancestors waited three hundred years for this day! Power on the diamond routers! We must align the nine trigrams: Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Mountain, Lake, and the Central Sovereign Pillar! Calibrate the groove depth to three micrometers! Today, we carve the Nine-Palace Vitality Core for Chairman Lin!”
Young chief apprentice Lu Xiao stepped to the primary console, his eyes bright with tears of pride. “Master, the diamond heads are spinning at forty thousand revolutions per minute! Laser alignment confirmed!”
The apprentices took their positions at the computer consoles.
Lin Mo swiped his Black-Gold Benevolence Card on the supplier’s mobile terminal: ¥15,000,000.00.
BEEP.
A bright chime rang out in Lin Mo’s consciousness:
[Ding! Detected spending of ¥15,000,000.00 RMB on Master Lu Jian (Goodness: 92/100) and 20 Clan Apprentices for Ancient Architectural Array Construction!]
[Target Integrity Verified: Preserving ancient cultural heritage and engineering life-saving structural safety.]
[Triggered 100x Pure Benevolence System Refund!]
[Received Cash Refund: +¥1,500,000,000.00 RMB!]
[Funds deposited directly into Host Personal Liquid Vault!]
[Personal Liquid Vault: ¥32,072,180,000.50 RMB!]
[Benevolence Merit Points: +1,500,000 BMP (Net Balance: +1,499,000 BMP)!]
[Good People Network Expanded: 7,010 verified righteous allies (+40: mineral specialists and precision machinists)!]
Thirty-two point one billion yuan in liquid cash, Lin Mo thought, watching the robotic diamond cutters spin with high-pitched precision. One point five billion pure profit for funding a heritage mechanism. If every spending decision in life was this effortless, Wall Street would close its doors.
For eight straight hours, the workshop hummed with furious energy.
Diamond bits carved intricate interlocking spirals, gear tracks, and pressure vents into the surfaces of the nine jade cylinders. Master Lu oversaw every cut personally, his hands steady as stone.
By sunset, the nine jade cores were clad in gleaming titanium alloy jackets.
“Roll them out!” Master Lu shouted.
The heavy German hybrid crane purchased from Engineer Han swung into action. Chief Engineer Han Dong personally took the controls in the elevated glass cab, wearing his new active-cooling exoskeleton vest.
With laser-guided precision, the crane lifted the first eight jade pillars and lowered them into eight peripheral boreholes drilled deep into the foundation bedrock.
Finally, the ninth pillar—the central sovereign core—was rigged to the main hook.
Lin Mo, Master Lu, and Tie Niu stood on the steel platform forty meters down in the excavation pit. Below their boots lay the solid, dark gray granite bedrock of Jiangcheng. Lin Mo’s Rank-1 Absolute Peak senses expanded into the rock, feeling the subterranean magnetic currents humming deep underground.
“Lower the sovereign core!” Master Lu signaled with his radio.
The giant titanium-clad jade cylinder sank smoothly into the central borehole.
CLANK.
The base of the cylinder engaged the subterranean granite fault line. Heavy spring-loaded locking pins shot into place, sealing the pillar to the bedrock.
For a few seconds, the entire excavation pit went dead quiet.
Then, a deep, resonant hum vibrated from the rock beneath their boots.
It sounded like a massive bronze bell struck ten miles underground.
WHIRRRR.
A warm, translucent emerald wave of light rippled through the granite. It traveled up through the foundation rebar, the concrete footings, and the steel scaffolding towers, spreading across the entire four-block construction site.
The cool evening air suddenly smelled fresh, like morning mist after rain in an ancient pine forest.
On the upper decks, two thousand migrant builders who had been hauling steel and pouring slurry all day suddenly paused.
A veteran crane operator leaned against his cab railing, blinking in bewilderment. The chronic ache in his lumbar spine, worn down by twenty years of vibration, melted away in seconds.
Beside him, an older mason looked down at his swollen, arthritic hands. The stiffness and burning pain dissolved, replaced by a warm, soothing current of energy.
“My back...” the crane operator murmured. “The soreness is gone!”
“I feel like I just slept ten hours!” a welder shouted, laughing aloud. “I have more energy than when I woke up this morning! What kind of tea did Grandma Chen put in the water barrels?!”
At the site medical tent, Dr. Gu Qinghe looked up from his monitors in shock. The biometric bands worn by twenty recovering masons showed their elevated blood pressure dropping to healthy baselines within thirty seconds.
Beside the central borehole, Master Lu Jian trembled.
A warm current of earth qi surged through his healed shinbone, rising along his spine into his acupuncture points. His vision cleared, and his hearing sharpened tenfold.
When he looked at the steel framing above, he could see the invisible stress lines and load paths of the entire structure as clearly as if they were glowing ribbons of colored light!
[TARGET MASTER LU JIAN: AWAKENED RANK-1 MECHANISM QI SENSITIVITY!]
[STRUCTURAL PERCEPTION: 100% VISUAL CLARITY OVER STRESS CONCENTRATION & DEFECTS!]
Master Lu dropped to his knees, his forehead pressing against the cold granite.
“It works...” Master Lu wept with boundless gratitude. “The Nine-Palace Vitality Array has awakened! The building lives! It gathers the pure earth qi of the mountain veins, washing away worker fatigue and repelling toxic energies!”
Lin Mo reached down and pulled Master Lu up with gentle strength.
Tie Niu rolled his broad shoulders, his dark eyes flashing with newfound vitality.
“Chairman,” Tie Niu reported in a low, reverent voice. “My internal qi circulation just accelerated by twenty percent. Standing on this foundation feels like meditating inside a sacred mountain cave. Our night guards will not even need coffee.”
“Good,” Lin Mo said calmly. “Because cartels never surrender quietly. When a predator loses a monopoly, they always strike under the cover of darkness. Keep the night perimeter alert, Commander.”
“Understood, Chairman,” Tie Niu said, saluting crisply. “The Righteous Iron Guard never sleeps.”
“You built well, Chief Architect Lu,” Lin Mo said with a smile. “Take your apprentices and get some rest. Tomorrow, we pour the first fifteen floors.”
“Thank you, Chairman Lin!” Master Lu said, bowing deeply before leading his exhausted but radiant crew toward the dorms.
***
Night fell over Jiangcheng.
By two o’clock in the morning, a cold autumn mist rolled off the river, cloaking the Taichu Sky-Tower site in white vapor. Floodlights cast long, pale shadows across mountains of alloy rebar and silent heavy machinery.
In the dark weeds outside the northern perimeter fence, twelve agile figures crouched in silence.
They wore black neoprene wetsuits, sound-dampening boots, and Kevlar balaclavas. Holstered at their hips were silenced pistols, but strapped to their backs were heavy tactical backpacks packed with military-grade thermite incendiary blocks.
[SCANNING INTRUDERS: 12 UNDERGROUND EXTERNAL-MARTIAL MERCENARIES]
[GOODNESS SCORES: -5 TO +8/100 — RUTHLESS ARSONISTS & SABOTEURS]
[EMPLOYER: BLACK-SAND CARTEL BOSS LEI BAO & ZHAO CONSORTIUM]
[OBJECTIVE: DESTROY FOUR HEAVY CLIMBING CRANES WITH 3,000-DEGREE THERMITE CHARGES]
The mercenary leader, a scarred veteran known as Viper, checked his luminous tactical watch.
Beside him, his second-in-command Wolf patted the detonator wires strapped to his chest. “Brother Viper, Boss Lei Bao wired half the money to our offshore accounts. Once these four cranes melt into twisted scrap, the Zhao family will give us foreign passports and two million each. No ordinary security guard can stop twelve External-Martial experts.”
“Stay focused,” Viper whispered through his throat mic. “We have twenty minutes before the next patrol. Two fifteen in the morning. Once we melt the crane bases, the collapse will crush the foundation and shut this site down for twelve months. Set timers for three minutes. Move out!”
With swift, silent leaps, the twelve martial saboteurs cleared the three-meter barbed-wire fence and sprinted toward the four tower cranes in the dark.