“Grand Preceptor, our ancestral Jade-Lotus Lake just drained bone-dry through the bedrock—and it’s bubbling up in the Eastern Suburb cabbage patches!”
Sima Clan Steward Liu wailed in terror. He pressed his forehead flat against the muddy flagstones of Sima Manor.
Grand Preceptor Sima Quan stood at the edge of the sunken lake basin. His hands shook so violently that his long silk sleeves fluttered like dry leaves.
Where fifty thousand cubic feet of sparkling, jade-like spirit water had flowed for thirty generations, there was only dry, cracked grey clay and dead lotus stalks. A yawning chasm in the center of the lake bed hissed with deep suction, swallowing the last puddles of mud.
“Drained?!” Sima Quan roared, his voice cracking with fury. “That lake was fed by an ancient imperial tributary diverted by my great-grandfather! We built three layers of sealing arrays to keep the water from leaking into the lower districts! How could it drain in ten minutes?!”
Array Master Liu crawled forward, clutching a shattered compass.
“Grand Preceptor, it is the new Spirit Grid!” Array Master Liu wheezed, bleeding from his nose. “Lin Mo unified all thirty-six planetary leylines into a single atmospheric network! The natural pressure gradient of the entire continent has flipped upside down!”
