Night fell over the western frontier with an eerie, dual-toned bright glare.
In the eastern sky, the twin sky moons hung like polished silver mirrors. It cast a cool, argent sheen across the very thirsty plains of Longshan County. In the west, however, the night held no darkness. The horizon burned with the sullen, angry crimson glow of the Scorched Barrens, throwing flickering shadows of fiery smoke across the rocky border ridge.
The All-Terrain Rolling Slime Barge was parked beneath a grove of stone-hard juniper trees just off the ancient post road.
Inside the padded cabin, Tie Shan was snoring with the rhythmic rumble of a well-oiled watermill. His mammoth fur-covered chest rose and falling beneath a rough wool blanket. Land-mapper Lu-Lu sat cross-legged at the workbench, his furry head slumped forward onto a half-rolled deep-rock parchment, his brass monocle dangling by its silk cord as he murmured sleepily about underground flow rates.
Lin Xiao, however, was wide awake.
Rather than maintaining his human scholar form, Lin Xiao had melted back into his true, natural state: a forty-inch, semi-clear sapphire-blue jelly orb. He rested comfortably atop a thick silk cushion on the watching deck, humming a cheerful little melody while squishing his fluid body into various relaxed shapes—flattening into a wide pancake to catch the cool night breeze, then popping back into a perfectly plump, bouncy sphere.
