Morning mist stayed in the pine valleys of the Myriad Spirit Safe hall, tinted with the faint, ghostly cerulean glow that continued to rise from the southern ridge.
Around the polished cedar table on the central pavilion porch, the morning air was filled with the mouthwatering sizzle of scallion-oil pancakes crisping on an iron griddle. Lin Xiao stood over the small charcoal stove, wearing a clean set of gray-blue linen travel robes. A wide, round bamboo sun-hat with a soft chin cord hung casually between his shoulder blades. With an unrushed flick of his wrist, he flipped a golden pancake. He watched it land with a satisfying sizzle that released plumes of savory, onion-scented steam into the cool mountain dawn.
“Expedition rule number one,” Lin Xiao announced, stacking the fresh pancake onto a clay pot plate already loaded with half a dozen crisp rounds. “Nobody enters an ancient underground ruin on an empty stomach. In my last life, whenever our freight logistics dispatchers pulled an all-night shift without a proper breakfast, someone inevitably misrouted three shipping containers of frozen mackerel to the wrong train depot. If you haven’t eaten properly, your blood sugar drops, your concentration slips. That’s exactly when people trip over tree roots or step squarely onto hidden pressure plates.”
