The harvest of Terrace One began at dawn with the rhythmic rasp of a lumberjack saw.
Standing on raised wooden work frames flanking the greatest agricultural marvel in land-wide history, four burly bear beastmen and four veteran mortal woodsmen gripped the iron handles of two eight-foot crosscut timber saws. Working in timed together harmony, they drew the steel teeth back and forth through the base of a single leafy stem.
Zzzzt-shhh... Zzzzt-shhh... Zzzzt-shhh...
A spray of semi-clear, emerald-tinted sawdust flew into the morning sunlight. It smelled intensely of sweet mountain spring water, crushed clover, and toasted sesame. With a crisp, thunderous CRACK that sounded like a falling cedar, the first outer leaf cut from the central core, slowly tipping outward.
Six apprentice smiths caught the falling leaf on a timber cradle lined with clean hemp cloth.
It was a single leaf from the King of Cabbages.
Measuring thirty-two feet across and weighing a staggering fourteen metric tons, the huge cabbage had grown at the exact confluence where the inverted sky clouded eye had met Lin Xiao’s leftover ancient dew. It wasn’t merely a vegetable. It was an emerald monument the size of a two-story residential pavilion.
Its ruffled outer leaves were as thick as feather mattresses, crisp, jade-green, and glistening with dew that sparkled in the rainbow light of the Aurora Australis. At its center, the pale white heart pulsed with a soothing, regenerative earth-essence that perfumed the entire valley for leagues.
