The descent from the western ravine was heralded by the thunderous footfalls of a giant.
Tie Shan walked down the steep mountain trail carrying the newly forged masterpiece on his broad shoulder as easily as a mortal might carry a straw hat. The culinary wok was a five-foot expanse of hand-hammered red star-bronze. It glowed with subtle crimson luster in the late afternoon sun. Its curved bowl was flawlessly even, flanked by twin thick handles forged from braided hardwood and steel.
Trailing comfortably behind the titan bear, Lin Xiao bounced along the trail like a floating sapphire balloon, his see-through body rippling with culinary excitement. Inside him, little Xiao Long darted excitedly, doing celebratory backflips in the cool fluid.
Down at the riverbank, Old Ba was resting near the bamboo arbor. Just then, the ground began to tremble.
The old tortoise poked his head out. His leathery jaw dropped so hard it struck the quartz stone floor with a sharp clatter. Coming down the trail was a nine-foot black glass-gold titan bear whose very presence distorted the air with the crushing spiritual gravity of a Tier-3 Beast Sovereign. But more astonishing than his terrifying aura was his left arm. A amazing limb of sculpted muscle and golden runes, casually balancing a huge bronze wok.
“O-Old Man Tie?” Old Ba squeaked, his voice cracking into a high-pitched rasp. “By the River Ancestor... Your arm! Your bloodline! You... You have awakened as a Divine Titan Earth-Bear!”
Tie Shan tossed his head back, his booming laughter echoing across the canyon walls.
“Old Ba, you ancient moss-back!” Tie Shan bellowed joyfully, setting the massive bronze wok down on the quartz path with a ringing chime. “Old Man Tie is dead! The Primordial Master Lin Xiao purged the slaggers’ poison, forged this arm from star-iron marrow, and bestowed upon me the True Name of Tie Shan! From this day forth, I’m the hammer and shield of Lord Xiao’s safe hall!”
Old Ba turned his wide amber eyes toward Lin Xiao, trembling with deep, almost dizzying awe. Purged the poison... Forged a living divine arm... And bestowed a True Name that woke a dormant titan bloodline in less than an hour! What boundless sky power does this blue sovereign hold in his little round body?
Lin Xiao, however, was not thinking about boundless sky power. He was admiring the bronze wok.
He extended an azure tendril. He tapped the curved inner bowl. The metal rang with a pure, sustained tone like a temple bell. The surface was astonishingly smooth, bearing tiny, overlapping hammer indentations that would hold oil and heat with spotless consistency.
“Tie Shan, this is amazing,” Lin Xiao praised, his core glowing with pure satisfaction. “A true work of art. Now let’s get it seasoned!”
With Tie Shan’s huge strength, setting up the kitchen was child’s play. Using his golden titan claws, Tie Shan quarried six massive blocks of dense dark rock from the cliffside, carving them into a sturdy, circular outdoor cooking hearth mortared with white river clay. The five-foot bronze wok rested securely on top, perfectly centered over a spacious fire chamber.
Lin Xiao sprang into action.
Contracting his mass, he reached into his void storage. Then he pulled out a thick, ten-pound slab of pure white pork fat from the Iron-Tusk Boar. He dropped the lard into the center of the wok, then activated his heat regulation, channeling one hundred and sixty degrees of dry Yang heat through his fluid tendrils directly into the bronze base.
TSSSSSSSSSSSS!
A rich, golden oil began to render from the fat, hissing and popping against the hot metal. Extending three prehensile tendrils, Lin Xiao gripped bunches of wild scallions and crushed mountain ginger. He used them to massage the smoking pork fat into every square inch of the hammered bronze bowl.
The oil bonded with the metal pores. Then, the shiny red bronze transformed into a deep, glossy, mirror-black patina. The coveted non-stick breath of the wok (wok hei).
“Seasoning complete!” Lin Xiao declared cheerfully. “Now, time for dinner.”
From his cold storage frozen stillness, Lin Xiao brought forth forty pounds of prime marbled pork belly from the razor boar, cleanly sliced into thick, mouth-watering two-inch cubes. Along with the meat came sweet wild mountain yams cut into golden rounds, peeled winter turnips, crushed dried wild citrus peel, fermented soybean paste. A bowl of caramelized mountain rock sugar.
He tossed the pork belly into the smoking wok.
SIZZZZZZLE!
A cloud of white, fragrant steam billowed into the evening air. The rich, clean pork fat crisped against the seasoned bronze. That turned the pork cubes a deep, caramelized dark wood. Lin Xiao tossed the wok with high-pressure ease using two thick tendrils, the heavy iron vessel dancing over the flames as if weightless. He added the rock sugar, wild ginger, dark fermented paste, and five cups of steaming Cloud-Mist tea to form a luscious, bubbling braising broth.
Then, covering the wok with a circular cedar lid forged by Tie Shan, Lin Xiao let the charcoal embers simmer the feast into melting tenderness.
The aroma that drifted across the Clear Stream River was nothing short of miraculous.
It was a scent of deep, caramelized brown sugar, rich savory roasted meat, spicy mountain ginger, and the clean herbal perfume of wild tea. It didn’t merely smell delicious. Infused with the ancient qi of the chaos void and the pure essence of wild ingredients, the fragrant smoke billowed upward. It drifted on the evening heat currents for miles across the rugged pine ridges.
Tie Shan sat beside the hearth, his massive stomach letting out a roar that sounded like distant thunder. Old Ba inhaled the steam with eyes closed. His wrinkled face looked twenty years younger with every breath.
Lin Xiao smiled, preparing to set out stone bowls for his companions.
Suddenly, a faint, clashing sound filtered through the quiet mountain air.
Lin Xiao’s panoramic senses twitched. His sense awareness, amplified by his breakthrough to Peak Qi Gathering, extended nearly three hundred yards into the darkening forest.
Whimper... Whimper...
It was a tiny, fragile sound, full of desperate agony and hopeless terror. It was coming from the upper eastern ridge, buried deep within a dense thicket of iron-thorn brambles two hundred yards from the campsite.
“Alert: Living distress signal detected,” the Omniscient Dao Spirit chimed in his mind. “Target: Young canine entity. Vital signs declining rapidly due to severe blood constriction and blood loss. Location: Ridge alpha-3.”
Lin Xiao’s cheerful expression instantly tightened.
“Tie Shan, Old Ba,” Lin Xiao commanded, his voice turning crisp and authoritative. “Watch the hearth and keep the embers at a gentle simmer. Don’t let the broth boil over.”
Tie Shan blinked his amber eyes, right away rising to his feet. “Lord Xiao, is there trouble? Shall I crush it?”
“No. Stay by the fire. I’ll be right back.”
Contracting his body into a dense, wind-cutting sapphire sphere, Lin Xiao launched himself across the river like a blue cannonball. He skipped off the water surface twice with easy water-flow driving force, landing cleanly on the far bank and tumbling up the steep eastern ridge at breakneck speed.
Navigating between the towering pines, Lin Xiao followed the faint scent of copper and the weak, shuddering whimpers.
Fifty yards up the slope, buried beneath an iron-hard tangle of razor-sharp iron-thorn brambles, lay the victim.
It was a wolf pup.
Scrawny, starved, and no larger than a house cat, the tiny creature was covered in matted, pitch-black fur that seemed to absorb the twilight shadows. One of its small ears was torn. Its ribs pressed against its skin like thin slats of wood.
The pup had crawled into the brambles seeking shelter, only to blunder directly into a poacher’s rusted steel wire snare.
The cruel, barbed wire was wrapped twice around the pup’s left hind leg, cutting deeply to the bone. Dark, sluggish blood dripped onto the dry pine needles. The rusted wire was weeping the same toxic, acid-burning corpse-rot grease that had poisoned Old Ba’s pool. The little pup was panting weakly, its glazed silver eyes half-closed as it lay on its side. It shivered wildly in the damp evening chill.
Another rusted snare, Lin Xiao thought, a wave of cold, protective anger rippling through his fluid core. These poachers don’t care what they catch. They just scatter their filth across the forest and let living creatures die in agony.
“Easy, little guy,” Lin Xiao murmured softly, rolling his azure body gently through the thorn bushes. The sharp thorns scraped against his membrane. But his impact-hardening surface parted the briars without taking a scratch.
The wolf pup weakly raised its head. Seeing the strange blue creature rolling toward it, the pup bared its tiny, needle-sharp puppy teeth, emitting a pathetic, trembling growl that ended in a choked cough.
“Shh, don’t waste your breath growling,” Lin Xiao said in a gentle, warm tone. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Lin Xiao extended a thin, warm tendril, gently touching the pup’s trembling muzzle. A drop of sweet, honeyed mountain dew formed at the tip of the tendril, touching the pup’s dry, cracked tongue.
The pup froze. The sweet, revitalizing moisture cleared the burning fever in its throat. Its tiny nostrils twitched, catching the faint, lingering aroma of caramelized pork belly and ginger clinging to Lin Xiao’s body. The hostility in the pup’s silver eyes faded, replaced by desperate, pleading innocence.
“Omniscient Dao Spirit: Scan and stop!”
“Procedure started,” the Dao Spirit responded.
Lin Xiao secreted a drop of packed acidic stomach fluid onto the rusted wire snare.
Hsssss!
The barbed steel wire rusted through and dissolved in three seconds, crumbling into harmless, inert gray flakes. Lin Xiao right away wrapped around the pup’s sliced open hind leg with his clean outer fluid. He drew upon his internal reserves of pure spring dew and ancient life-force. He washed the corpse-rot poison from the wound, sealing the torn blood vessels and knitting the cut flesh with miraculous speed.
The painful throbbing in the pup’s leg vanished.
The tiny black wolf let out a soft, shuddering whimper of relief. It leaned its small, soot-black head against Lin Xiao’s squishy blue side, resting its cold nose against the slime’s warm, pulsating core.
Lin Xiao smiled, extending two broad, soft fluid arms to gently scoop the starving pup into his embrace.
“Come on, little pup,” Lin Xiao whispered. He felt the tiny ribs rise and fall against his mass. “You’ve had a terrible day, but it’s over now. Down by the river, we have a warm fire, a five-foot bronze wok, and forty pounds of braised pork belly waiting for you.”
Holding the sleeping, starved pup safely against his warm chest, Lin Xiao turned and bounded smoothly down the ridge toward the glowing lanterns of the campsite.