The rain that struck Red Mist Valley at midnight on the thirty-fifth day was a heavy, drumming deluge.
It poured from the dark heavens in solid sheets, drumming against the dark rock canyon walls with the roar of an underground waterfall. The runoff gushed down the ravine alleys, overflowing the stone drainage canals and turning the unpaved streets into rivers of red mud. High above the gorge, the thunder cracked across the mountain peaks. It sent deep, low-hum shakes through the bedrock foundation of the workshop.
Inside Old Cauldron Workshop, the only light came from the dying cherry-red embers of a single honeycomb briquette in the hearth.
On the straw cot in the corner nook, Old Monster Gui lay motionless.
Pei Jing sat upon the stone stool beside the bed, his fingers resting lightly against the wrist blood vessel of the old potion-maker’s wrist.
The pulse was faint, thin as a hair, skipping across vast, irregular intervals. Beat. Six seconds. Beat. Nine seconds. Beat.
The dry, clicking rattle that had haunted the old man’s chest for forty years had finally ceased.
The turning to stone had completed its exact flight path. The stone back shell had swelled into the space around the heart, gently arresting the clockwork spreading of the left ventricle. There was no convulsion. No blood-spewing agony. No dramatic gasp.
