Twilight settled over the rolling pine ridges of Ironwood Peak.
Across the gravel courtyard of the carriage house, string lanterns crafted from hollowed gourds cast a warm amber glow. The lanterns were wired with thin copper strands. It drew twelve-volt current from a storage tank bank Frank had topped off that afternoon.
In the center of the yard, the team had built an outdoor barbecue station.
It was a fifty-five-gallon steel drum split lengthwise, mounted on four welded angle-iron legs. Then it topped with a swelled-metal grating.
Frank stood by the grill in his flannel shirt and denim jeans, stainless steel cooking tongs in his left hand.
On the prep table lay thirty skewers of spirit lamb shoulder, cubed into one-inch morsels and marinated in roasted cumin, crushed Sichuan peppercorns, sea salt, minced wild garlic, and dark chili oil.
Instead of messing with lump charcoal, Frank held up his right hand.
With a tiny pulse of intent, he channeled a trickle of stellar heat from his Diamond Core into his thumb.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
A needle-thin jet of semi-clear purple star-fire ignited at his thumbnail. It hissed softly at ten million Degrees of star-heat.
Frank swept his thumb beneath the skewers.
ZZZZZZZZZT.
In exactly point-four seconds, the pure blasting heat flash-seared the outside fat cubes into a crisp, golden-brown crust.
The fragrant fat rendered instantly, sizzling against the meat and caramelizing the cumin without generating a puff of bitter black charcoal soot. The inside lamb marrow remained juicy and steaming.
“Heat boundary layer control,” Frank muttered, flipping the skewers with the tongs. “Direct radiant heat flow beats heat-rising air transfer. No volatile creosote, zero fine dust ash, and seventy-five percent moisture retention.”
Jiang Ling’er leaned over the table, her amber eyes wide with respect.
“Master’s heat flux modulation is beyond divine,” Ling’er whispered, watching the purple pilot light dance. “Our sect’s Supreme Ancestor could only summon uneven True Fire from his palms. Master channels ten million degrees of stellar star-fire through his thumbnail without wrinkling his cuticle... Just to toast cumin seeds!”
Niu Mang sat on an overturned crate, brass measuring tongs in hand, jotting notes on parchment.
“Meat heat flow rate of point-five Watts per meter-Degrees of star-heat,” Niu Mang mumbled. “The flash sear creates an adiabatic barrier preventing fluid vaporization. Ultimate cooking smooth speed.”
Shen Shitou emerged from the pantry carrying a wooden crate of twenty bottles of mountain spirit brew.
He set the crate on the workbench, picked up his claw hammer. Then he hooked the claw under the wax caps:
POP. POP. POP.
Three bottles opened in rapid row with crisp, high-pressure hisses.
“Beverages prepped, Master,” Shitou reported, his stone-hard face relaxing into a proud grin. “Chilled to four degrees in the cellar.”
“Good work,” Frank nodded, handing out sizzling skewers. “Sit down and eat while the fat is hot. Tomorrow the sixty timber barges arrive at the river docks.”
The four gathered around the picnic table under the amber lanterns.
They clinked baked-clay mugs, the cold malt brew washing down the spicy crunch of the roasted lamb. For the first time in weeks, there were no roaring cooking pots, no ticking pressure gauges, and no screaming royal officials.
Just good food, cold drinks, and a job finished under budget.
Then, the evening peace shattered.
From the mountain road came the heavy clatter of iron-rimmed wheels and twenty armored warhorses.
Gold-trimmed lanterns cut through the darkness as a convoy of ten black-lacquered carriages rumbled up the driveway. Each bore the silver crest of the Shen Ancient Aristocratic Clan.
The carriages ground to a halt, kicking up clouds of chalky dust.
Frank paused with a skewer halfway to his mouth, frowning through his safety glasses.
The door of the lead carriage flew open.
Patriarch Shen Canghai scrambled out. The venerable patriarch of the Shen Clan—a Golden Core fighter who had ruled the southern provinces for two hundred years—looked like a ghost clawing from an unmarked grave.
His stitched dragon-crane robes were wrinkled and disheveled. His silver hair hung in loose, sweat-drenched strands, and his trembling hands were stained with ink.
He had been in the VIP stands at the Nine-Cauldron Colosseum.
He had watched his disowned, crippled grandson Shen Shitou stand beside Master Lu. He had watched Shitou catch a Grade-6 Sovereign Dragon Pill and chew it like a peanut. He had sensed the zero-drag hum of Shitou’s silver-steel spirit veins.
And above all, he had witnessed Master Lu ignite the Nine-Pattern Golden Core of the Ancient Sages!
Behind Shen Canghai, twenty elders tumbled out. They carried white-gold chests and rolls of old family deeds.
Shen Canghai rushed toward the picnic table, collapsing onto his knees in the dust:
“Shitou! My grandson! My flesh and blood!” Shen Canghai wailed, tears carving through the dirt on his face. “Your grandfather was blind! I was deceived by envious concubines! Forgive me! Return to the clan! Look what grandfather has brought you!”
The elders threw open the chests. Inside lay two million spirit stones, five hundred scrolls of dragon-bone sword techniques, and rare herbs.
From his robes, Shen Canghai pulled out a golden box. He showed a heavy gold-trimmed bronze tablet: the old family genealogical register of the Shen Clan.
“Look, Shitou!” Shen Canghai cried. “Your name has been rewritten in pure gold at the head of the old family tree! You’re reinstated as First Young Master of the Direct Line! Half our estates are yours! Just come home!”
Frank took a slow bite of his lamb skewer, chewed thoughtfully. Then he pointed with his tongs toward the driveway.
“Hey,” Frank said in a flat, deadpan voice. “You’re blocking the lumber delivery turnaround radius. Sixty barges of load-bearing hardwood arrive at dawn. If your wagons are still parked in my turning apron, the wagon drivers can’t back the flatbeds into the bay. Move those carriages twenty yards back past the yellow safety cones.”
Shen Canghai froze, stunned by the sheer mundanity of the reprimand.
Shen Shitou slowly set down his beer mug.
He stood up from the bench, his massive, stone-hewn frame towering over the kneeling patriarch.
His work boots crunched softly on the gravel as he walked to the gate. His silver-steel spirit veins pulsed with a deep, low, deep silver hum beneath his skin. It shook with easy power.
There was no fury in Shitou’s eyes. There were no tears, no bitter accusations, and no dramatic grandstanding.
There was only the cold, iron-hard calm of a master craftsman inspecting a cracked foundation.
“Four years ago,” Shitou said, his voice deep and level, “the Shen Clan shattered my spiritual veins with an iron hammer. You stripped my mother’s memorial tablet from the shrine. You threw me into the frozen mud and left me to die in a ditch.”
Shen Canghai flinched: “Shitou, that was an error! A tragic misunderstanding!”
“It was a breach of contract,” Shitou replied coldly. “A family is supposed to be a load-bearing structure. Yours was built on rotten timber, corrupt mortar, and zero moral foundation.”
Shitou reached down and picked up the golden genealogical tablet from Shen Canghai’s trembling palms.
He weighed it in his hand, tapping it with his fingernail:
TINK.
“Cast bronze core with ten-hair-fraction gold electroplating,” Shitou observed with clean, steady care. “Inferior pulling strength. High zinc impurity. Substandard alloy.”
Shen Shitou raised his right knee.
CRACK!
With a crisp snap, Shitou broke the golden genealogical tablet clean in half over his silver-steel-heavy kneecap!
He tossed the two jagged halves over his shoulder.
CLANG.
They landed directly inside a wooden crate labeled: SCRAP METAL & BRONZE RECYCLING - MELT DOWN ONLY.
Shen Canghai shrieked in despair: “The old family tablet! Three hundred years of clan glory!”
“Recycled bronze is worth forty copper coins per pound at the foundry,” Shitou said neutrally.
He then turned his gaze to the ten wagons filled with two million spirit stones.
“As for these ten wagons,” Shitou continued, crossing his thick arms. “I’ll accept them. Not as a clan gift, and not as an inheritance.”
“Then... As what?” Shen Canghai croaked.
“As court-ordered severance pay, retroactive unpaid labor wages, and punitive medical damages for secret physical mutilation during my apprenticeship,” Shitou stated calmly. “Every single stone will be deposited into Master Lu’s Ironwood Peak Public works Building Fund to pay for our workshop foundation.”
Shitou pointed toward the dark mountain road.
“Now pack up your horses and get off our job site. You don’t have visitor clearance, you’re not wearing personal protective equipment. You’re obstructing an active material staging zone. If you return, I’ll cite the entire Shen Clan for secret heavy-duty trespassing.”
Shen Canghai stared at the broken pieces of the golden tablet in the scrap bin, then looked up at Shitou’s unmoving face.
He realized, with crushing finality, that the Shen Clan had not just lost an heir.
They had ceased to exist in Shitou’s world. To his grandson, the ancient high-born clan was nothing more than an unpaid invoice finally written off as bad debt.
Weeping bitterly, the patriarch collapsed into the arms of his elders, who dragged him back into the carriage like a sack of damp grain.
The ten black carriages turned around in the dust, their lanterns fading into the dark pine forest below.
In Frank’s eyes, the Heavenly Bug Tracker flashed with golden system text!
Shen Shitou watched the tail-lights disappear, let out a slow breath of clean night air. Then it walked back to the picnic table.
Frank reached into the grill with his tongs, grabbed the best skewer of seared lamb—crusted with cumin and sizzling with juices—and slid it onto Shitou’s plate.
Frank raised his baked-clay mug:
“Good job clearing the turnaround apron,” Frank said, his eyes crinkling with quiet pride. “A congested staging yard is a major safety hazard. Have another drink, foreman.”
Shen Shitou looked at the skewer, then at Frank, Ling’er, and Niu Mang, all raising their mugs with warm smiles.
A radiant smile spread across Shitou’s rugged face.
“Thank you, Master,” Shitou said, clinking his mug against Frank’s.
For the next two hours, the courtyard was filled with hearty laughter, stories of crooked flanges, and debates over the optimal curing humidity for high-pressure cement.
And then, midnight arrived.
Without warning, the northern horizon—hundreds of miles away beyond the Great Da-Qi border—suddenly flared with a world-ending, sickly shade of bruised crimson!
The night wind turned instantly freezing cold. It carried the sharp, metal stench of burning sulfur and ozone!
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!
An ear-splitting, bloodcurdling avian shriek ripped through the upper air!
Crashing through the canopy of the old pine tree, shedding branches and needles in a violent shower, a massive, three-headed Royal Blood-War-Eagle slammed onto the flat stone slabs with a sickening thud:
CRASH!
The huge beast was soaked in black, acid-burning ichor. Its feathers were burned away, its wings shattered, and its three beaks coughed up thick, clotted blood.
Clutched tightly in the dying war-beast’s steel talons was a tube-shaped courier canister forged from smoking crimson blood-jade.
Emblazoned across the glowing jade was the three-dragon emergency seal of the Royal Northern Border Army. A distress bright light reserved only for the total, coming soon collapse of the empire!