The Grand Imperial Inn didn’t cater to common travellers. It catered to dynastic arrogance.
Situated at the intersection of the High Court Boulevard and the Vermilion Cloud Way, the three-story structure had been assembled from thousand-year-old virgin spirit-cedar, its roof edges tiled in lapis lazuli. Suspended jade lanterns bathed the polished timber walkways in a cool soft glow. It cast long shadows across highborn retainers sipping tea on the mezzanine.
At the entrance, an eighty-foot open-air courtyard looked up toward the cantilevered balconies of the Cloud-Gazing Pavilion.
It was a stone-built showpiece designed to impress gullible country judges.
To Lu Zhen, it looked like a total collapse waiting for a town fine ticket.
Frank stood in the reception foyer, his yellow spun-glass hard hat clamped over his hair, flannel sleeves rolled to the elbows. With a dull, bone-jarring THUD, he lowered his eighty-pound forged hard dark metal toolbox onto the glossy floorboards.
The cedar planks groaned in acute distress.
Frank unclipped a twelve-inch cast-light metal bubble level from his toolbelt. He bent down, wiped away a speck of cedar oil with his thumb, and laid the machined edge across the floor joint.
