The white-jade carriage came to a halt before the Grand Gate of Hongwu Lower Academy with the silent dignity of a drifting cloud.
Four winged pegasi folded silver-feathered wings, snorting sparks of cold lightning into the cobblestones. Twenty royal knights dismounted all at once, their white-gold shin guards clattering against paving stones as they drew ritual lances to form a royal honor guard.
Lining the boulevard, over two thousand academy students were prostrated flat on the ground.
At the head of the welcoming committee stood Dean Shang Chen, his silver beard neatly combed, standing tall and straight on two healthy feet. Flanking him was Vice-Principal Lu Xun, whose face was still bruised from Dean Shang’s slap, and sixty senior Academic Committee Elders bowing at ninety-degree angles.
The carriage door swung open.
Stepping onto the velvet carpet was an elderly man wearing the flowing, star-stitched purple robes of a Two-Star Master Teacher. On his chest gleamed two tiny golden stars flanking an open book. The sacred badge of the Imperial Capital Master Teacher Pavilion.
It was Envoy Han Shan.
Beside him walked his personal student, Lady Meng. A haughty young woman in lavender silks, holding an ornate scroll case carved from blue sea-jade.
Envoy Han’s eyes were sharp as polished daggers. He swept across the bowing faculty with cold royal power.
“Dean Shang Chen,” Envoy Han’s voice rang like bronze chimes. He carried the heavy pressure of Mortal Tier 3. “Three days ago, the Capital Pavilion’s Starry Deep hum Array detected two massive sky disturbances originating from this town backwater.”
Envoy Han unfurled a royal parchment stamped with the royal dragon crest.
“First: a four-thousand-foot faster-than-sound pillar of pure solar steam that boiled away an approaching storm front above your peaks. Second: an unranked teacher with a historic negative-five test score who reportedly defeated the premier heir of the Bai Clan in zero point eight-four seconds using a common farm shovel.”
Envoy Han stepped forward, his gaze locking onto Dean Shang.
“The Capital Pavilion has issued an official Special Audit Hearing. We’re here to inspect this teacher, evaluate his pedagogical methodology, and determine whether Hongwu Academy is harboring an ancient hidden hermit or an illegal fighter of demonic soul-craft.”
Before Dean Shang could speak, Vice-Principal Lu Xun lunged forward. He dropped to both knees on the carpet with dramatic tears!
“Envoy Han!” Lu Xun wailed, pressing his forehead into the velvet. “You have arrived just in time to save our academy from ruin! That Lu Zhen is no hermit! He’s an unprincipled charlatan who uses forbidden blood pills to warp his students’ bodies! His student broke my nephew’s arm and shattered an old family sword! He openly mocks the Academic Senate and treats the holy Dao like a construction site!”
Dean Shang’s brow furrowed in cold fury. He stepped forward, his voice firm and ringing.
“Vice-Principal Lu speaks out of personal spite and wounded family pride, Envoy Han. Lu Zhen’s students fought under standard open by-laws. His understanding of physical kinetics and living mechanics is deep beyond measure. He cured my forty-year Yongquan black rot with a single bowl of wild herbs!”
Envoy Han’s eyebrows shot upward in genuine shock.
He looked down at Dean Shang’s feet. For twenty years, the Capital Pavilion had known of Shang Chen’s crippling gout. Every royal physician had declared it incurable without a Saint-grade Marrow Pill.
Yet here was Shang Chen, standing without a cane, his aura humming with healthy life-force!
“Cured forty years of black rot with herbs?” Envoy Han stroked his beard, his interest thoroughly piqued. “Lead the way to Classroom 404 right away. I must examine this Lu Zhen myself.”
---
Twenty minutes later, a royal entourage of nearly a hundred people—Envoy Han, Lady Meng, Dean Shang, Vice-Principal Lu, forty elders, and twenty royal knights—arrived at the southern quarry ridge.
Vice-Principal Lu was smirking with malicious excitement, expecting Lu Zhen to be trembling in terror inside his drafty shack.
Instead, they stopped at the edge of the clearing in dead, stunned silence.
The derelict, rotting shack they remembered had fully vanished.
In its place stood a structurally clean, beautifully framed timber pavilion.
An eight-inch foundation footing of glossy, black glass-black water-setting concrete hugged the outer edge. It anchored the structure to the solid mountain stone without a single crack. The cedar roof was patched with straight, hand-wooden roof shingles. The front door was crafted from fragrant pine, fitted with oiled brass hinges that caught the morning light like jewelry.
And taped directly to the center of the pine door was a piece of greasy brown butcher paper.
Scrawled across the paper in rough black charcoal was a short notice:
[OUT TO LUNCH / DUMPSTER DIVING FOR SCRAP COPPER. BACK AT 3:00 PM. LEAVE DELIVERIES ON THE BENCH.]
The sixty elders stood numbed.
Lady Meng’s jaw dropped in total disbelief. “He... He went dumpster diving?!”
Vice-Principal Lu leaped forward, trembling with thrilled outrage: “Envoy Han! Do you see this insolence?! An Imperial Two-Star Master Teacher arrives with a royal mandate. This unranked peasant leaves a note on a sausage wrapper saying he went to search for scrap metal?!”
Envoy Han stepped up to the door.
He didn’t read the note. His eyes dropped directly to the threshold.
Through the quarter-inch gap beneath the door, a wave of gentle, soothing, seventy-two-degree heat was streaming into the frosty mountain air.
Envoy Han knelt down, placing his palm flat against the floorboards just inside the doorframe.
HUMMMMMMM.
The deep, therapeutic warmth of the closed-loop hydronic heating system flowed into Han Shan’s fingertips.
There was zero burning smoke. Zero carbon residue. Zero spirit stones burning in fire bowls.
It was pure, uniform, self-circulating heat-powered harmony!
“A closed-loop earth-heat deep ring array...” Envoy Han breathed, his eyes wide with deep, religious respect. “Embedded directly beneath pine subfloor without a single spirit stone formation flag... He’s heating an entire sanctum using natural heat-powered fluid exchange!”
Envoy Han rose to his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He didn’t flee, Han Shan realized with a shudder of awe. An Imperial Envoy means nothing to him! To a grandmaster who understands the ancient physical laws of the universe, an Imperial Summons is just an office interruption to his daily research!
“Where did he go?” Envoy Han demanded, spinning around to face Dean Shang.
“The notice says... The East City Scrap Yards, Envoy Han,” Dean Shang replied with a suppressed grin.
“Dispatch a courier right away!” Han Shan commanded. “Deliver the Imperial Master Teacher Summons to his hands with full royal honors!”
---
Meanwhile, down on the chaotic thoroughfare leading toward the East City Market, Frank was enjoying a peaceful morning stroll.
He was pushing a heavy, two-wheeled wooden wheelbarrow loaded with empty canvas sacks and his tool box.
Beside him walked Shen Shitou and Niu Mang, each pushing their own wheelbarrows with broad, cheerful grins. Meanwhile, Jiang Ling’er walked behind them in a simple linen robe. They carried Frank’s enamel tea mug.
“Master,” Niu Mang asked, steering his barrow around a puddle. “What kind of scrap are we looking for at the market?”
“Scrap copper wire,” Frank said, chewing on a dried apricot. “Old bronze boiler fittings, discarded iron plate off-cuts, and raw sulfur ore. The academy charges forty silver coins for a brass ball valve. At the salvage yard, you can buy ten pounds of unthreaded bronze scrap for three copper coins, melt it down on Ling’er’s stove, and tap your own threads with a cheap steel die set.”
“Builder arithmetic,” Shitou nodded solemnly, committing every word to his internal ledger of sacred wisdom. “Retail is the illusion of the mortal mind. Scrap metal is the eternal truth of the Dao.”
Before Frank could explain the difference between leaded brass and naval bronze, the thundering gallop of hooves tore through the crowded street.
“MAKE WAY! Royal SUMMONS! CLEAR THE LANE!”
An royal herald in golden mail armor leaped off his warhorse, halting his mount directly in front of Frank’s wheelbarrow.
The herald held aloft an amazing two-foot scroll carved from white sea-jade. It was bound with gold dragon ribbons. Then it sealed with the royal wax crest of the Tianxuan Principality.
Hundreds of street merchants and fighters right away backed away and bowed low in terror!
“Teacher Lu Zhen of Classroom 404!” the herald proclaimed, his voice shaking with ritual gravity. “By mandate of the Imperial Master Teacher Pavilion, you’re formally summoned to appear before Two-Star Master Teacher Han Shan for a full pedagogical and institutional test!”
The herald held the glowing jade scroll up with both hands in formal presentation.
Frank stopped his wheelbarrow.
He took the ornate jade scroll and popped the gold ribbon.
He unrolled the heavy parchment.
The text was written in flowing gold-leaf calligraphy, filled with eighty lines of royal praise, grandiloquent formal decrees, and three paragraphs of office disclaimers.
Frank’s DAO-QA console scanned the document instantly.
Frank looked at the glowing blue-and-amber box, then looked at the heavy, smooth parchment.
“One hundred and eighty grams per square meter,” Frank muttered approvingly. He felt the thick, flawless white backside of the scroll. “Heavy-weight mulberry fiber. High tear pushback. Good tooth. Doesn’t bleed through.”
Frank pulled his carpenter’s pencil from behind his ear.
He didn’t read line two of the royal decree.
He flipped the sacred royal summons fully over, laid the blank white backside across the wooden handle of his wheelbarrow. Then he began scribbling his hardware shopping list in thick, dark graphite.
Item 1: 3x rolls 12-gauge solid copper wire.
Item 2: 6x 2-inch bronze ball valves (unthreaded).
Item 3: 4 lbs borax brazing flux.
Item 4: 20 lbs high-pressure lime ash.
Item 5: 1x set narrowed pipe taps.
The royal herald looked up from the dirt.
His eyes bulged out of his skull. His jaw hung open so far his chin strap snapped.
He... He is using the sacred Imperial Master Teacher Summons... Stamped with the Great Dragon Seal of the Capital... As scratch paper for a plumbing shopping list?!
The surrounding merchants turned pale as ghosts, clutching their heads in existential terror.
This man is insane! To him, a Royal Decree is just scrap paper to write down prices for copper wire!
Shen Shitou, Jiang Ling’er, and Niu Mang stood behind Frank, their chests swelling with fanatical pride.
Master doesn’t bow to the kings of the mortal world, Ling’er thought. Her golden eyes burned with divine respect. To a Sovereign who walks the true stonework of Heaven, royal decrees are nothing more than scratch pads for the great work!
Frank finished his list, blew loose graphite dust off the parchment, folded the royal scroll into a neat four-inch square. Then he tucked it into his tool pouch.
He looked down at the stunned, numbed herald.
“Tell Envoy Han I got his flyer,” Frank said calmly. “We’re doing a quick hardware run at the East City scrap yards. If he wants to talk training list, he can meet us at Classroom 404 at three o’clock sharp. Tell him to wipe his boots on the mat before he steps onto my heated pine floor.”
Frank picked up the wooden handles of his wheelbarrow and pushed forward.
“Come on, kids,” Frank commanded. “The scrap yards are opening their gates. Let’s go find some discounted brass.”
The three students marched behind him with their wheelbarrows, heading straight into the bustling, smoke-filled gates of the East City Scrap Market!