The heavy iron vault door in the rear of the Appraiser Hall swung open with a muffled groan of greased iron tumblers.
Two armored guild guards emerged. They carried a heavy, brass-bound cedar chest locked with three spirit-warded padlocks. They set the chest down onto the central velvet check table with the solemn care of pallbearers carrying an emperor’s sarcophagus.
Master Guan took three silver keys from his velvet belt. His hands shook as he unlocked the padlocks one by one.
Click. Click. Clack.
The lid was lifted, revealing a bed of dark purple satin.
Resting on the velvet was an eight-inch ritual dagger.
Its blade was carved from semi-clear, sea-green jade that shone with a soft, pulsing emerald radiance. An ornate dragon head was carved into the handle knob. Its jaws grabbed a tiny crimson gemstone. A faint, mystical hum shook through the air. It carried the heavy, ancient deep ring of a fallen dynasty.
Around the table, fifty apprentice testers gasped, leaning forward with eyes full of religious respect.
“See!” Master Guan proclaimed, his voice trembling with grandiloquent theatricality. “The crown jewel of our regional vault: the Emperor’s Jade Dagger! Unearthed three years ago from the tomb of the First Epoch Sovereign of Jiuzhou! Its true valuation is estimated at over ten thousand high-grade spirit stones!”
Guan turned to face Frank, his glasses flashing in the lantern light.
“Three regional Two-Star Master Appraisers have inspected this dagger over thirty-six months,” Guan sneered with supreme confidence. “None could decipher the cryptic, pulsing soul-deep ring within its jade matrix! If you truly possess the Heavenly Eye of Insight, tell this assembly the material composition, the tempering era. The royal lineage of this blade!”
Guan crossed his arms, smiling like a cat toying with a mouse. “If you can’t, you’ll be expelled and fined one thousand spirit stones for defaming the guild before witnesses!”
Frank didn’t answer. He stepped up to the table, looking down at the shimmering green dagger.
His internal DAO-QA console fired up instantly, displaying a bright neon amber test overlay across the blade.
Frank looked at the floating analysis, then looked at Master Guan’s proud, smirking face.
A slow, tired sigh escaped Frank’s lips.
“Ten thousand spirit stones for river soapstone and pig glue,” Frank muttered, shaking his head. “The tourist trap industry on this continent is fully out of control.”
Frank reached into the velvet box with his bare right hand.
“STOP!” Master Guan screamed, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull. “Insolent beast! Don’t touch the sacred royal relic with unwashed mortal hands! The ancient Emperor’s soul aura will burn the flesh off your fingers!”
Frank ignored him fully.
His calloused fingers closed around the sea-green jade handle. He lifted the eight-inch dagger out of the velvet bed as casually as a line cook picking up a dull butter knife.
He held the dagger horizontally in front of his chest.
He placed his left thumb on the center of the spine. He placed his right thumb half an inch away.
He applied four pounds of downward clockwork pressure.
SNAP.
A sharp, hollow, brittle crunch echoed across the Grand Appraiser Hall.
The ancient, sacred, ten-thousand-spirit-stone Emperor’s Jade Dagger snapped cleanly in two.
For two full seconds, the universe ceased to exist.
The fifty apprentice testers stood with their eyes frozen wide, their ink brushes slipping from their limp fingers and clattering onto the marble floor.
The two armored guards turned semi-clear white, their knees wobbling beneath their chainmail.
Master Guan’s crystal glasses slid fully off his face, falling to the velvet table. His mouth opened so wide his lower jaw out-of-joint with a faint pop.
“AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Master Guan let loose an animalistic shriek of pure, world-ending terror!
He grabbed the sides of his head, tearing out clumps of his own grey hair!
“THE EMPEROR’S BLADE!” Guan shrieked, his voice cracking into frantic falsetto. “HE BROKE THE FIRST EPOCH TREASURE! TEN THOUSAND SPIRIT STONES DESTROYED! GUARDS! ARREST HIM! SEVER HIS LIMBS! SKIN HIM ALIVE!”
The two armored guards drew their heavy steel broadswords. Their faces were pale with murderous panic as they lunged toward Frank!
Frank didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his hands to defend himself.
He simply turned around. He held the two broken halves of the dagger up into the direct beam of sunlight streaming through the stained-glass skylight.
“Before you swing those swords,” Frank said, his voice flat, calm, and carrying the icy weight of a senior careful investigator, “take a look at the cross-section.”
The two guards stopped in mid-stride.
Master Guan froze, his frantic screams catching in his throat like a swallowed bone.
Everyone in the front row leaned forward, squinting at the broken fracture surface Frank was displaying.
There was no radiant royal core.
There was no swirling green sky zhenqi.
The inside of the “sacred First Epoch blade” was fully hollow.
Inside the tiny-thick shell of soft, chalky green stone was a dark grey sludge made of dried river silt, bits of chopped straw, and foul-smelling brown jelly that smelled distinctly of boiled pork fat.
A thin wisp of chemical sulfur vapor hissed out of the broken cavity. It smelled like rotten eggs.
Frank tapped the hollow edge with his fingernail, flaking off a powdery green chip.
“Common river soapstone,” Frank explained in that calm, informative shop-teacher voice. “Hydrous magnesium stone-glass. Mohs hardness rating of barely one point zero. You can carve it with a dull kitchen spoon.”
Frank held the broken tip closer to Master Guan’s bulging eyes.
“The green ‘emperor radiance’ was cheap pine resin mixed with copper-sulfate powder, brushed over the surface to give it a glass-like sheen. And to make it feel heavy like genuine royal green jade, the craftsman filled the hollow core with river mud and pig-skin gelatin glue.”
Frank tossed the two broken pieces onto the velvet check table with a wet, hollow thud.
“It was carved in a back-alley craft stall eleven months ago. Total production cost: three copper coins for the soapstone, one copper for the pig glue. You were about to pay ten thousand high-grade spirit stones for four coppers’ worth of river mud and pig fat.”
A choking, dead silence blanketed the hall.
Master Guan stood numbed. He looked at the broken soapstone shell, then looking at the smelly grey mud oozing onto the purple satin.
The Two-Star Master Test judges in the capital had spent three years debating the “cryptic, pulsing soul-aura” of this dagger! The regional guild had already drawn up the bank promissory notes to purchase the relic from an antique broker next week!
If Lu Zhen had not snapped the blade today, the guild would have paid ten thousand spirit stones for four coppers of river mud!
The entire guild would have been financially ruined. Master Guan would have been carried out by the royal clerks for criminal fault!
Lu Zhen hadn’t destroyed a sacred old family relic.
Lu Zhen had just saved the entire East City Appraiser Guild from total, bankruptcy-inducing fraud!
Master Guan’s knees buckled.
The One-Star Master Appraiser dropped to his knees before Frank’s dusty leather boots, bowing low against the marble floorboards in wild apology!
“A Saint Appraiser!” Guan cried, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks. “A living God of Eyes! Master Lu... Your insight penetrates through illusion down to the core truth! This blind fool was duped by copper sulfate and pig fat! Master Lu has saved this guild from the deep pit!”
Guan fumbled wildly through his robes. He pulled out an ornate golden token carved from white sea-jade, inscribed with two golden stars:
“Master Lu! Please accept this honorary Two-Star Elder Appraiser Token! We beg Master to serve as our Chief Consultant! The guild will pay ten thousand spirit stones annually!”
The fifty apprentice testers right away bowed low toward Frank in stunned, shaking respect.
Frank looked at the golden elder badge, then looked at his pocket watch.
He waved his hand dismissively.
“I don’t have time to be a chief consultant,” Frank said flatly. “I have floor beams to frame and concrete to mix. Just stamp my wholesale lumber permit and the fifteen-percent tax exemption card. And make sure the stamp is level.”
Master Guan blinked away his tears, stunned by the casual indifference.
A Honorary Two-Star Elder Token was a land-wide prestige badge that commanded the respect of country governors! Kings would bow to an Elder Appraiser!
Yet this man treated it like an annoying piece of promotional junk mail!
He has fully went beyond the vanity of mortal prestige! Guan thought, his soul quaking in awe. To him, the title of Two-Star Elder is nothing compared to the divine stone-built work of his hands!
“Right away! At once!” Guan scrambled to his feet, grabbed the guild’s heavy brass office seal, and stamped Frank’s wholesale trade voucher with three loud, trembling THUMPS.
He handed the golden stamped permit to Frank with both hands, bowing at a ninety-degree angle: “Master Lu’s tax exemption is permanently active across the entire continent!”
Frank took the stamped parchment, blew the red ink dry, and tucked it into his denim apron.
“Thanks,” Frank said, turning toward the double doors. “Next time, test your jade with a steel file. If a file scratches it, it’s soapstone. Basic materials testing.”
Frank pushed open the heavy doors. He stepped out into the bright morning sun where his three students were waiting with the wheelbarrows.
Shen Shitou stepped forward, his twenty-pound hammer resting on his shoulder. “Master! Did you obtain the wholesale discount card?”
“Got it,” Frank said. He pointed across the busy commercial square toward a large two-story pavilion adorned with a massive wooden medical gourd.
“Now we need three jugs of ninety-five percent grain alcohol and ten pounds of raw sulfur for termite treatment and solvent extraction,” Frank noted, checking his shopping list. “Let’s go knock out the Apprentice Physician Hall across the street.”