Night fell over Mount Hongwu, but the mountain didn’t sleep.
Down in the lower city, fireworks exploded in brilliant chrysanthemums of gold, crimson, and jade across the winter sky. Taverns overflowed onto the cobblestone streets as merchants, students, and common laborers toasted the miraculous victory of Class 404. Ballads were already being composed in the teahouses about the mysterious “Master Lu” and his three unbeatable apprentices who demolished the proud high-born classes with common hand tools.
Up on the western ridge, however, sheer chaos threatened to overwhelm the peaceful safe hall.
Dozens of heavy carriages bearing the gold-trimmed crests of country ministers, guildmasters, and prestigious martial clans lined the steep mountain path. Servants in fine silk livery unloaded polished dark wood chests overflowing with sparkling spirit stones, bolts of shimmering sky cloud-silk, and rare thousand-year spiritual herbs in silver containers.
One wealthy clan elder was even holding the golden leash of a caged, two-headed spiritual peacock, while another offered a solid star-jade chamber pot inlaid with pearls.
Hundreds of wealthy nobles crowded around the stone outer edge. It shouted through cupped hands into the freezing night:
“Master Lu! My son possesses a top-grade metal spiritual root! Please accept him as a student!”
“Master Lu! Our merchant guild offers twenty thousand spirit stones and three prime estates in the country capital if you’ll only allow our eldest daughter to carry your water bucket!”
“We’ll pave the entire western ridge in white jade at our own expense!”
Inside the courtyard gate, Frank stood with an iron claw hammer, a three-foot seasoned pine plank, and two zinc-coated eight-penny nails.
He placed the plank against the cedar gatepost, lining it up with his carpenter’s square.
THWACK. THWACK.
Two clean, ear-splitting hammer strikes drove the nails flush into the wood.
Frank stepped back to admire his handiwork. Painted on the rough pine plank in bold, black asphalt lacquer were five large, clear characters:
[NO SOLICITING | Builder WORK IN PROGRESS]
Beneath it, in smaller, uncompromising letters, Frank had added:
[Trespassers will be assigned fifty wheelbarrows of drainage aggregate. Inquiries during non-business hours strictly prohibited by Town Code. All spirit peacocks and jade gifts subject to secret dumping fines.]
Frank slid the heavy forged-iron drop-latch into place. He locked the cedar gate securely from the inside.
“There,” Frank said, dusting his hands on his canvas work trousers. “That should hold off the unpermitted foot traffic until Monday morning.”
He turned and walked back across the crushed-gravel walkway, beneath the fragrant blooming pink peach blossoms, and stepped inside Classroom 404.
The heavy pine door swung shut with a solid, satisfying thud, cutting off the distant shouting of the nobles outside.
Inside, Classroom 404 was total paradise.
The closed-loop hydronic heating purred silently beneath the cedar floorboards. It maintained a blissful, soothing seventy-two degrees. The nonstop copper ground loop hummed at a low, harmonious hum, draining away every trace of sky static interference and filling the room with an ocean of pure, calm spiritual energy.
In the center of the polished floor sat a large cast-iron cooking pot, bubbling merrily.
Frank had mounted the cooking pot directly onto the top plate of the dark rock heat-exchanger. He drew a gentle, perfectly modulated trickle of heat rising heat from the Micro-Star-fire core below.
Inside the pot, thick slices of tender mountain mutton, hand-pulled wheat noodles, sliced lotus roots, crisp winter greens, and spicy peppercorn broth churned in fragrant, mouth-watering harmony.
Shitou, Ling’er, and Niu Mang—having washed the arena dust from their faces and hands—sat cross-legged on the warm floorboards in a circle around the pot. Their yellow gourd hard hats rested neatly on the wooden shelf by the door, beside their polished trade tools.
Frank pulled over a low wooden stool, picked up a pair of bamboo chopsticks, and sat down.
“Soup’s at a rolling boil,” Frank announced, ladling a generous heap of sliced mutton into Ling’er’s baked-clay bowl. “Eat up, kids. You burned significant heat reserves today during those three-second cycle sprints. Protein synthesis and stored energy replenishment are forced after heavy moving output.”
He ladled two massive scoops of meat and noodles into Niu Mang’s giant bowl, and filled Shitou’s bowl to the brim.
“Thank you, Teacher!” the three students chorused in heartfelt all at once.
Niu Mang shoveled a massive mouthful of hot mutton into his mouth, his eyes rolling back in pure culinary ecstasy. “Hot! Delicious! Teacher, this broth tastes better than any spirit-pill in the world!”
“Chew your food, Niu Mang,” Frank corrected mildly. “Mouthful breakdown in the oral cavity reduces gastric high-pressure load by forty percent. Don’t inhale your calories like a runaway empty pocket.”
Ling’er took a delicate bite of mutton, the savory broth warming her throat.
She looked around the clean, warm classroom. At the plumb pine walls, the double-hung sash windows, the blooming pink peach blossoms visible through the clear glass, and the simple iron pot bubbling between them.
A tear slipped from Ling’er’s silver eye, dripping into her bowl.
Five weeks ago, she had been curled in the frozen straw behind the academy stables, coughing black frost, waiting to die alone as an outcast runaway princess.
Shitou had been a crippled invalid coughing blood, kicked into the mud by his own grandfather.
Niu Mang had been an illiterate farm boy beaten with bamboo canes for breaking a quartz ball.
And now, they were the supreme champions of Hongwu Academy. They sat in the warmest, purest training safe hall in the principality, eating mutton hotpot with the godlike master who had rebuilt their lives piece by piece.
Shitou set his bowl down on the floor. His broad, rugged face was solemn, his golden eyes burning with deep, rock-steady devotion.
Shitou raised his baked-clay cup of roasted barley tea.
“Senior Sister. Junior Brother,” Shitou said, his voice deep and thick with emotion.
Ling’er and Niu Mang right away set their bowls down and raised their tea cups.
“Before we took Teacher’s tools,” Shitou said, looking into their eyes, “we were broken refuse discarded by the world. The grandmasters cursed our spirit veins. The noble clans spat upon our names. It was Teacher who gave us the hammer, the pin, and the spade. He showed us that the Great Dao isn’t a privilege of emperors. But a foundation built with our own blood and sweat.”
Shitou turned to Frank, bowing his head so low his forehead touched the warm floorboards.
“No matter how high we cultivate, no matter what sky palaces crumble before our steps, we swear before Heaven and Earth: we’re forever the apprentices of Classroom 404! I’m Teacher’s ironworker!”
Ling’er bowed beside him, her voice ringing clear as silver bells: “I’m Teacher’s boiler tender!”
Niu Mang bowed until his heavy chest pressed against the cedar wood: “I’m Teacher’s excavator!”
“May our spirit veins turn to dust if we ever forget Teacher’s order!” the three roared together in solemn oath!
Frank paused with a slice of lotus root halfway to his mouth. He blinked, looking at his three students bowing on the floor, and let out a fed up sigh.
“Kids, please,” Frank muttered, tapping his chopsticks against the rim of his bowl. “Stop making blood oaths over dinner. You’re letting the mutton get cold. And Niu Mang, you’re dripping spicy chili oil onto my freshly oiled cedar planks. Sit up and eat your dinner before the noodles turn to mush.”
“Yes, Teacher!” the three scrambled upright, grinning through their tears, and dug into their bowls with renewed vigor.
While the students ate, Frank focused his mind inward, opening his system screen.
Frank tested the newly unlocked DAO-QA v2.1 Passive Radar.
A subtle, circular pulse rippled outward fifty meters through the room, the walls, and the surrounding courtyard. Neon-amber test tags flickered in Frank’s outer vision:
`[West Rafter Joint: 0.02mm Thermal Spreading - Normal]` `[Floorboard Seam #4: Minor Chili Oil Stain - Clean with Stone Spirits]` `[North Doorstep Plate: Single Wood-Borer Larva Detected - Map point 4.2, 1.8]`
Frank glanced at Niu Mang. “Niu Mang, after dinner, grab a wire probe and tap the north doorstep plate at map point four point two. There’s a single wood-borer bug chewing into the cedar. Evict it before it lays eggs.”
Niu Mang’s jaw dropped in total respect: “Teacher can sense a single insect’s heartbeat through six inches of solid heartwood?! Students obey!”
Frank reviewed his mental ledger with deep builder satisfaction.
Three Golden Master Pages stored in the Hotfix Pass-key Binder.
An 84-pound metal bar of Deep-Sea Black-Gold safely stashed beneath the floorboards as a load-bearing balance weight.
Dual master trade licenses in test and medicine, granting permanent wholesale discounts across the principality.
A complete freehold property deed covering the entire western ridge, legally exempt from local zoning interference and property tax.
And three fully tuned, zero-defect Tier 2 apprentices who knew how to maintain their tools and respect job site safety.
“Phase one complete,” Frank murmured to himself, taking a satisfying sip of hot tea. “Foundation is poured, framing is locked, utilities are working. In the spring, we’ll build a detached storage shed for the bulk lumber, grade the drainage swale behind the quarry, and—”
DONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
A huge, earth-shaking bell chime shattered the midnight silence!
The sound didn’t come from the common arena gong.
It came from the highest peak of Mount Hongwu. The sacred Nine Heavens Dragon Bell, an ancient relic enchanted by the founding royal dynasty. It had hung silent for over two hundred years!
Before anyone could speak—
DONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
DONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
DONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
The chimes continued, rolling across the sky in ear-splitting row!
Five rings... Six rings... Seven rings... Eight rings!
And finally—
DONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
NINE RINGS!
The entire mountain shuddered. The sky above Hongwu Academy flared into blinding, daytime bright glare at midnight!
Ling’er’s chopsticks froze in her fingers. Her silver eyes dilated in sudden, bone-chilling shock.
“Nine chimes of the Dragon Bell...” Ling’er whispered, her voice tightening. “That... That’s the Royal Royalty Protocol! An envoy from the Central Royal Capital has dropped upon the mountain!”
Shitou and Niu Mang leaped to their feet, rushing to the window.
Outside, dropping through the swirling clouds, was a sight that made the entire city of Hongwu gasp in scared awe.