On the wide, empty gravel flats between Black-Rock City’s south wall and the new railway station, ten thousand refugee families sat on their cloth bundles watching Pei Xuan stand beside a mountain of yellow clay-mud, desert sand, and crushed limestone.
In the Great Yan Kingdom, building twenty thousand brick houses would take fifty thousand masons three whole years—just firing the clay bricks in charcoal kilns would chop down ten mountains of trees!
And in the Red-Sand Wastes, trees were rarer than gold.
“My Lord,” chief engineer Zhao Dahu scratched his head, looking at the mountain of wet yellow clay and the piles of hollow bamboo and scrap iron pipes beside it. “Even with five thousand strong young men and our three Bulldozer Scorpion-Tractors leveling the dirt, how can we bake fifty million house bricks without firewood kilns?”
“Who said we need firewood kilns to bake bricks?” Pei Xuan smiled.
He looked at Alchemist Sun Baolu (“Boom-Pot Sun”)—the soot-faced, wild-haired alchemist in a leather apron who was currently rolling ten giant iron cauldrons over to the clay pile.
Ever since Boom-Pot Sun joined Dry-Well Village in the early desert days, his favorite hobby was cooking up weird, high-heat alchemical mixtures in his unbreakable fused pots.
Pei Xuan opened the Fusion Cube inside his mind!
Into Slot 1, he placed [100,000 Tons of Desert Clay, Quartz Sand & Crushed Limestone].
Into Slot 2, he placed [20 Wooden Brick-Molding Carts + Boom-Pot Sun’s Fast-Bake Alchemy Stoves].
Into Slot 3, he placed [50 Tons of Scrap Iron & Fired Clay Water Pipes].
“One hundred and fifty thousand points to house a hundred thousand people? Fuse!”
Pei Xuan tapped [YES]!
HUMMMMM—CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
His LP balance dropped from 800,000 to 650,000.
A wave of golden light swept across the twenty wooden carts and the mountain of clay. The carts expanded into twenty self-propelled Automatic Quick-Dry Brick-Making Machines painted bright yellow and red!
As Boom-Pot Sun happily tossed handfuls of low-grade fire-powder into the stove hoppers, the twenty machines began rolling down the leveled streets that the Bulldozer Tractors had just scraped flat!
CHUG-STAMP-POP! CHUG-STAMP-POP!
From the front scoop of each machine, raw desert sand and wet clay were sucked inside. Within three seconds, the internal alchemical pressure-stoves flashed at two thousand degrees, and out the back chute popped neat rows of snow-white, glazed Interlocking Porcelain-Stone Bricks that were already cool to the touch and harder than granite!
Even better, every brick had raised notches on top and matching grooves on the bottom—just like giant stone building blocks!
“Brothers! Look at these white bricks!” Zhao Dahu picked up a big white block and snapped it onto a foundation block on the ground with a crisp CLICK.
He tried to kick the joint with his heavy boot. It didn’t budge a hair!
“You don’t even need to mix mud-mortar or wait for it to dry!” Zhao Dahu roared in excitement. “Ten men snapping these grooved bricks together can put up a three-room courtyard house in two hours! And look—the red iron pipes snap right into the kitchen wall holes!”
“If we build fast, our wives and kids sleep under real tile roofs tonight! Move it, boys!”
“Prisoners #888, #889, #890, and #1,001—carry those roof tiles over here on the double!”
All across the new Black-Rock Public Housing District and Dry-Well South Ward, twenty thousand refugees, five thousand soldiers, and three thousand yellow-vested Debtors worked side by side like an army of ants on steroids!
In the middle of the construction site, Count Wang Ba (#1,001) and Marquis Pei Zhan (#402) were harnessed to the same two-wheeled handcart, hauling stacks of white porcelain bricks up and down Avenue Three while Lady Wang (#888) swept sawdust off the porches behind them.
“Brother-in-law Pei Zhan, pull harder on your side of the cart!” Count Wang wheezed, sweat pouring down his fat cheeks—which had already lost five pounds in two days of honest work. “Why are you walking so slow?!”
“Shut up, Wang Ba!” Marquis Pei Zhan barked back, wiping his brow with his yellow vest. “Look at how straight I stacked my side of the bricks! If we finish Avenue Three before sunset, Sir Accountant Su promised our team an extra ladle of fried locusts and pickled radish with dinner! Don’t make me lose my locusts!”
Count Wang swallowed a mouthful of spit. After shoveling coal on the train all morning, a ladle of Old Guo’s cumin-spiced fried locusts actually sounded like heavenly ambrosia to him too! Without another word, the proud Royal Count lowered his head and pulled the brick cart twice as fast!
For five straight days, the sound of CLICK-CLACK echoed from sunrise to sunset as white-walled houses with red-tiled roofs rose up from the desert flats like bamboo shoots after spring rain!
On the afternoon of the fifth day, Pei Xuan stood at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the entrance of Sunshine Avenue #1.
Ten thousand refugee families stood in front of twenty thousand brand-new, snow-white courtyard homes.
Blacksmith Zhao Dahu held his six-year-old daughter’s hand and supported his elderly father as they unlocked the brass latch on House #108.
Inside was a clean brick-paved courtyard, three bright bedrooms with glass windows and warm heated brick beds (kang), a private flush latrine connected to the deep sewer pipe, and in the kitchen—right above a built-in brick sink—protruded a shiny brass faucet!
“Dahu, Hong Ling said that if you turn this little brass handle, water comes out without carrying a bucket from the well,” the old father said nervously. “Can that really be true?”
Zhao Dahu reached out with a trembling hand and twisted the brass tap.
WHOOOOOOSH!
Crystal-clear, cool, sweet-smelling Spirit-Spring Water—pumped all the way from Old Dragon Ao Ming’s underground well canal—gushed out of the brass faucet into the stone sink!
Zhao Dahu’s little daughter clapped her hands and splashed the cool water on her face: “Grandpa! Daddy! There’s a magic spring living right inside our kitchen wall!”
Outside along the twenty avenues, twenty thousand brass faucets were turned on at the exact same time, followed by a deafening wave of cheers and happy tears from over a hundred thousand people!
“Clean water comes right out of the kitchen wall!”
“And the brick beds are heated from underneath by pipes! Even in winter we won’t freeze!”
“Monthly rent is only twenty copper coins—and we earn fifty copper coins a day at the brickworks! We’re never leaving Red-Sand Prefecture as long as we live!”
Every single refugee family’s Loyalty bar locked permanently at 95 to 100/100 [Die-Hard Citizens]!
***
That evening, back on the central drill ground of Dry-Well City, Pei Xuan held the First Graduation Exam of the Public Immortal Night School.
Standing in two neat lines in front of the stage were ten of his most loyal, hardest-working Rank 3 Peak Martial Sergeants—plus blacksmith Zhao Dahu and five veteran guards who had studied their talking Comic-Strip Cultivation Primers day and night while eating buckets of Spirit-Fried Locusts and Lamb Soup!
All sixteen men had their faces flushed bright red, white steam rising from their helmets as their blood roared like iron furnaces inside their chests.
“Students of Class One!” Pei Xuan shouted from the stage, holding up a tray of sixteen bowls filled with concentrated Top-Grade Sweet-Spring Spirit Water. “Drink this bowl of Spirit Water, follow the stick-figure on Page Ten of your comic book, and smash that door down together!”
“YES, PRINCIPAL PEI!”
All sixteen men gulped down the pure Spirit Water, slammed their bowls onto the table, and squeezed their fists!
“ONE, TWO, THREE—KICK THAT STINGY LANDLORD’S DOOR DOWN!” their sixteen comic books yelled in unison.
“HAAAAAAAH!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Sixteen muffled thunderclaps popped inside sixteen bellies one after another—sounding like a string of giant New Year firecrackers going off across the drill ground!
A massive whirlpool of white Spirit Mist spun down from the night sky, pouring into all sixteen men at the same time!
One by one, all sixteen sergeants and guards opened their eyes with golden-red flames flashing in their pupils, raised their right fists toward the target wall fifty yards away, and punched!
FOOM-FOOM-FOOM-FOOM!
Sixteen fist-sized Rank 4 Furnace-Blood Fireballs streaked across the drill ground and blew the sixteen stone targets into glowing gravel!
By the dish-washing tubs in the corner, Envoy Lin (#216) watched sixteen more mortals become Rank 4 Qi Gathering Immortals at the exact same time. He didn’t even scream this time—he just numb-facedly scrubbed his plate and whispered to Marquis Pei Zhan:
“Twenty... counting Pei Xuan, the one-armed old man, the little maid, the fat cook, and General Tie... this desert town now has twenty-one Rank 4 Qi Gathering Immortals! That’s more Qi Gathering disciples than our Crimson Cloud Sect’s entire outer branch!”
At the stroke of midnight, the RTS Territory Screen inside Pei Xuan’s mind rang like a golden jackpot bell that didn’t stop chiming for thirty full seconds!
Two million Loyalty Points every single day!
Pei Xuan looked at his whopping 2,650,000 LP balance and couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear. Ten months ago, when he arrived in Dry-Well Village with Old Wei, Hong Ling, and Old Guo, he had started with 30 LP/day!
Now he was earning 2,000,000 LP/day, and he had twenty Rank 4 Qi Gathering officers standing at his command!
Just as Pei Xuan raised a cup of sweet well water to toast his new graduates—
KRAAAAACK—BOOM!
High above the North Gate Tower of Dry-Well City, the invisible Town No-Fly Array suddenly flashed with a web of blue lightning!
Something white and glowing that had been flying through the clouds at two hundred miles an hour slammed headfirst into the invisible no-fly barrier, tumbled down like a rock, and crashed straight through the tiled roof of the guardhouse before skidding across the drill ground!
“Watch out!” General Tie Zhan stepped in front of Pei Xuan with his saber drawn.
Sliding to a stop right in front of the stage was a six-foot-long Jade-Paper Messenger Crane folded from spiritual talisman paper, with scorched wing-tips and the red flame crest of the Crimson Cloud Immortal Sect stamped on its chest.
Before the paper crane burned to ash, a cold, arrogant voice boomed out from the talisman:
“Junior Brother Lin! Why have you not returned to the sect with the Iron-Wolf Marquisate’s tribute?! I, Senior Brother Zhao Kuang, along with four Inner-Court Qi Gathering brothers, have already crossed the Red-Sand Border on our flying swords! Have ten thousand Spirit Stones and a feast of mortal delicacies waiting at the gate within one hour—or we will burn this desert ant-hill to the ground!”
Pffft.
The paper crane turned into a little pile of grey ash on the flagstones.
Silence fell over the drill ground.
Abacus Su walked over, looked up at the hole in the guardhouse roof made by the falling paper crane, and immediately started clicking his golden abacus.
“One smashed guardhouse roof tile: two silver taels. Illegal littering of talisman ash on the drill ground: fifty copper coins.” Abacus Su looked up with sparkling eyes behind his spectacles. “My Lord! Five more Rank 4 Qi Gathering Immortals are flying over right now! And our Night School happens to be short five substitute teachers for the morning shift!”
Over by the dish-washing tub, Envoy Lin (#216) suddenly jumped to his feet in pure panic—not because he wanted to be rescued, but because Senior Brother Zhao Kuang was the biggest bully in the sect who always stole his Spirit Stones!
“City Lord Pei! Don’t let Senior Brother Zhao take me back to the sect!” Envoy Lin cried out, hugging his dish-washing tub tightly. “Back at the Crimson Cloud Sect, Senior Brother Zhao beats me every week and only feeds me cold cabbage! Here in Dry-Well City, I get spicy beef noodles and fried locusts! If he comes over the wall tonight, hit him with the big iron brick twice as hard as you hit me!”
Pei Xuan laughed out loud, tossing a heavy black-iron brick from the construction cart up and down in his palm.
“Don’t worry, Prisoner #216,” Pei Xuan grinned as he looked up toward the starry eastern sky. “Dry-Well City never lets an honest dish-washer get kidnapped by bullies. Come on, boys—let’s go welcome our five new Night School substitute teachers!”