CLANK-CLANK-LOCK!
As the five one-way spice airlocks along the top of the 250-Foot Super Pressure-Cooker Tunnel snapped shut, Pei Xuan gripped the big red iron wheel of the main thermal valve and gave it three full turns to the left.
“Ao Ming! Give us twenty minutes of high-pressure Dragon Fire!” Pei Xuan called out into the brass speaking-tube connected to the underground thermal pipeline.
Fifty miles north, deep beneath Dry-Well City’s original spirit well, the ancient Flood Dragon Ao Ming had just finished eating ten whole roasted spicy sheep brushed with cumin and honey. Hearing Pei Xuan’s voice come down the pipe, the old dragon happily licked the lamb grease off his whiskers, took a deep breath, and blew a roaring stream of pure, golden-red True Dragon Fire straight down the insulated underground rune-pipe!
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH—RUMBLE!
Beneath the 250-foot black-gold iron tunnel in the middle of the Poison Swamp, the hundred heating coils instantly turned blinding golden-red!
Inside the sealed cylinder, thirty barrels of thirty-year-old Shanxi black vinegar, thirty barrels of Shaoxing cooking wine, one hundred barrels of Sweet-Spring Spirit Water, and two tons of ginger, star anise, cinnamon, rock sugar, wolfberries, and hawthorn powder flashed into super-heated, high-pressure Dragon-Fire Medicinal Steam!
