Two hours before dawn, the sky over the Central Continent border was still dark blue and biting cold. Up on the jagged granite ridges of the Joyous-Gold Sect’s western border mines and the Azure-Sword Sect’s outer iron valleys, icy mountain mist soaked through the thin gray clothes of tens of thousands of Outer Disciples.
Down on the newly paved white flagstones of the Ten-Mile Border Job Fair Plaza, however, it felt like a warm spring festival.
Five hundred sturdy army cooks in clean white aprons stood at attention in front of the central dining pavilions. At the head of the line stood Old Guo, holding his favorite heavy iron ladle like a general’s sword. Beside him stood Boom-Pot Sun with a wrench in his belt, and right behind them stood Elder Dan in his yellow Debtor #201 vest, carrying two huge wooden buckets of golden desert honey and crushed red cumin seeds.
Pei Xuan walked down the steps of the eastern gate tower wrapped in a comfortable fox-fur cloak, with Hong Ling trotting beside him holding an oil-paper lantern and her account book.
“My Lord,” Old Guo boomed, his round belly jiggling as he saluted with his ladle. “One thousand fat Rank 3 Red-Horn Spirit Oxen have been cleaned, marinated in Sweet-Spring salt water overnight, and stuffed with Meat-Belly Giant Potatoes and garlic! Five hundred bamboo steamers the size of millstones are stacked and loaded with two million cabbage-and-pork buns! The only problem is, if we roast a thousand whole…
