Up on the wide, starlit roof terrace of Dry-Well Palace, a twenty-foot-wide fused brass hotpot cauldron bubbled merrily over a ring of golden dragon-fire.
The giant cauldron was divided into nine swirling flavor compartments: fiery red dragon-chili oil in the center, rich white spirit-turtle bone broth on the left, sour pickled-cabbage soup on the right, sweet herbal mushroom stock in the north, and five more bubbling broths that sent a mouth-watering cloud of steam drifting higher than the palace eaves.
Around the giant hotpot table sat the entire core team that had built the Dry-Well Civic Empire from thirty-five broken mud huts in the desert into the undisputed ruler of the Central Continent.
Old Guo stood at the head of the table wearing his cleanest white chef’s hat, wielding a pair of three-foot bamboo chopsticks to drop platters of paper-thin Rank 5 Spirit-Ox Tripe, Snow-Lotus Meatballs, and Braised Dragon-Marrow Tofu into the boiling compartments.
“Eat up! Eat up while the broth is rolling!” Old Guo beamed, his round face shining red in the steam. “Tonight’s soup base was simmered for twelve hours using water from our original Sweet-Spring Well and three drops of Big Brother Ao Ming’s dragon-saliva essence! Even if you eat until your belt pops, it’ll only wash your meridians cleaner!”
