Morning sunlight poured over the original mud courtyard of Dry-Well Village, which now sat right in the heart of the gleaming capital metropolis of Dry-Well City. Even though ten-lane black-stone highways and high-speed Spirit-Train tracks encircled the outer districts, Pei Xuan had kept the first thirty-five mud huts and the stone-rimmed Sweet-Spring Well untouched as the core of his territory.
Around the rim of the well stood the heavy hitters of the Dry-Well Empire.
There was veteran commander Old Wei with his heavy black-iron broadsword, seventeen-year-old Hong Ling carrying her twin golden abacuses and kitchen cleavers, fat Old Guo holding an iron soup ladle, General Tie Zhan munching on a fist-sized spiced pork bun, and Abacus Su pushing his brass spectacles up his nose while clutching three thick tax ledgers. Behind them stood Sword Genius Ye Guhan, Alchemist Boom-Pot Sun, White-Tiger Warlord Hu Ba, Nine-Tailed Fox Matriarch Su Meiniang, Kraken Sea-King Mo Ba in his white chef hat, and thirty-foot-tall Frost-Giant King Gu Shan, who had to sit cross-legged on the courtyard flagstones just so his head wouldn’t bump the roof tiles.
In the middle of them all, Old Well Dragon Ao Ming—now a Rank 7 Early True Flood-Dragon in human form wearing a blue silk robe with a golden “Chief Plumber” badge pinned to his chest—was shivering so hard his dragon whiskers rattled.
