Outside the towering blue arches of Frost-Mirror Planetary Cold-Storage Warehouse #1, fifty heavy black-iron freight trains were parked side-by-side on the marshaling tracks.
Inside Tunnel #1, newly promoted Chief Cold-Storage Manager Han Jue was trotting briskly down the loading dock in his bright yellow vest, holding a brass megaphone of his own while directing his thirteen former sect elders and three thousand red-long-john disciples.
“Careful with Crate #8,802, Elder Bing He!” Han Jue barked, puffing a delicate cloud of minus-sixty-degree frost over a pallet of freshly sliced Warm-Spring butter-fish. “Those are sashimi-grade belly fillets! If the edge warms up by half a degree while you load it onto the flatcar, the fat won’t melt properly on the tongue! Do you want Old Guo to take away our midnight ginger-soup ration?!”
“Don’t worry, Manager Han! My Frost Qi is locked at minus sixty-two point five degrees!” Elder Bing He saluted with both hands and slid the crate onto the conveyor belt.
Standing on the observation platform above the loading dock, General Tie Zhan scratched his shaved head in amazement.
“Young Master,” Tie Zhan chuckled, elbowing Old Wei. “Four hours ago, that old goat was screaming about crushing us with a ten-thousand-foot ice giant. Now he’s inspecting fish fillets harder than Hong Ling counts copper coins!”
