The brass whistle on the front of the Spirit-Furnace Star-Train let out a long, cheerful toot that echoed down the smooth stone pavement of the wormhole highway.
Inside the lead command car, Pei Xuan sat at a square wooden table, peeling a hot roasted sweet potato while looking out the thick crystal window. Across from him, Old Yellow the Golden Dragon-Camel had his chin resting on the windowsill, lazily chewing on a mouthful of leftover star-iron ore like it was crunchy peanut brittle.
Behind the engine car, fifty heavy flatbeds loaded with red bricks, iron water pipes, and sacks of seed potatoes rumbled along the glowing sword-carved tracks. Up on the roof of the third car, Ye Guhan stood with his arms crossed, wearing his bright yellow construction hard-hat over his snow-white sword robes. Every time a stray space rock drifted within a hundred yards of the train, Ye Guhan flicked his wrist and sliced the boulder into eight flat, regulation-sized paving slabs before it could even scratch the paint.
“Young Master,” Old Wei said, stepping into the cabin with a fresh pot of hot green tea in his single muscular hand. “We just passed the last mile-marker of Service Area Number One. Young Master Crag-Horn and General Iron-Fang finished scrubbing the men’s bathhouse tiles twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Tie Zhan gave them each half a salted duck leg, and Crag-Horn cried so hard he asked if he could sign up for the night-shift mop crew too.”
