One month later, the Pill-Fire Sector (Systems 21 through 30) was completely unrecognizable.
Every single one of the ten scorching suns in the sector now wore a gleaming brass-and-iron Solar Thermostat & Rotary Pill-Bakery Ring, keeping the weather on all eighty inhabited worlds at a breezy, flower-blooming 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
Down on the planets below, the intimidating white-jade towers of the old Nine-Sun Alchemy Alliance had all had their golden sun-signs taken down. In their place hung bright green-and-white signboards bearing a red cross and a steaming soup bowl:
[ DRY-WELL PUBLIC HOSPITAL & MUNICIPAL SOUP KITCHEN BUREAU ]
Inside the central courtyard of Hospital Branch #1 in Red-Mortar Town, Old Lin—who had needed a wooden crutch just a month ago—was now wearing a clean white volunteer orderly’s vest and jogging effortlessly across the cobblestones while carrying four hundred-pound crates of Golden-Crust Healing Pills on one shoulder!
Behind him trotted a scruffy yellow stray village dog that the neighborhood kids called Little Bark. Because Little Bark had spent the last thirty days eating leftover Rank 6 Braised-Beef Pill Crumbs and licking empty Void-Whale Marrow soup bowls outside the hospital kitchen, the stray dog’s fur now gleamed like bronze wire, and its aura pulsed at a solid Rank 4 Early Qi Gathering (Iron-Anvil Body)!
