When Old Wei and General Tie Zhan hauled the four-foot cast-iron cauldron back up to the surface of the square, Old Guo nearly dropped his wooden soup ladle in shock.
“What happened to my pot?!” Old Guo gasped, leaning over the rim of the cauldron and seeing his own fat, smiling reflection shining back from the bottom of the iron. “Fifty years of black stove-grease on the bottom is completely gone! Did the Young Master hire twenty blacksmiths down there to polish my cauldron with emery sand?!”
“Read the note!” Abacus Su snatched the waterproof oil-paper note tied to the winch hook and read it aloud under a glow-stone lamp:
“The well problem is solved. Our new Chief Underground Water & Heating Totem has signed a long-term employment contract. Immediately bring fifty cartloads of rough red copper ore from our trade warehouse, two hundred iron drainage pipes, and three hundred stone floor slabs to the well rim. Also, tell One-Eyed Jack to assemble all mason crews—we are installing town-wide underfloor central heating tonight!”
“Town-wide underfloor central heating?!”
Abacus Su’s spectacles almost slid off the tip of his nose. Even in the Royal Capital of the Great Yan Kingdom, only the Emperor’s winter palace had hollow brick flues under the floor that burned thousands of pounds of smokeless silver-charcoal every night! How could they heat fifteen thousand people’s homes, barns, and workshops in the middle of the Red-Sand Wastes without burning down a forest?!
“Don’t ask questions, just move!” General Tie Zhan boomed, waving his massive arm. “When has the Young Master ever said something he couldn’t do?! Shadow-One! Bring your four assassin brothers and the twelve Scorpion Dump Trucks over to the metal warehouse on the double!”
“Yes, General Tie!”
The five Rank 3 Peak Shadow-Bat assassins—who had just finished delivering coal sacks to the widows’ street and were happily slurping hot ginger-mutton soup—tucked their bowls into their belts and sprinted toward the warehouse like bursts of black wind.
Within twenty minutes, twelve Giant Armored Scorpion Dump Trucks rumbled into the central square, their flat wooden beds piled high with unrefined red copper ingots, cast-iron pipes looted from Salt-Pool Town and Green-Willow Oasis, and stacks of porous Cool-Breeze stone slabs.
Pei Xuan climbed back up to the surface in the searchlight basket to oversee the main fusion himself.
Rather than lowering raw heavy materials down the shaft piece by piece, Pei Xuan stood beside the Sweet-Spring Well, opened his RTS Territory Building Map, and activated the 3-Slot Fusion Cube linked directly to the town’s underground grid!
Yes! Fuse!
Pei Xuan pressed his palm against the stone rim of the Sweet-Spring Well.
A deep, golden wave of Territory Fusion light surged out from the piles of copper and iron in the square, diving straight down the well shaft and branching out through the earth beneath every single street, stone house, barn, bathhouse, and prisoner dormitory in Dry-Well Town!
Down in the twelve-hundred-foot cavern, Ao Ming watched in amazement as ten thousand pounds of molten red copper flowed down the rock walls like liquid fire and solidified right beneath his belly into a giant, sixty-foot-wide [Coiled Red-Copper Dragon Bed] lined with smooth heat-conducting grooves!
Directly above Ao Ming’s snout, a huge bell-shaped Brass Dragon-Fire Funnel grew out of the cavern roof, connected to twelve thick main trunk-pipes of Insulated Red-Copper that spiraled up the sides of the well shaft to the surface.
Down in the cavern, Ao Ming slithered eagerly onto the giant red-copper bed coil. The smooth, warm metal fit the curve of his two-hundred-foot silver body like a custom-tailored mattress!
“Oooooh, this copper bed is ten times better than lying on wet ice!” Ao Ming purred, rubbing his chin against the warm brass rim. Looking up at the giant bell-shaped brass funnel hanging three feet in front of his nose, he remembered his contract Duties. “All right, time to test the pipes! Three breaths after dinner—here comes breath number one!”
Ao Ming took a deep breath into his huge silver chest and blew a steady, golden-red stream of Pure Yang Dragon-Fire straight up into the brass funnel!
WHOOOOOOOSH—HUMMMMMM!
The golden-red dragon fire didn’t burn the fused red copper—instead, it turned into a circulating current of pure, pressurized thermal Qi that raced up the twelve main trunk-pipes at a hundred miles an hour!
Up on the surface, One-Eyed Jack and his three hundred former-bandit masons didn’t even need to dig trenches. As the golden fusion light swept beneath the streets, the sub-floor channels under every [Cool-Breeze Stone House] automatically snapped together with the main street pipes, while neat brass thermostat dials popped out of the interior stone walls next to every doorway!
In East-Side Widow’s Alley, seventy-year-old Grandma Zhang was sitting on her brick bed wrapped in two quilts, holding a small brass hand-warmer while listening to the minus-forty black wind howl outside her window.
Suddenly—CLICK-HSSSSS!
A gentle, soothing warmth began rising right up through the gray stone floor slabs of her house!
Within three minutes, the icy chill in the room vanished completely. Grandma Zhang reached down with her wrinkled hand and touched the stone floor—it felt as warm and smooth as a sun-baked river rock in the middle of June!
“Huh? Why am I sweating under two quilts?” Grandma Zhang blinked, throwing off her heavy blankets and walking barefoot across the stone floor to look at the shiny new brass dial on her wall, which had neat little numbers painted on it:
[ Dry-Well Municipal Heating — Current Setting: Level 3 (75°F / 24°C) — Cost: FREE ]
“Heavens above! Even the floor is hot!” Grandma Zhang threw open her inner door and saw her neighbors all poking their heads out into the hallway in their thin cotton shirts, laughing and stomping their bare feet on the warm stone tiles!
Across the street from Grandma Zhang’s house, inside the newly built [South-Side Camel & Scorpion Barn], Batu and his nomad animal handlers were witnessing an equally hilarious sight.
Before the heating pipes turned on, the sixty Golden-Hump Camels and the twelve Giant Armored Scorpion Kings had been huddled together in a shivering pile of legs and pincers, refusing to move an inch from the hay bales. Even Pei Xuan’s lazy pet camel, Old Yellow, had wrapped three wool blankets around his bald neck and was sneezing globs of frozen golden phlegm onto the barn wall.
The moment the sub-floor red-copper pipes began humming with Ao Ming’s dragon heat, however, the stone barn floor warmed up to a cozy eighty degrees!
All twelve twelve-foot-long Armored Scorpion Kings let out happy clicking sounds, stretched their giant iron-hard pincers wide, and flattened their bellies completely pancake-style against the warm stone floor tiles to soak up the heat!
Old Yellow kicked off his three blankets, trotted over to the warmest spot right above the main pipe junction, and flopped down on top of the Lead Scorpion King’s warm armored back like a giant golden cushion!
“Look at Old Yellow!” Batu laughed, wiping the sweat from his forehead and unbuttoning his leather vest. “In normal winters on the desert steppes, a frost storm like this kills thirty percent of a tribe’s calves and lambs on the first night. Inside the Young Master’s barns, the scorpions and camels are sunbathing at midnight! Tomorrow morning when the cows and sheep wake up this warm, milk production is going to double!”
Down at the bottom of the Sweet-Spring Well, Ao Ming could feel the appreciative warmth and happiness of fifteen thousand humans and thousands of farm beasts flowing faintly back down the Territory Grid into his red-copper bed.
“Huh? Why does my scales feel even lighter after blowing those three breaths?” Ao Ming muttered to himself in pleasant surprise, curling his tail around the warm brass funnel. “Could it be that registering on this kid’s red paper contract lets me share a sliver of his town’s Merit Qi?! No wonder my chain wounds stopped itching! Wait—let me blow one more free bonus puff into the pipe so the kitchen stays warm for the cooks making my breakfast!”
WHOOOOSH!
Another gentle stream of golden Yang-fire flowed up into the main kitchen shed, turning Old Guo’s dough-rising room into a warm paradise where five hundred trays of white steamed-bun dough puffed up twice as big and fluffy as usual!
Over at the west duck barn, an even funnier scene was playing out.
Inside the stone barn, two hundred fat [Rank 2 Jet-Powered Iron-Belly Ducks] were huddled together in a corner, while Ye Guhan sat cross-legged on a hay bale in the center of the floor with his eyes closed.
True to his word, the proud Rank 5 Foundation Sword Genius was carefully circulating a thin thread of his Yang-Edge Sword Qi around the barn to keep the freezing draft from giving the ducks frostbite—because if the ducks got frostbite, Old Guo wouldn’t be able to make crispy roast duck or golden spirit-egg noodles tomorrow!
Suddenly, the stone floor slabs beneath the hay bales began to hum with rich, toasty warmth.
Hsssss-hmmmm!
Within two minutes, the inside of the duck barn warmed up to a tropical seventy-eight degrees!
The two hundred Iron-Belly Ducks stopped shivering, stretched out their wings, and began waddling happily around the warm stone floor with contented quack-quack noises, several of them immediately plopping down to lay warm golden-yolk eggs right in the straw!
On top of the hay bale, Ye Guhan opened his eyes in shock.
He looked down at his own hands, then pressed his palm against the warm stone floor between two fat ducks.
“What is this?!” Ye Guhan whispered, his eyes widening as his Rank 5 spiritual sense scanned the copper pipe humming three inches beneath the stone slab. “This isn’t ordinary charcoal heat! Inside this copper pipe flows the pure, domineering Yang-fire of an ancient Flood Dragon bloodline! How could a tiny desert town have a Flood Dragon breathing fire under its duck barn?!”
Right above Ye Guhan’s head, his tooltip flickered furiously:
(Little did Ye Guhan know, his guest room had heated floors too—he just hadn’t gone back to check yet!)
Meanwhile, over at the [Debtor Prison Dormitory] on the north side of town, the five Rank 3 Peak Shadow-Bat assassins walked into their stone barracks stamping black snow off their boots and preparing to shiver through a miserable night.
Instead, the moment Shadow-One pushed open the heavy wooden dormitory door, a wave of warm, dry seventy-five-degree air washed over their faces!
Not only was the entire stone floor radiating gentle dragon-heat, but along the back wall, One-Eyed Jack’s masons had just finished hooking up a row of [Copper-Pipe Heated Towel Racks] and a steaming hot-water wash-trough fed directly from the warmed Sweet-Spring Well!
Shadow-Two—a scarred killer who had spent twenty years sleeping in cold damp caves back in the Shadow-Bat Sect’s mountain headquarters—slowly pulled off his frozen boots and stepped onto the warm stone floor in his socks.
For ten seconds, none of the five Rank 3 assassins said a word.
Then Shadow-Two sank down flat on his stomach, pressed his scarred cheek against the warm stone floor tiles, and hugged a warm copper radiator pipe on the wall with both arms.
“Boss...” Shadow-Two mumbled to Shadow-One with tears in his eyes. “Back at the Shadow-Bat Sect headquarters, even the Sect Master’s cave drips icy water in winter, and he makes us pay fifty silver a month for damp firewood! Here, we are prisoners in yellow vests, and Lord Pei gives us heated floors, hot spring wash-water, and unlimited mutton soup! How many highway bricks do we have left on our fine?”
“After hauling those coal sacks tonight, Abacus Su said we only owe twelve more days of road-rolling,” Shadow-One said, sitting down on the warm floor and letting out a long sigh as his stiff martial meridians loosened up.
“Only twelve days?!” Shadow-Three panicked and sat bolt upright. “Boss! Does that mean in twelve days Abacus Su is going to kick us out into the minus-forty snowstorm?! Quick, somebody go outside and chip a small corner off a garden wall so they extend our sentence until spring!”
“Idiot, don’t break Lord Pei’s wall!” Shadow-One smacked the back of Shadow-Three’s head. “Tomorrow morning I’m going straight to Abacus Su to ask if we can transfer from the Debtor Crew to the Permanent Municipal Night-Watch Guard! Look at General Tie’s guards—they get heated stone houses AND two meat buns every shift!”
Standing in his warm study at the Town Hall—where he had already taken off his heavy fur cloak and was wearing a light cotton tunic while sipping hot sweet-spring tea—Pei Xuan looked at the midnight settlement screen and smiled.
Just those five Shadow-Bat assassins crossing 60 Loyalty because of the heated prison floor had added a clean +5,000 LP/day to his income, plus Ao Ming’s +1,000 LP/day!
“Young Master,” Hong Ling walked in carrying a plate of sliced chilled watermelon from the ice-cellar, her cheeks pink and cozy from the warm room. “Since all the houses and barns are warm now, what are we going to do tomorrow? The black snow outside is already two feet deep, and none of the farmers can work in the open fields for the next thirty days!”
Pei Xuan picked up a slice of sweet red watermelon, walked over to the window, and looked out at the pitch-black blizzard howling over the snow-covered fields outside the wall.
“Who says farmers can’t grow crops in the middle of a minus-forty winter?” Pei Xuan grinned, tapping the windowpane with one finger. “Tomorrow morning, we are going to turn fifty acres of desert sand into glass—and build Dry-Well Town’s first Dragon-Heated Winter Greenhouses and Hot-Pot Street!”