The golden recycling core inside Pei Xuan’s dantian hummed like a well-oiled watermill. Fifty miniature galaxies spun smoothly around his inner center, pumping warm, boundless Mid-Galactic Realm energy through his limbs.
Standing on the observation deck of Galactic Sewage & Qi-Recycling Plant #1, Pei Xuan took a slow sip of hot wolfberry tea from his chipped clay mug. Down below, the supermassive black hole once feared as the Eye of Oblivion was wearing a giant cast-iron funnel over its head. Every second, ten thousand Void Whales in bright orange safety caps swam up to the rim, opened their solar-system-sized mouths, and dumped mountains of space garbage down the drain.
At the other end of the brass exhaust pipe, crystal-clear liquid Spirit Qi gushed into public storage tanks, while neat, heavy stacks of Black-Hole Compressed Road Bricks slid down a conveyor belt with a steady clank, clank, clank.
“Not a single drop wasted,” Pei Xuan said with a satisfied nod. He pulled up his translucent blue RTS Territory Screen to check the morning numbers.
Before Pei Xuan could click on the flashing red bottleneck warning, the heavy iron doors of the observation deck banged open.
“Young Master! We have an emergency! A terrible, money-losing emergency!”
