Ten minutes later, Pei Xuan’s municipal flagship warped into the center of the three-galaxy junction between Galaxies #98, #99, and #100.
Directly ahead of the bow floated the Cloud-Cradle Nebula—a swirling, ten-light-year-wide expanse of glowing purple, crimson, and golden star-gas. Nestled right underneath the bottom of the nebula were three cold white-dwarf stars that Pei Xuan’s engineering crews had already fitted with brass Thermostat Dials and connected to the Central Heating Pipe Grid.
Inside the brass heating pipes, a long, golden silhouette the size of a solar system was lazily doing backstrokes through the warm spirit water.
As soon as Pei Xuan stepped out onto the deck, a massive golden dragon head popped out of a brass pipe valve beside the ship. Ao Ming, the ancient Flood Dragon who had once lived at the bottom of Dry-Well Village’s mud well, shook the warm water droplets off his whiskers and sniffed the air eagerly.
“Little Pei! I smelled roasted beef-grain from three galaxies away!” Ao Ming rumbled, his voice vibrating like benevolent thunder as his green bar shone above his horns: [Loyalty: 96/100 — Life in the brass heating pipes is heaven; hoping for a snack before his afternoon nap]. “Did Old Guo bring me a bucket of those new buttered steak-rolls?”
