Bright and early the next morning, a grand announcement flashed simultaneously across every town noticeboard, jade slip, and train station screen on the 100-Galaxy Public Wi-Fi & Navigation Grid:
[DRY-WELL MUNICIPAL NOTICE #839: THE FREE GALACTIC SCHOOL LUNCH & MARTIAL-IMMORTAL PROGRAM!] Starting today at noon, every public school, factory canteen, and refugee settlement across all 100 Galaxies will be upgraded with fused Enlightenment Dining Halls! All meals are 100% free of charge. Any student, farmer, or worker who finishes every grain on their plate will receive an automatic Furnace-Blood Meridian Wash directly from their dining table!
Inside the central courtyard of Eastern Refugee Resettlement Town #1 in Galaxy #100, ten thousand newly built red-brick schoolhouses and public dining halls gleamed under the warm golden sunshine of the local white-dwarf stove-sun.
Standing outside the main gate of Primary & Martial School #1 was the scarred former Ash-Star vanguard general, Tie Bao (now Rank 9 Early after eating yesterday’s Cosmic Shrimp-Crackers), holding the tiny hand of his seven-year-old daughter, Tie Xiaomei.
Around them stood millions of eastern refugee parents—blacksmiths, farmers, weavers, and crippled veterans—all dressed in clean new cotton clothes provided by the municipality, yet still looking nervously at the shiny red-brick school gates.
