Two thousand feet beneath the snow-dusted granite cliffs of Supreme Sword Mountain, the earth didn’t know how to keep a secret from a father in a hurry.
Inside the warm, brass-paneled cabin of the [Silent Family Subway Drill], the only sound was the gentle. Rhythmic hum of the [Rank 5 Earth-Melting Spiral Bit] turning solid mountain bedrock into fine, warm gravel behind the rear exhaust chutes.
Gu Changsheng sat in the padded leather pilot’s chair with one hand resting lightly on the brass throttle lever and the other keeping the five-tiered [Spatial Thermal Bamboo Lunchbox] upright between his knees. Across the curved quartz windshield, a pale blue topographical grid from [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] overlaid the dark stone strata ahead. Marking every underground water table, spirit-quartz seam, and sect alarm line in crisp glowing ink.
“Depth: two thousand one hundred feet,” eleven-year-old Ye Xiao reported from the co-pilot’s bench on the right.
The boy had his [Clear-Sky Scholarly Glasses] pushed snugly up the bridge of his nose and a flat black slate resting across his knees. With his [Homework-First Bamboo Ruler Sword] laid across the dashboard as a straightedge, Ye Xiao was calculating underground acoustic reflection angles in real time.
“Daddy, Sect Master Jian Jue buried seventy-two Rank 5 Sword-Detection Bells in a ring around the upper thousand feet of the mountain,” Ye Xiao said. Tapping three glowing red triangles on his slate with a piece of white chalk. “They are tuned to detect high-frequency sword qi, explosive talismans, and standard…
