By noon on Wednesday, the third pillar of the 1,000-Sun Astral Protagonist Academy—the notorious Golden-Finger Maintenance & Ring-Grandpa Assembly Line—had ceased to exist.
In its place, stretching across three lush, terraformed garden moons orbiting directly above Dormitory #404, rose a sprawling, sun-drenched paradise of cedar pavilions, bubbling hot-spring pools, shaded bamboo groves. Ten thousand white-jade Go and Chinese Chess tables:
[THE GU FAMILY EVERGREEN SENIOR FACULTY RETIREMENT PARK & GRANDMASTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE]
[HONORARY CHANCELLOR: GU CHANGSHENG | UNION PRESIDENT: PILL-SAINT YAO CHEN | SENIOR DEAN: PILL-SAINT YAO GU]
On Moon #1 (The Nine-Cauldron Culinary & Alchemy Moon), all 18,000 liberated Ring-Grandpas. Ten thousand from the basement dungeon plus eight thousand who had just defected from across four hundred solar systems. Were gathered around two thousand outdoor banquet tables for their grand Welcome Home & Union Inauguration Feast!
Some grandpas were sitting inside their gleaming eight-foot Jade-Turtle Battle-Mechs with the chest-hatches open so they could enjoy the sun while the heated lumbar rollers massaged their backs. Others had parked their mechs neatly in the charging bays and were soaking their spiritual feet in Auntie Qin’s Soul-Nourishing Herbal Hot Springs.
Meanwhile, Polite, reformed students from Ye Xiao’s Consumer Rights School and Empress Luo Qingxue’s Women’s College respectfully poured them cups of hot jasmine tea!
