Under the shade of the sunflower-patterned patio umbrella on Floor Eight, Gu Changsheng picked up a white porcelain teapot from the redwood tea table.
Inside the pot, freshly brewed Frost-Pine jasmine dragon pearls unfurled in steaming crystal-clear mountain spring water. This sent a delicate, floral fragrance drifting across the coliseum that completely overpowered the sour stench of the Omni-Protagonist Amalgamation Monster.
With unhurried, steady grace, Gu Changsheng poured a cup of steaming jasmine tea for Empress Luo Qingxue, then filled his own porcelain teacup to eighty percent capacity.
“The tea is at eighty-five degrees right now,” Gu Changsheng said, setting the teapot down on its bamboo coaster and reaching into his blue kitchen apron to pull out a round, mechanical brass [Kitchen Egg Timer] shaped like a plump white hen. “It takes exactly one minute for this jasmine tea to cool down to the perfect drinking temperature.”
With a crisp twist of his thumb and forefinger, Gu Changsheng turned the upper half of the brass hen sixty ticks to the right. Set it down on the corner of the redwood tea table.
*TICK... TICK... TICK...
TICK...*
Every tick of that ordinary kitchen egg timer echoed through the five-hundred-mile coliseum like the gavel of a supreme cosmic court!
