The cold iron sheet burned Lin Ke’s fingertips like frozen grease.
Vermilion sealing wax, still tacky from the royal fire bowl, clung to the edge of the bronze metal pen. The smell was distinctive. Hardened red stone mixed with bone glue and dried sheep bile, the clear chemical cocktail of official dynastic coercion.
Behind his breastbone, Lin Ke’s solid-state spiritual vessel clicked.
A sharp spike of high-pressure tension flared through his left outward spirit vein, the glassy glass waveguide conducting the sudden surge of fight-or-flight rush with zero dampening. The sensation was not panic. It was the familiar, nauseating fight-or-flight rush of a Sev-1 production incident hitting his phone at three in the morning.
Elder Wu DeZheng looked as though he had been hit in the solar nerve web with an ungreased iron billet.
“Cease... And desist?” Wu squeaked, the paper in his hands fluttering like dry birch leaves in an autumn gale. “Injunction? On what grounds? Our spirit iron is dug from our own mountain! Our smelting wards have held royal charter since the Third Dynasty!”
“Your charter covers raw ore extraction, Elder Wu,” Zhao Wuji said. He stepped off the raised dais with leisurely grace.
The merchant-scion’s stitched boots made no sound against the polished granite flat stone slabs. He stopped two paces away, folding his hands into his voluminous silk sleeves. A delicate jade pendant depicting the scales of the Grand Fortune Clan swayed at his waist.
