Elder Wu DeZheng’s knees struck the damp brick floor with a wet, boneless slap.
His glasses hung precariously from his left ear, smeared with greasy coal dust. His mouth was open in a silent, horrified oval as he stared at the molten hole in the cast-iron anvil, his throat working like a dying bellows before any sound could escape.
“T-Treason,” Wu finally squeaked, his voice cracking into an octave usually reserved for slaughtered poultry. “High treason against the Imperial Ministry of Patents! Demonic contraband! Unlicensed destructive payloads!”
The old clerk scrambled forward on all fours, clawing at Lin Ke’s hemp trouser cuff.
“Lin Ke! Colin! Whatever old family ghost possessed you in the fire! Do you know what the Patent Trial does to unlicensed magic charm forgers? They don’t just execute you! They extract your soul core, seal it inside an iron lantern, and hang you over the country sulfur vents for three hundred years to power the town streetlights!”
Wu looked around the cellar, hyperventilating as he pointed at the neat stacks of buff-colored pine paper drying on the frame stand tables.
“Five hundred sheets! If Scholarch Bao’s hound-court guards sniff this room, they will smell the alum! They have bloodhounds trained on the scent of unbonded spirit ink! We’re going to be audited into non-existence! My pension! Thirty-two years of clean office stamps... Burned up!”
