The paper didn’t burn like regular wood pulp.
Lin Ke held the corner of the summons over the draft torch. Then, the black ink hissed, leaking a greasy red vapor that smelled of red stone and animal marrow.
“Don’t do that,” Shen Yue whispered. Her small fingers grabbed three unfinished magic charm strips to her chest. “Royal paper has tracking threads woven into the rag. If you burn it, the ashes point back to your room.”
Lin Ke set the notice down on the wooden workbench.
The parchment bore a massive black royal stamp at the top: Notice #404 — Unauthorized Divergence of Patented Yang-Breath flow.
Beneath the stamp ran thirty lines of dense, gold-lacquered script. The Seventh Smelting Ward was formally accused of infringing upon Dynastic Patent No. 1,029: The Ancestral Yan Flame-Channeling Circuit, registered eight hundred and ninety years ago during the reign of the Third Solar Sovereign.
All kilns, bellows, and crucibles were ordered locked under cold iron seals. Any further fire ignited in the Seventh Ward would be treated as an act of armed rebellion against the Great Yan Throne.
“They want the cooling loops,” Shen Yue said, her ink-stained sleeves trembling slightly. “The merchants told them our metal doesn’t warp because the kilns don’t spike in heat. That’s what they want to seize.”
