The crimson wax seal on the scroll bore the imprint of an unsheathed broadsword over an open ledger.
It was the emblem of the Outer Court Punishment and Audit Checker office. The dreaded tripartite trial that held the power to strip ranks, seize clan estates, and consign disgraced students to the underground penal shafts.
Elder Wu grabbed Lin Ke’s canvas tunic with trembling, sweat-slick hands. He pulled him into the shadow of the gatehouse watch-post.
“Ninety-six hours!” Wu whimpered, his double chin quivering wildly. “Four days, Lin Ke! Look at the writ! It was petitioned by Young Master Zhao Wuji himself. It was backed by three signed names from the Logistics Council! They’re alleging ‘Gross Material Irregularities, Unlicensed Metallurgical Hoarding, and Illicit Cartel Subversion’!”
Lin Ke took the crimson scroll from Wu’s hand and unrolled it with steady fingers.
The ink was fresh, sharp, and bordered with official vermilion seals:
“Zhao Wuji realized we didn’t buy his flux,” Lin Ke noted coldly. “And he knows we poured refined blooms without his coal. He couldn’t seize the shipment at the North Gate. So he’s using rule-book enforcement to seize the whole ward.”
“My pension!” Wu squealed, tugging at his thin grey beard. “If they find even twenty pounds of unbonded metal in Crucible Four’s bins, they’ll declare this a secret illicit foundry! They’ll strip my elder rank! I have four years left, Lin Ke! Four years and one miserable month until full retirement!”
Lin Ke held the scroll in his right hand, his left hand tucked deep inside his hemp sleeve.
Ninety-six hours. Four days.
He didn’t panic. He opened a sandbox.
Tianfu. Branch.
In the grey mental space, Lin Ke ran the conventional survival options.
Option One: Smuggle the leftover unbonded iron out of the ward and hide it in the abandoned quarry pits.
In test model, Chai Gang brought two three-tailed spirit hounds trained to detect iron and sulfur deep ring. The hounds located the buried metal bars within three hours.
Result: caught in possession of contraband off-site. Elder Wu stripped of rank, Lin Ke carried out for grand larceny.
Option Two: Flight. Abandon the Seventh Ward, flee into the Cloud Mist Market, and live as an unlisted rogue fighter.
In test model, the sect issued an Apostate Extermination Token. With his hardened skeleton, raw glass spirit veins, and zero background, Lin Ke was hunted down by outer court guards within twelve days.
Never concede production public works to a clerk, Lin Ke analyzed coldly. You don’t hide data from a clerk. You make the data comply with policy—and you ensure the clerk lacks the legal or physical power to enforce a breach.
To win this, Lin Ke needed three conditions:
First: He needed to delay the audit team from setting foot inside the smelting ward until the very last second of their ninety-six-hour window.
Second: When Chai Gang arrived to enforce the seizure by violence, Lin Ke had to possess the physical health to survive Chai Gang’s iron heavy club without breaking a single bone.
Third: He needed to convert the unbonded iron from contraband into an official, approved surplus before the audit gavel fell, legally buying an Independent Smelting Patent under sect bylaws.
And to survive Chai Gang’s heavy club in four days...
He had to execute the full-body core commit.
The four-day fever Apothecary He had warned about. The four days of bone dissolving, melted rock waste purging, and iron chelation.
The timeline lined up with total, terrifying care.
Four days of quarantine. Four days of body rebuilding.
Lin Ke cut the mental branch.
He slipped his hand into his pocket, pricking his thumb pad against the iron metal pen.
“Branch checked: main.”
He looked up at the trembling Elder Wu.
“Elder Wu. Take out your official office brush.”
Wu blinked through his sweat. “My... My brush? What good is a brush? Chai Gang is bringing iron cudgels!”
“The heavy club must obey the brush, Elder,” Lin Ke said, his voice flat as an iron slab. “Under Sect Occupational Health and Disaster Mitigation Code, Clause 31, Section 8, what happens if a heavy-duty work-yard suffers a total toxic core breach?”
Wu frowned, his office instincts twitching through the terror. “A... A core breach? If a fire cracks and leaks lethal underground sulfur-foul fog, the head elder must right away declare a forced Class-Four Biosecurity Lockdown.”
“And under Section 9 of that same code,” Lin Ke pressed, “can any outside party—including clerks, inspectors, or punishment students—cross the outer edge during an active Class-Four Biosecurity Lockdown?”
Wu’s eyes suddenly widened until they looked like two boiled quail eggs.
“No...” Wu whispered, a spark of cunning breaking through his panic. “No! Sect law strictly forbids any student or elder from entering an active contaminated zone without three separate air-purification seals signed by the Medical Hall! If a clerk violates a Class-Four Lockdown without medical clearance, they’re personally liable for all outside holding breach penalties!”
“Exactly,” Lin Ke said. He reached into his satchel and pulling out a blank roll of stiff office thick parchment. “We draft Form 44-D: Emergency Pop-up alert of Underground Magma-Miasma Rupture and Preventive Facility Quarantine.”
Lin Ke dipped his reed pen into Wu’s traveling inkpot, his hand moving with terrifying speed:
Lin Ke blew on the wet ink and thrust the parchment into Wu’s hands.
“Sign it, Elder. Affix your full office seal. Post copies at the North Gate, the Logistics Office, and on the outer blast doors of this ward. It legally bars Chai Gang and the audit team from crossing our outer edge until the ninety-sixth hour has expired to the exact second.”
Elder Wu grabbed his heavy bronze seal with both hands and slammed it down onto the parchment with a thrilled squeal.
“Brilliant! Pure office perfection!” Wu gasped, kissing the wet seal on the thick parchment. “This gives us four days! But Lin Ke... What happens at the ninety-sixth hour? The lockdown will expire, the foul fog excuse will be gone, and Chai Gang will march in with his heavy club to seize the books anyway!”
“At the ninety-sixth hour,” Lin Ke said, taking his heavy crate of reagents from his satchel, “I’ll personally welcome Senior Brother Chai at the door.”
Wu looked at Lin Ke, confused. “You? With your brittle arm? He’ll break you in half!”
“Let him try,” Lin Ke said quietly. “Elder Wu, bar the front courtyard gate behind me. Let no one in. If you hear thunder or smell burning iron from Cellar Four over the next four days... Don’t open the blast doors. Don’t send for healers. Simply wait.”
Lin Ke didn’t wait for Wu’s reply.
He turned on his heel and strode down the cobblestone incline toward the underground entrance of Furnace Cellar Four.
Meng Shan and Shen Yue were waiting at the threshold of the deep blast vault.
Meng Shan held his heavy iron-rimmed shovel, his cracked ribs tightly bound beneath leather armor. Shen Yue had her newly refined Iron-Flame Wall Magic charms tucked into her sleeves. Her eyes were dark with anxious resolve.
“Brother Lin,” Meng Shan rumbled as Lin Ke approached. “The outer edge is secured. We heard Wu shouting about the audit.”
“We have ninety-six hours,” Lin Ke said. He set the crate of reagents on the flat stone slabs. “Meng Shan, Shen Yue. You two are my external monitors. For the next four days, you’ll guard this inner blast door. No one enters. Not Chai Gang. Not Elder Wu. Not even if the building shakes.”
Shen Yue stepped forward, her bandaged hands clutched against her chest. “Lin Ke... Are you really going to do it? The whole skeleton?”
“It’s the only path to system balance,” Lin Ke said.
He looked at Shen Yue. “Every twelve hours, pass two vials of cold-spring water and a bowl of clean rice through the watching slot. If my core heat exceeds forty-one degrees, pour shaved ice through the copper intake pipe above the bed. Nothing else.”
“We’ll hold the door,” Meng Shan said, his jaw setting like a granite block. “No one crosses this threshold while I have breath.”
“Thank you, Meng Shan,” Lin Ke nodded.
He picked up the heavy crates of Red ink flux, bone-root resin, and the ancient rib scroll.
He stepped inside the vault of Cellar Four.
He reached out and pulled the massive iron-and-oak blast door shut.
CLANG.
The heavy iron latch dropped into its stone socket with the finality of a dropping guillotine blade.
Lin Ke slid the two four-inch solid steel deadbolts across the inside frame.
He turned around.
The underground cellar was pitch-black, save for the dull red glow streaming from the bedrock magma vents beneath the central anvil. The air was dry, scorching, and still as a tomb.
Lin Ke sat down on the cold dark rock flat stone slabs.
He arranged his vials, his red stone, his iron filings, and his bone broth within arm’s reach.
He unrolled the Deep-sea Bone-Melting Chant.
Ninety-six hours, he thought, his heart beating with slow, cold care.
Quarantine active. Production environment isolated.
Time to recompile the bone.