The sun broke over the eastern ridge of the Azure Cloud Sect. It scattered the morning mist into long golden ribbons that drifted through the mountain passes.
For the first time in thirty-five years, the morning bell from the Central Peak didn’t sound alone.
Accompanying the bronze toll was the majestic, thunderous roar of living waters rushing through the ancient aqueducts. From the high granite summits down to the low terraced farming basins, the mountain was singing with the crisp, electric life-force of forty million gallons of restored Precursor coolant.
In the outer sect kitchens, Old Cook Zhang stood on a wooden bench. He waved a soup ladle like a military commander directing a victory parade.
“Stoke the fires! Keep the steam up!” Zhang shouted, his apron covered in white flour. “The rice cooking pots have clean water for the first time since my master took his vows! If any lazy apprentice burns the morning porridge today, I’ll personally throw him into the potato bins!”
The kitchen apprentices laughed, their faces flushed with joyful sweat as they filled cedar buckets directly from the thundering bronze spigots. The water was so sweet, so dense with dissolved mountain minerals, that the steam rising from the pots filled the dining hall with the fragrant aroma of wild mountain honey and crushed winter blossoms.
