The midnight bells of the Celestial Capital tolled across the artisan slums, muffled by the nonstop, roaring thunder of the Thousand-Cauldron Array.
Inside the underground vault of Row Eight, the heat was choking. Most of the junior apprentices had collapsed from tiredness, huddled in the cooler alcoves near the air-flow shafts. Meanwhile, Master Stoker Chen slept in a drunken stupor behind an empty spirit-oil barrel. He grabbed his lucky jade amulet to his chest.
Cooking pot 084 sat quietly in the shadows at the end of the row.
Its thick bronze belly was glowing with a faint, cherry-red soft glow, streaming a steady heat that made the grease on the floor smoke. Inside the sealed crucible, the four hundred liters of overflow slurry discarded by Grand Potion-maker Yan were slowly simmering at nine hundred Degrees of star-heat, prevented from boiling over by the passive chimney draft Lin Tao had tuned during the second watch.
Lin Tao climbed onto the check narrow high walkway. He carried a clean iron sampling ladle and a baked-clay crucible.
He slid the backup check hatch open by two inches. A burst of sweet, heavy vapor washed over his face. An intense, intoxicating aroma of roasted dragon bone, fermented peach blossom, and spark-charged copper.
