The night was thick with darkness, and the moon was hidden behind heavy clouds.
Yet Blackwind Stronghold was blazing with lamplight, alive with feverish activity and utter chaos.
The newly recruited Blood Drip No. 2 Unit, along with the outer-circle followers who had previously been tricked into joining, had all been transformed into porters.
Since their employer offered such generous treatment, these death soldiers—men who normally killed without batting an eye—were now working harder at manual labor than the strongest oxen.
“Faster, faster! Wrap up this batch of refined iron properly. Don’t let it get damp!”
“Move those hands! That’s gunpowder the boss specifically ordered. If you knock it or damage it, I’ll dock next month’s wages!”
The leader of the assassins shouted himself hoarse. He had completely immersed himself in the role of head foreman and was thoroughly enjoying giving orders.
More than a hundred top-class assassins had transformed into the most powerful and terrifyingly efficient moving crew in history.
Using their peerless lightness skills, they carried iron ore weighing a hundred pounds or more as if it were nothing.
Even the pure-copper trim around the storeroom doorframes was pried off with their profound internal energy.
Not even a goose feather was left behind. Not a blade of grass survived.
Dozens of large horse-drawn wagons were packed to the brim, their wheels pressing deep ruts into the mountain roads.
Under cover of darkness, the wagons entered the capital.
They made their way into the most remote and desolate corner of the Great Yuan Imperial Palace—the Cold Palace.
No one had paid any attention to this place for years. Weeds grew taller than people, and the entire area was gloomy and terrifying.
Normally, even the palace maids and eunuchs avoided it. It could be called the forbidden zone of the imperial palace.
But tonight, this dead and silent palace welcomed an unprecedented burst of activity.
Su Yaoyao hopped down from one of the wagons and waved her little hand.
“Take down that rotten sign over the Cold Palace! From today onward, this is our secret base!”
“Change the name immediately! Great Yuan Royal No. 1 Steelworks!”
The assassins moved swiftly. In just a few strikes, they had trampled the broken threshold of the Cold Palace flat.
Wagon after wagon of supplies was transported into the courtyard.
Following Su Yaoyao’s instructions, the refined iron was piled in the eastern wing, while the gunpowder was stored in the underground ice cellar. Everything was arranged in perfect order.
In the days that followed, the Cold Palace underwent a complete transformation.
The once-desolate palace was constantly shrouded in billowing black smoke, day and night.
Several enormous blast furnaces were built overnight. The charcoal fires inside glowed red under the stimulation of the assassins’ true qi, reaching frighteningly high temperatures.
Su Yaoyao took off her cumbersome Crown Princess robes and changed into a neat set of work clothes.
Holding a charcoal pencil, she covered sheet after sheet of xuan paper with densely packed blueprints for interstellar weapons.
“Furnace Two isn’t hot enough! Keep working the bellows! Use your pure-yang internal energy to feed the flames!”
“The quenching time for this batch of gears must be exact. Even a single breath’s difference is unacceptable!”
Under Su Yaoyao’s direction, this group of assassins—whose profound internal energy had once been used for killing—became the finest human precision machines.
They used their true qi to control the heat and their internal energy to forge and shape the components.
The peerless martial arts that had originally been meant for killing had all been repurposed as catalysts for an industrial revolution.
Every day, the imperial palace rang with the clanging of metal and the incessant roar of machinery.
This drove the upright censors at court into a frenzy.
They submitted memorials day after day, claiming that the Crown Princess was performing sorcery in the Cold Palace, filling the air with foul smoke, disgracing the dignity of the imperial family, and behaving in a completely improper manner.
Every one of those memorials was slapped right back by the tyrant Su Zhen.
Anyone who dared go to the Cold Palace and provoke the Crown Princess was dragged out and given fifty strokes of the cane.
With the emperor’s protection, the Cold Palace’s weapons factory operated with even greater impunity.
One specially forged military blade after another, each gleaming with a ghostly, icy light, rolled off the production line.
The recruited assassins stared at the new weapons in their hands—blades capable of slicing through iron—and wept tears of excitement.
But Su Yaoyao’s true goal went far beyond these primitive cold weapons.
Time flew.
Only three days remained until the Mid-Autumn banquet.
Inside the Imperial Study.
Su Zhen paced restlessly back and forth in front of the imperial desk, his hands clasped behind his back.
Through the carved window, he gazed at the black smoke rising from the direction of the Cold Palace.
Just then, a clear voice filled with wild delight pierced through layer upon layer of palace walls and crashed into Su Zhen’s mind.
【Hahahaha! It’s finally done!】
Deep beneath the Cold Palace, Su Yaoyao gazed at the heavy weapons lined up before her, her heart bursting with joy.
【There are still three days until the Mid-Autumn banquet, and my heavy-firepower production line is finally up and running!】
【All six barrels of the Gatling gun are made from the finest black iron. The quenching process is flawless!】
【The gears in the rotating mechanism and ammunition-feeding system mesh perfectly. It absolutely will not jam!】
【And all two hundred homemade high-explosive grenades, packed with steel pellets and porcelain shards, have been sealed and finished!】
Su Zhen came to an abrupt halt. His tiger eyes widened.
Gatling gun?
Homemade high-explosive grenades?
He had never heard a single one of these terms before, but even just hearing their cold, formidable names made him feel that they were filled with deadly menace.
Su Yaoyao’s inner voice continued, brimming with confidence and utterly outrageous arrogance.
【Damn this fear of insufficient firepower. I’ve finally cured it!】
【General Lin Zhenxiong? Ten wagons of gunpowder? Several thousand heavy crossbows?】
【At the Mid-Autumn banquet, this Crown Princess will show you, you ancient country bumpkin, what a technological strike looks like!】
【You want to know what three thousand six hundred revolutions per breath means? I’ll turn you straight into a human sieve!】
【This Crown Princess is going to teach you ancient people what it means when the times have changed!】
Inside the Imperial Study, Su Zhen’s blood began to boil.
Three thousand six hundred revolutions per breath?!
Since the founding of Great Yuan, the kingdom had never seen such a peerless weapon—one that could make a person’s scalp tingle just by hearing its name.
He had spent his entire life pursuing absolute military power. Hearing such a violently vivid description, he felt as if every drop of blood in his body were burning!
He understood the general’s ambitions all too well. The Mid-Autumn banquet would certainly become a bloody battle of life and death—a forced coup.
He had been preparing to mobilize the three hundred thousand troops stationed outside the capital to protect him, ready to fight General Lin Zhenxiong to the bitter end in a final clash where both sides might perish.
But now, it seemed that his precious daughter had already stripped the rebel of his entire arsenal—and casually created weapons even more terrifying.
“Good! Good! Excellent!”
Su Zhen excitedly rubbed his hands together in the Imperial Study. The wrinkles on his face spread into a delighted grin as he paced back and forth.
This was truly his daughter!
No matter what schemes or conspiracies they had, he would simply crush them beneath the most ferocious firepower!
He could almost see the treacherous rebels being blasted into pieces at the Mid-Autumn banquet.
However, excitement was one thing.
Whenever he thought of the terrifying destructive power his daughter had described, Su Zhen could not help feeling a chill in his heart.
If that thing opened fire inside the Taiji Hall, it might well tear the roof clean off the building.
And if stray bullets went flying—or the weapon accidentally fired in the wrong direction—wouldn’t he, sitting at the very top on the dragon throne, become the most conspicuous target of all?
No. Safety came first.
Even watching the show and enjoying the spectacle required a secure bunker.
Su Zhen turned around and bellowed toward the door.
“Someone come! Where’s the chief eunuch? Get in here, now!”
His voice was urgent and brimming with excitement.
The chief eunuch guarding the door trembled so violently that his horsetail whisk shook in his hand. He stumbled and crawled into the room.
With a heavy thud, he dropped to his knees on the polished golden-brick floor.
“Your Majesty, this old servant is here! This old servant is here!”
Su Zhen strode over to the chief eunuch, his eyes burning with eager anticipation.
“Carry out My imperial decree!”
“Go to the Imperial Household Department at once and remove that golden-thread nanmu dragon throne from the Hall of Supreme Polarity!”
The chief eunuch froze, his face filled with bewilderment.
The dragon throne in the Hall of Supreme Polarity was the very symbol of imperial authority in the Great Yuan. Why on earth did His Majesty suddenly want it removed?
“Your Majesty… after it’s removed, what… what should replace it?”
Su Zhen swept his hand through the air and barked, his tone decisive and leaving no room for argument:
“Replace it with one made of pure steel! Solid steel!”
“Have them forge Me a blast-proof steel throne. Move it in tonight—quietly!”
“Thicken the back by two inches! It must be able to withstand a massive explosion!”
The chief eunuch broke out in a cold sweat. He collapsed onto the floor, trembling uncontrollably.
Was His Majesty planning to build an iron turtle shell in the Hall of Supreme Polarity?
Could some earth-shattering disaster be about to occur at the Mid-Autumn banquet?
Su Zhen paid no attention to the eunuch’s horror.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he turned toward the Cold Palace. A cruel, expectant smile curled across his lips.
“See to it. And make sure not a word gets out.”
The grand show was about to begin!
