Chapter 147 - The Forging Hall I: Niu Lan Tian. A Giant’s Daughter?
Hao rushed where he could. It was surprisingly busy in the sect, but that made for a perfect day to visit the forging hall. He had to get those robes made for Meiqi and Zhengqi.
The cool winds didn’t do more than make the occasional servant sneeze for now. Those steady chirps hardly disturbed the odd peace of the day.
The sparse trees in the sect chimed like a song. A splash of water from a puddle rang and shimmered like a bell, adding soft copper tones. Then came a swirl of clouds, like the brush that painted the world, moved with careful intent.
It had rained this morning, and it will snow tonight.
It was a story, song, or poem. Every word he could find could name it, and at the same time miss its majesty.
Have I been blind to this every day? Hao wondered, but he remembered his days starving on the island, his only companion, the waves surrounding him, and the mud at his feet. When his eyes closed, the world washed over him.
The sound of the ocean. He wasn’t near the Island that place he once called home, when he last heard the waves, far, far from the endless Ocean. But when he came to peace with his own demise in the mine.
That was the day he broke through into Reclamation.
“Junior Brother, are you here to get your robe repaired?”
Hao looked up. He didn’t realize the long walk he had expected was over. Towering over him was the colossal forging hall that rivaled the mission hall and made the Food hall seem small.
In front of him, blocking the entrance, was a man. Stout with big blue eyes and a soft brown beard that parted at the center of his chin, and a thin mustache that slightly bent outward, he was odd-looking, Hao decided.
“No…” He said, but he stopped in disbelief. It was like seeing colors for the first time, or his first breakthrough again, but he didn’t experience a breakthrough, not that he was aware of. He simply read the pages and books in the library.
“...Well, then what is the Junior Brother here for then?” The stout man asked, a little concern creeping onto his face.
Hao laughed. He knew the face well; he had made it a few times himself, “Senior doesn’t have to worry, this Junior Brother isn’t drunk or lost.”
The stout man smiled. He shifted as he tried to hide the expression; his head slowly turned towards the sky, as if he had spotted a cloud.
Hao continued, “It is this Junior’s first time in this part of the Sect. I’ve traded a few beasts to the Forging Hall and bought more than a share of materials, but I had never been here.”
“Oh? Junior, you are a member of a hunting team? Then it makes sense, you’ve never been down this way. There are a lot of places like this in the sect for practicing skills that are considered more niche.”
He paused, his nose raised as he stepped aside. Steam billowed out of the building from behind him, not just smoke; the smoke rose from the chimneys sprouting from the roof, and only three of the eight were pouring out towards the clouds.
What came from the entrance was like a sweat. Pure steam, the boiling of the air as the warmth of the hall seeped from kilns, furnaces, and sweat-slicked bodies.
“Junior called it the forging hall, but you can call it the one and only Artifact Hall.”
Hao took a step back and read the sign on the crown of the building just above the entrance.
Yep, yep, it says ‘Forging hall’… He would keep that to himself for now.
“I will keep it in mind, Senior Brother.” Hao nodded, almost laughing again. Other than the lack of otherworldly competence, the stout man reminded him of the much fatter Dong Lingli, the good friend he met in the Mid-Summer cave.
“Junior, tell me what you want done. If it’s interesting enough, I may take the request.” His lips parted in a giant smile as his fist balled and touched his sides.
“Hey! Tou Yiwei, are you blocking the door again?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
It was easy to guess who Tou Yiwei was. Hao wasn’t sure if he had ever seen someone lose confidence so fast. You could put a dandelion in a roaring wind, and it would cling to its puffed-up shape a little longer than this.
The man at the door looked like someone had pulled all his strings at once. His posture straightened and his head lowered, while his fists smoothed to cupped hands all in one movement.
Then he slid to the side of the entrance, bowing. “Of course not, Senior Sister Niu…”
He was about to rise again when the woman stepped out from the entrance. “What did you call me?”
Tou Yiwei folded forward again. He looked like he was debating falling to his knees and kowtowing to the Senior Sister.
“Senior Sister Niu Lan Tian…”
The woman was tall, not just tall, easily taller than most people by a foot, with skin that made Hao think of ink at first, but as clouded sunlight shone down, it softened to a gray like a faded ox-hair brush.
“Enough, get up, Junior Brother Yiwei, and get inside, you’re supposed to help make red-copper alloys. Do you want everyone to freeze to death?”
There was only silence for a second. “Well, do yah? All to make a couple extra Spirit Stones?” she asked again.
Her stance mimicked the one Yiwei had assumed before she arrived. Her head raised slightly, nose to the sky, displaying neck muscles and veins, as her fists dug into her own hips.
Tou Yiwei started shaking his head; it got faster as this Senior Sister’s stature stretched. He had something to say, Hao could see the words building in the wide chest of his, yet he stopped because of just a gesture.
The Senior Sister bent her elbow, pointing her thumb over her shoulder.
Tou Yiwei bowed and trotted off behind her. It didn’t take long for the sound of another furnace to start screeching.
Hao turned his full attention to this Senior Sister Niu Lan Tian. She gave the same attention back to him, looking him up and down as she exhaled, her posture deflating back to one more subtle for a first impression.
“Sorry about that. Don’t think of me as cruel at our first time meeting, Junior Brother. Junior Yiwei has a habit of waiting for new visitors, even after his recent messes, which cost the Forging Hall more than a couple of coppers.”
Hao looked at her a little longer. Black hair with a hint of red tied in a braided tail, black eyes with a sprinkling of light browns and golden tones.
“Why does Junior stare?”
Hao snapped his hands together, cupping them and giving a nod. “Sorry, Senior, it is just. I have never seen anyone with features like yours…”
Niu Lan Tian laughed, “I thought Junior might have been falling for me.”
She enjoyed her own joke a little too much, her hand leaving her hip to smack her stomach a few times; the sound was close to that of the anvils behind her.
Once her fit of laughter passed, she swiped a tear and cupped her hands back.
“I could say the same as you. Down here, they call people with an appearance like yours Islanders and Barbarians?”
Hao looked up, “Half… My mother was from the Southern Tip. I don’t know the region…”
“Oh? Similar to me then, but the opposite, my Mother is from the Northern Lands; she never said where, but all you find strange in me, is twice as strong in her. My Father is a normal man, and she is twice his height but more slender than a starved wolf.” She laughed again, nearly abandoning decorum completely and grabbing Hao by the shoulder.
As her hand approached, Hao could feel power radiating off her. Spiritual Energy, Qi. It was hot, a fire that made a torch seem like an icebox. He instinctively invited the heat.
She pulled her hand back, her eyes glinting. “If Junior Brother tells me his name, I won’t waste any more of his time.”
“Senior Sister, this Junior Brother is called Hao, nothing more.”
“Hao…” she said, his name like a piece of candy to roll around her tongue, “What do you mean by nothing more? There is always more beneath the ocean’s surface.”
Hao tensed for a moment as she smirked. Her squinted eyes seemed to scan him; he would have found an extra layer of clothing a kindness right now. Not just for reassurance of privacy, but the idea of someone, even as amiable as this Senior Sister, spotting the Spirit-Holding bag made the back of his neck crawl with spiders.
Niu Lan Tian turned around, “Junior Hao has already heard my name a few times, but just to make sure, you are here for a request?” She stepped back and turned aside, her expression softening as she lifted one hand in presentation towards the hall.
Hao nodded, and that was enough.
“Then come in, I hope you have something lighter under that robe, even if it’s full of air holes.” She joked, giving one nod to the many stitched seams on Hao’s robe before fully turning away.
“Even when the air outside is ice, it’s hot in the Forging Hall, ha!” Her steps were heavy and wide; there was a clear enthusiasm in the swing of her arms.
Hao followed. The moment he stepped inside, he felt the warmth she was talking about, but it was the sounds that surprised him.
A cacophony of hammers and popping flames filled the air. Even Yiwei was already at work, throwing red power and green rusted stones into the furnace with blue flames. But his flame was weak. The fire, and hammers, all of that was nothing compared to the immense pressure he felt from a furnace shaped like a cauldron on the far end of the long hall.
“Junior Hao!” Niu Lan Tian shouted, which seemed the only volume appropriate for the surroundings.
“Why don’t you tell me what your request is, and we will see if I’m worthy of making it.”
Niu Lan Tian laughed, stopping at a station with dozens of gauntlets and a few other armor pieces on the wall behind the anvil.
Her smile parted as she placed an oversized hammer between her teeth.
Passion and ferocity filled her eyes as she untied the waistband of her blue robe and slid her arms free of the sleeves.
I have a feeling you aren’t the first choice for robes… Hao wasn’t going to say it out loud, not this time.
