The next morning, sunlight spilled in through the window, painting streaks of golden light across the floor.
After breakfast, the four of them left the inn and headed toward Gengxin City's northern district. Lou Gao's workshop stood on a quiet street there. There was no sign at the entrance, only two old locust trees, their crowns spreading like canopies and shading half the courtyard.
Xiao Yun stopped at the door and knocked. The door opened, but it was not a servant who answered. It was Lou Gao himself. His hair was white, his face thin, and he wore a gray robe with a black belt tied around his waist.
The instant he saw Xiao Yun, his cloudy eyes lit up. "Brother Xiao! You're finally back! Come in, come in!"
Lou Gao's workshop was in the backyard.
When the iron door to the workshop was pushed open, a wave of heat rushed out, mixed with the smell of metal and coal.
The workshop was enormous, several times larger than the living room of an ordinary house.
All kinds of metal materials were piled along the four walls: Dark Iron, Adamantine, Mithril, Red Copper, Cold Iron, Meteorite Iron, packed to the brim. Against the wall stood a row of forging furnaces, their hearths blazing fiercely and letting out roaring gusts of sound.
Beside the forging furnaces lay all sorts of forging tools: hammers, tongs, anvils, chisels, large and small, in every shape and form.
At the center of the workshop stood a massive workbench. Its surface was covered with iron plates, and scattered across them were various parts and tools, along with an unfinished mechanical device. Several large water vats sat in the corner, filled with water, where workpieces for quenching were soaking.
Beside the water vats was a wooden rack, from