"Hey-yo! Hey-yo!"
Not long after the Head Eunuch gave the order, eighty strongmen chanted in unison as they carried a massive bronze furnace into the great hall.
The bronze furnace stood twelve meters tall. At first glance, it looked like a pagoda, with a square opening on each of its four sides for feeding in charcoal and firewood.
Birds and beasts were carved across its body, each lifelike, as though they might spring down from the bronze at any moment.
Every strongman stood over a meter and eighty tall. Wearing nothing but short hemp pants, they were barefoot, their muscular bodies slick with sweat that streamed down like little brooks.
The bronze furnace was so heavy that even with eighty strongmen carrying it like a sedan chair, they could barely breathe under its weight.
Their faces contorted with pain. Veins bulged across their skin like earthworms, as if they might burst at any moment under the strain.
Bang!
With a deafening crash, the bronze furnace was set down.
The strongmen's leader pulled a small triangular flag from his belt and waved it.
The strongmen immediately split into teams of ten and got to work.
Some brought in basket after basket of fine charcoal and poured it into the furnace. Others carried in pine resin and oil, splashing them over the charcoal to help it catch fire.
Still others hauled in a primitive bellows and fitted its nozzle into the air inlet at the bottom of the furnace.
It was a bladder stitched from an entire cowhide. When operated by foot, it sent a blast of air through the nozzle, serving as a bellows.
"What are they doing?"
Hua Yueyu swallowed nervously. "Roasting meat?"
"Why do I feel like they're going to roast us?"
Jin Yingzhen looked grim. Though she was