Honestly, the rebuilt Black Rye Fortress was not particularly pretty—at least not from the outside.
The original towering, double-layered super walls had truly been majestic and spectacular. But once a roof of the same color and material was added overhead, the walls immediately lost their imposing presence. From afar, it looked like a huge black cylinder sticking out of the ground. Fortunately, its top narrowed smoothly, with a spire at the very peak. If the roof had been a little rounder and slightly bigger...
Sui Xiong had originally intended to design it that way. But after coming up with the design, he felt that something was off. He looked it over from every angle and still could not spot the problem, yet the sense of wrongness in his heart only grew stronger. In the end, he simply made a palm-sized miniature model—and then he understood what was wrong.
A goddamn dome! This thing was practically the "staff thrust toward heaven" from so-called "folk culture"!
As an art student, Sui Xiong lacked much of the knowledge an ordinary college student ought to have, but he also knew plenty of things that ordinary universities would never teach. For example, he knew that many regions whose cultures remained relatively primitive still preserved phallic worship. Twin Breast Mountain, Staff Thrust Toward Heaven—things considered improper and unhealthy in developed regions were objects of worship over there.
Sui Xiong did not discriminate against such cultures, but he absolutely did not want to put one into practice himself.
The thought of future generations possibly mentioning him and Steel in the same breath because of this "Staff Thrust Toward Heaven Fortress" made his teeth ache.
Even though he did not actually have teeth anymore.
The fact that he could feel a toothache without teeth showed just how serious