"It cracked."
"Shattered into seven or eight pieces."
"It collapsed... The nine-tiered Porcelain Tower fell straight down and smashed into a ceramic pancake..."
Shen Le's kiln-firing work went through unimaginable hardships.
During the construction of the Porcelain Tower, he held the greatest authority. He could open any storehouse and demand any resources he thought necessary;
He could assign any senior or junior martial brother, Martial Uncle, or Martial Uncle Senior, making them grind glaze, sift porcelain clay, carve ceramic blanks, tend the kiln fires, or do anything else he deemed necessary;
But accordingly, all responsibility rested on his shoulders alone. Every time the kiln was opened, Shen Le had to force himself to step out and face everyone's expectant gazes:
"Sorry, it failed again this time..."
"...It's fine, it's fine." The expectant looks immediately turned to disappointment, then from disappointment to doubt, which was cautiously suppressed again.
The sect's strongest artifact refiner, Senior Brother Mingxin, clapped his broad, heavy hand onto Shen Le's shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance.
"Making something new is always difficult! Whenever your senior brother here makes a new Magic Artifact, doesn't he have to struggle through it seven or eight, even ten times? Don't lose heart! Let's keep going—the Sect Master gave us three years!"
Shen Le gritted his teeth and started again, from mixing the porcelain clay and kneading the ceramic blanks. Firing large pieces was always difficult. Every porcelain kiln and every region known for porcelain kilns had tales like these:
When firing dragon jars or man-tall vases failed for three years and the officials pressed urgently, a kiln worker would sacrifice himself by jumping into the kiln. The very next firing would succeed, and the kiln worker would be revered as a kiln god and worshipped every year...
The Porcelain Tower Shen