"Zhu Chongba thought too highly of this net, and too little of me."
Jin Mingzi said.
"Even linked to the dragon vein, this net cannot hold me. Besides, he knew only that fire overcomes metal, not that a golden lotus can also be cultivated within fire.
"This corpse of mine was nurtured in a fire cavern among the northwestern mountains. Tempered by yin fire for seven hundred years, it was nearly flawless,
"Lacking only the nurturing influence of yang fire. I traveled the world for centuries, searching in vain for underground yang fire, and had only then thought to continue absorbing metal qi and sleep. Yet he tried to suppress and kill me with the Central Plains' fire virtue of the nation's fortune, not knowing that this was precisely the yang fire I had sought in vain.
"That was why, while refining my corpse, I had the leisure to ruin his dragon vein little by little, so his descendants would come here themselves and give me a clear explanation."
Jin Mingzi held the Zhu Household in considerable contempt, but he was also somewhat puzzled.
"But this Zhu emperor certainly knows how to keep his composure. More than ten years of deterioration in the dragon vein should have manifested first in the occupant of the Dragon Throne. By rights, his health should have declined by the day until his illness was beyond saving. Why has there been no sign of anything, with outsiders like you noticing it first instead?"
Something sounded wrong to Cheng Xinzhan. He asked Zhu Jianmo, "Daoist brother, after Emperor Taizu of Ming halted construction of the Central Capital, was it left untouched for the rest of the Hongwu reign?"
Zhu Jianmo nodded firmly.
"And afterward, was Emperor Yongle the only one who ordered construction of the Central