Chapter 153

The mining tunnels of the Mengmi Baojing gemstone well seeped with pulverized jade, Shen Xitang’s leather boots crushing the charred pages of the *Secret Archives of the Yunnan Mining Administration*. Xiao Heng’s Xiuchun Saber cleaved open a raw jade boulder on the cave wall, sending a cascade of standard Ministry of Works quarrying drills crashing down—amidst the inscriptions reading "Chongzhen Sixth Year" on the drill handles, there was actually a copy of the *Hundred Barbarians' Jade-Smelting Method* transcribed by the Jianzhou Culture Office! "Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this drill bit." Her fingertips brushed over the quenching patterns. "This diamond-shaped rock-piercing edge was custom-made by the Ministry of Works during the Jiajing era to excavate the Jingling Imperial Tombs..." The sound of bronze bells suddenly echoed from the depths of the tunnel. Thirty White Lotus Cultists disguised as miners surged out from a drainage ditch, the forged iron patterns on their pickaxes bearing an uncanny resemblance to the city-breaching mattocks handed down through the Yang family of Bozhou. Shen Xitang’s silver silk shredded a certain iron pickaxe, revealing a torn page from the *Baojing Work Ledger*—the falsely reported output of thirty thousand catties of jade was actually a cover for Frankish Cannon bronze molds smuggled to Hetu Ala!