Ice floes in Liaodong Bay battered the hull as Shen Xitang, wrapped in a sea dragon-skin cloak, stood on the observation deck of the modified icebreaker. The brass sextant in her hand caught the glow of the setting sun, allowing her to gauge the thickness of the ice at the mouth of the Liao River with pinpoint precision.
She stared at the winding sled tracks on the ice. Suddenly, she pressed the Armillary Secret Key into the eye socket of the Xuanwu statue at the prow. With a roar of shifting mechanisms, twenty precision-iron ice drills shattered the three-zhang-thick ice sheet.
"Bring the sulfur canisters!" She tore off the Ice Silkworm Silk sash from her waist. "There is a hot spring surging thirty zhang below—this must be the hidden vault of the Ministry of Works!"
Chapter 16