The kiln fires of Jingdezhen in Ganzhou Prefecture reddened the night sky, and Shen Xitang's black boots crushed the charred edges of the *Taoyang Town Pottery Records*. Xiao Heng's Xiuchun Saber split open the sealing bricks of a dragon kiln, and stacks of plain-fired ceramic blanks burst open from the sudden kiln heat—the crazing on the glaze did not reveal ice-crack patterns, but rather twelve volumes of Venetian glass mirror formulas. Next to the Italian text reading "Thirteenth Year of Chongzhen" on the parchment, the melting furnace temperature curve of Murano Island was annotated in Gan dialect!
"Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this cobalt pestle." Her fingertips brushed over the spiral grooves of the cyanite pestle. "This glaze-mixing method of the 'Nine-Turn Refined Blue' is a secret handed down from the Fuliang Imperial Kiln Factory of the Hongwu era. Why is it mixed with the diamond patterns of the Medici family?"
An explosion suddenly echoed from deep within the kiln yard. Fifty bare-chested kiln workers rushed out from the thick smoke. The forged patterns on their pottery paddles were identical to the molds of the Crouching Tiger Cannons used by Yu Dayou to pacify the wokou during the Jiajing era. Shen Xitang's Silver Silk shredded a kiln brick, revealing a fragment of the *Genoa Secret Account*—next to the official document reading "Falsely reporting a tribute of one thousand blue-and-white pieces," a Latin annotation read: "Resold to the Grand Duchy of Tus…
Chapter 184