Chapter One: Left Zero, Right Fire, Thunder God Aid Me

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It was the fourth year of the Shaoping era in the Great Ming calendar, the Victorian age of Rome. The Qing Dynasty did not exist, Napoleon did not exist, and neither did the British Empire upon which the sun never set.

Great Ming and Rome, two ancient empires, had united in the distant past to rule the world with an unstoppable force. For the common people, this was an era of peace and prosperity, a time of “joy and plenty.” For the state, it was a realm without war, where all directions were united in harmony.

In the Old World, the two powers were separated by a great wall that spanned the continent, serving as a firm boundary. But in the New World, the dividing line was far less clear.

Between the San Francisco Bay Area of Great Ming and the Great Lakes region of Rome lay a vast neutral zone, often called the “Great Plains.” This land was a harsh agricultural wasteland, dotted with deserts and marshes, where rains were sporadic and ill-timed, and droughts unpredictable. Cold waves sweeping across the continent were frequent.

In the pre-industrial era, this agricultural nightmare had been largely ignored, only recently giving rise to a special large settlement known as Las Vegas.

San Francisco Guard and San Francisco itself constituted the easternmost metropolis of the Ming Empire.

This land, bathed earliest in sunlight, was called Yangzhou—known to the Romans as America.

A crimson bridge arched over the deep blue harbor. The Maya, Mexica, and Tawantinsuyu nations here paid homage to the ever-illuminated “Dragon God Great Pyramid.” Complementing the pyramid was the “Golden Gate Building” within San Francisco’s citadel, soaring 41 stories and 187 meters tall.

This red-brick structure, topped with blue-glazed tiles, was the tallest skyscraper in the New World and housed the headquarters of the Yangzhou Governor.

At the citadel’s gate, inside the Shang Clock Shop, Shang Luo sat behind his workbench.

Early summer sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a golden glow upon the brass clocks. The warm yellow light diffused softly across the clock casings, bathing the shop in a comforting hue. The air was filled with the scent of wood and gear oil—professional and reassuring.

Having brewed a cup of aged tangerine peel tea, Shang Luo reviewed his work schedule for the day. Though still young, he had already soaked five wolfberries and even planned to add a few slices of Yangzhou ginseng.

“Ah, another peaceful day under heaven,” he sighed contentedly.

Reflecting on his sixteen years as a craftsman’s apprentice, he felt satisfied. Compared to his previous life, here he neither worked overtime nor stayed up late. There was no attendance check, no performance review. As long as he completed the tasks assigned by the court on time, he received a steady salary.

Most importantly, the court was wealthy. The pay was generous, and including the travel allowance for official business in Yangzhou, his monthly income reached a substantial fifty-two taels—enough to buy a small automobile.

Aside from a few years ago when he had to accompany his father, Old Shang, on official business to Yangzhou, he had no complaints.

In truth, Shang Luo himself did not need to work. Craftsmen households were counted by household registration; one person per family sufficed. Moreover, a sixteen-year-old minor was not usually sent on official errands; adulthood was considered twenty years old. Not everyone earned fifty-two taels monthly—that was Old Shang’s rate.

Two months prior, Old Shang had suddenly left on the earliest military flight after receiving a phone call, leaving Shang Luo alone. Now, his main duties were to mind the shop and perform routine maintenance.

As an outstanding but incomplete student of the Wutai Mountain Apprenticeship Institute in Nanjing, his craftsmanship was quite impressive. Had he not been dispatched to Yangzhou for official business during these four years and instead continued his studies alongside other craftsmen’s children, he might have been admitted directly into the Royal Artisan Workshop. Old Shang’s artisan registration remained active there.

“They must be graduating soon,” Shang Luo mused, glancing at the ceiling where a light still shone. It was a finely crafted bulb from the Nanjing Glaze Factory, which had never failed over these four years.

The Apprenticeship Institute was designed to cultivate artisans capable of producing such fine bulbs and was a public school specifically established for craftsmen’s offspring. Similarly, military households had their own training institutes. This was important because the status of military or artisan households applied only to the individual, not hereditary. Their children had to pass separate exams to become new military or artisan household members.

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Shang Luo’s Wutai Mountain Apprenticeship Institute was somewhat special—it trained military artisans and was a sister school to the neighboring Wutai Mountain Training Institute for elite troops. Old Shang had also graduated from there and was now dispatched to San Francisco Guard. The clock shop, which usually earned extra income, was located at the citadel’s gate.

Even a side business could only be run at the citadel’s entrance because only residents from the “metropolitan area”—the two capitals and thirteen provinces—were freely permitted inside San Francisco Citadel. Running a business inside was impossible; otherwise, he would have had to apply for temporary permits for each customer appointment.

“Hm, just about finished drinking,” he noted, glancing at his work log. He had scheduled himself to dismantle and clean clocks starting at noon and planned to work until six in the evening before closing.

This was his mode of working. Ever since entering the Wutai Mountain Apprenticeship Institute, he felt an unusual “inspiration” when handling mechanical parts. Once familiar with each component, the entire machine’s structure suddenly became clear to him, as if the operation principles from the exterior to the interior were fully comprehensible.

It was like a master butcher who, guided by natural principles, saw not a whole cow but only its sinews and bones. Like an oil seller who could pour an entire gourd of oil through a coin’s hole without wetting the coin—nothing else but skill and familiarity.

Yet his skill seemed unusually swift, as if the workings of these clocks resided naturally in his heart, allowing him immediate understanding upon touch. This was why Shang Luo was once considered talented enough to enter the Royal Artisan Workshop—he was truly a prodigy.

After arriving in Yangzhou, Shang Luo had not continued attending classes at the institute. Yet somehow, he sensed his craftsmanship steadily improving, even vaguely perceiving something that might be called “Qi energy” flowing between the gears.

Perhaps this was the essence of “investigating things,” though not the boring study of bamboo. Compared to studying bamboo, tinkering with clocks was quite enjoyable.

At noon, all the clocks in the shop chimed simultaneously. Mechanical gears, cycloidal wheels, oscillators—the brass movements inside brass casings moved in simple, harmonious motions playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

He set aside his tangerine peel tea and prepared to turn on the desk lamp for extra light. The warm yellow light in the room was somewhat dim; better illumination was needed for work.

Shang Luo’s hand hovered over the lamp’s switch.

He flipped the switch.

With a loud “bang,” the desk lamp shattered, and the bulb overhead exploded as well. The fine bulb that had never failed in four years was reduced to powder, its glass shards falling into the tea cup.

“Good grief… what kind of divine skill have I cultivated?” he stared at his hands in disbelief. All along, he had suspected that his “inspiration” might actually be a perception of Qi energy.

“If it’s Qi, then I must have some kind of spiritual root? What kind of spiritual root do I have? A lightning root, since it just blew out the bulbs?”

Suddenly, the phone rang. Just as he was contemplating how to repair his newfound lightning technique, he had to get up and answer.

Ten seconds later, he hung up.

“What the heck, making me think I was about to become an immortal cultivator, but turns out the power plant had a problem. I was wondering, since the generator was only invented less than ten years ago, how come civilian power grids are already in use? Luckily, electricity’s free, or else I wouldn’t pay for such frequent outages.”

This blackout was more outrageous than the previous ones. Earlier times only saw sudden outages; this time, even the bulbs exploded. Who knew what might blow next time.

But the call was not an apology. It was a summons to go back and fix the problem—hence the shop’s proximity to the citadel entrance. If something urgent happened, Old Shang could rush over immediately. Though Old Shang was absent, the guard station insisted on sending someone, so Shang Luo planned to find an excuse once he met them.

Before long, an off-road military vehicle pulled up outside.

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“Is Mr. Shang here?”

“He’s out,” Shang Luo peeked from the inner room, keeping a distance from the workbench, wary anyone would notice he could actually work.

“You’re… ah, you must be Young Master Shang, the famous one from the Wutai Mountain Military Artisan Institute? I heard you have the ‘Seven Apertures Delicate Heart’?”

“Uh… that’s what people say.”

That was back when he was a child.

Shang Luo recalled sometimes getting lost in “investigating things,” mumbling to himself. Teachers joked he was a “Little Bigan,” referencing the legendary Bigan, who with his “Seven Apertures Delicate Heart” could communicate with all things.

If Bigan had had an alarm clock then, with his talent and good rapport with clocks, he might have easily become an eighth-level fitter.

“Perfect timing. Come with me. If you can fix it, you’ll have a good record to show. We have no clue how the thing works; even the veteran military artisans at the guard station don’t quite understand. The generator is new—only appeared in recent years.”

Shang Luo wanted to refuse, but the guard soldier grabbed him and led him to the vehicle.

“No worries! Just take a look! If you can’t fix it, it’s not your fault!”

With that, he pushed Shang Luo into the back seat. The off-road vehicle turned around and headed back into the citadel, driving straight to the artisan district’s power plant.

The ride was smooth, and the vehicle stopped at the entrance to the machine room. The door was open, and the roaring machines immediately made his eardrums ache upon stepping out. The steam engine was running normally, yet the lights inside the factory were off.

It was a tall, high-speed steam engine invented less than two years ago, capable of producing strong power at 450 revolutions per minute. Every cylinder and piston was crafted by specialists, with fewer than two hundred such machines in the entire empire. The boiler in the adjacent plant was equally high-end.

This power plant was among the first globally to be built as a true power station. Before this, electric lights had already been widely used, but like the steam engines inside factories, buildings with electric lights had their own small steam engines paired with generators.

The San Francisco power plant was experimental, testing the new technologies of “power grids” and “long-distance transmission.” With the power grid, electricity could be centralized at the plant, eliminating the need for buildings to have their own generators. This revolutionary technology naturally brought new problems.

“So the issue is with that big thing?”

“No, it’s the small one,” the guard pointed to a far smaller machine beside the steam engine’s connecting rod. Red and blue cables ran from it to the outside. That was the generator, currently shut down with a yellow paper talisman pasted on it.

Three old fitters stood with their backs to the door, hands clasped, chanting. On a red stool before them were three cans of Wangzai milk and three cigarettes. They bowed repeatedly toward the stool while chanting.