Heave-ho! Heave-ho!
Not long after the Chief Eunuch shouted, eighty strongmen marched into the great hall in neat rhythm, chanting as they carried a gigantic bronze furnace.
This bronze furnace was twelve meters tall. At a glance it looked like a pagoda, with a square opening on each of its four sides—east, west, south, and north—for adding charcoal and firewood.
The body of the "pagoda" was carved with birds in flight and gods in motion, so vivid and lifelike it felt like they might leap down from the tower at any moment.
Each of these strongmen was over 1.8 meters tall, wearing only a hemp loincloth, barefoot, their bare torsos knotted with muscles. Sweat streamed down like little rivers.
The bronze furnace was too heavy. Even with eighty strongmen lifting it like a bridal sedan chair, they were still being crushed to the point they could barely breathe.
