The morning did not arrive with the rising of the sun, for the sun had been entirely blotted out by a roaring, apocalyptic expanse of white.
Mo Yuan stepped out of his alcove into the main living room, his movements slow and deliberate. His face was a shade of ghostly, translucent pale, his internal meridians still aching with a dull, throbbing bruised sensation from the sheer strain of channeling his Emperor Intent the night before. He had carefully washed the dried mortal blood from his chin, leaving no evidence of the terrifying, physics-defying battle he had fought in the dark.
Despite the deep, lingering exhaustion in his bones, a quiet, genuine smile graced his lips.
In his arms, he carried the heavy block of old-growth oak. The black soot ink upon it was entirely dry, yet the image of the roaring hearth seemed to dance in the periphery of his vision. It was not burning the wood, but it was continuously, effortlessly radiating a profound, luxurious wave of absolute warmth.
Mo Yuan walked to the center of the main room, where a thick, rough-hewn pine pillar supported the main crossbeam of the thatched roof. He set the heavy oak board against the pillar, retrieved a long iron nail and his father's wooden mallet from the workbench, and positioned the art.
*Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.*
The sound of the mallet driving the nail through the top edge of the oak board echoed loudly in the quiet house. He stepped back, resting his calloused hands on his hips to admire his work. To anyone else, it would look like a rather crude, dark painting of a fire hung for mere decoration. But to the Sovereign of the Nine Heavens, it was a flawless, conceptual ward of survival.
He walked over to the small, frost-cracked window and pushed the wooden shutter open just a fraction of an inch to peer outside.
The contrast was staggering.
Beyond the thin wooden walls of the workshop, the world was actively trying to murder everything that breathed. The sudden temperature drop from the night before had evolved into a full-blown, catastrophic blizzard. A blinding sheet of dense, driving snow moved completely horizontally across the valley, carried by a shrieking, gale-force wind that sounded like the wail of a thousand dying beasts. The Mo family courtyard was buried under three feet of drifting white powder, the small vegetable garden entirely erased from existence. Any mortal caught out in that whiteout would have the heat stripped from their body in minutes, freezing into a solid statue before they could even scream.
Yet, inside the house, the atmosphere was a completely different reality.
The air was balmy, light, and impossibly comfortable. It felt exactly like a mild, breezy afternoon in the middle of spring. The invisible barrier projected by the painted hearth extended perfectly to the boundaries of the interior walls. When the shrieking, freezing wind violently battered the exterior of the house, looking for a crack to invade, it met the conceptual decree of Mo Yuan's Intent.
The cold did not just fail to penetrate; it was fundamentally neutralized. The frost that had coated the inside of the windowpanes the night before had melted away entirely, evaporating into a pleasant, breathable humidity.
Mo Yuan closed the shutter, pulling his thin tunic slightly away from his chest. It was actually getting a bit toasty.
Behind him, a loud, confused grunting noise came from the sleeping area.
Mo Shen sat up on his cot, violently kicking off the three layers of heavy, moth-eaten woolen blankets he and Lin had huddled under the night before. The carpenter's hair was a wild, static mess. He rubbed his eyes, looking around the room in utter bewilderment.
"What in the Heavens..." Mo Shen mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. He looked down at his arms. He was sweating. A distinct, unmistakable bead of perspiration was trailing down his temple.
Lin sat up beside him, pushing the heavy wool off her chest with a deep, effortless sigh. The terrifying, rattling cough that had plagued her the day before was completely absent, her lungs expanding smoothly in the warm, spring-like air.
Mo Shen swung his legs over the side of the cot, his bare feet touching the floorboards. He braced himself for the biting, paralyzing shock of the freezing wood.
The floorboards were warm.
The carpenter stood up, walking cautiously into the main room as if he expected it to be a trap. He looked at the unlit, ash-filled physical hearth. No fire. He listened to the terrifying, muffled shriek of the blizzard raging outside. He looked up at the ceiling, then walked over to the eastern wall—the exact wall he had spent hours desperately packing with freezing mud the afternoon prior.
He placed his hand flat against the wood. The interior surface was perfectly room temperature, successfully holding back the apocalyptic deep-freeze occurring just an inch away on the other side.
A slow, massive grin began to stretch across Mo Shen's weathered face. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, his chest puffing out with an immense, overwhelming sense of mortal pride.
"Well, I'll be," Mo Shen breathed, his eyes shining with absolute triumph. He turned back to look at his wife, gesturing wildly to the mud-packed crevices. "Lin! Yuan! Do you feel this? Do you feel how warm it is?"
Mo Yuan, who had quietly poured himself a cup of water from the thawed kitchen basin, took a slow, calm sip. "It is very comfortable, Father."
"Comfortable? It's a miracle!" Mo Shen laughed, walking along the wall and patting the dried mud affectionately. "I knew I packed the straw tight, but Heavens above, I really outdid myself this time! Look at this! The wind is howling like a demon out there, and I've sealed this house so perfectly it feels like the middle of May!"
Lin walked into the room, her rosy cheeks glowing with health, and wrapped her arms around her husband's waist from behind, resting her chin on his back. "You are a master craftsman, my husband. You kept the winter out. You saved us."
"I really did a fantastic job insulating the house this year," Mo Shen agreed, completely lacking in humility as he admired his own handiwork. He had absolutely no idea that a supreme, reality-altering artifact forged from the soul of a regressed Emperor was hanging on the pillar not ten feet away, silently warring against the laws of nature to keep his family alive.
Mo Yuan sat down on his three-legged stool, holding his warm clay cup. He looked at the heavy oak plaque, then looked at his father, who was now animatedly explaining the specific ratio of river clay to straw he had used to achieve this "flawless thermal seal."
The Sovereign of the Nine Heavens, the author of the Heaven-Severing Sword Art, the being whose merest whim could boil oceans, simply took another sip of his hot water.
"Your craftsmanship is unmatched, Father," Mo Yuan said softly, nodding in absolute, supportive agreement. "We are very lucky to have you."