It was on Huang'e that the nickname Ghost Wuchang first caught on. Never had Wuchang imagined that one day it would spread across the whole universe and even become the faith of countless people; for now he just found the nickname rather ridiculous.
After the glare of the ship cannon's attack slowly faded, the squad, gathered atop a stone pillar, stared at the hollow in the clouds on the northern horizon and nervously argued over their next move.
North was out of the question for the time being. Nearly everyone in the party was wounded, and they had to find somewhere safe to rest and recover. But the way things stood, aside from cannibal territory being the safest place around, everywhere else was dangerous. None of them knew why the cannibals hadn't hurt them, but one thing was certain: the goodwill the cannibals had shown them was real.
Just as everyone was about to reach an agreement, the volcanic clouds overhead suddenly produced another bizarre electrical discharge, strange flashes of light flickering through the cloud layer.
"What's going on? Another cannon strike? Has the Governor lost his mind?" Lane was the first on his feet.
Sure enough, when everyone looked back up at the horizon, an even bigger hollow had opened in the southern sky — twice the size of the first one.
"Madness. Madness. Am I the one who's gone mad, or is Governor Ye Fei? Are light-energy shells free now?" Boss Pan simply could not make sense of it.
But whether they understood it or not, nothing could stop the light-energy ship cannon from firing. The holy white pillar of light fell once more — this time on the beach more than forty kilometers to the south.
Wuchang hadn't expected the strike to be linear. The beam was like a brush in a god's hand, carefully tracing the line of the coastline. Everyone watched as it redrew the southern shore, and every one of them was certain that once that brush had passed over it, not a single cannibal would be left on the beach due south of Huang'e City.
Each shot could scour roughly a hundred kilometers of coastline. Today the cannon had fired nine times, which meant that, setting aside the one shot to the north, a full eight hundred kilometers of the southern coastline had been destroyed.
The bombardment lasted a whole hour. When the pillar of light finally stopped, filthy old Lane dropped to his knees on the stone pillar, lips trembling. "There's a ghost in this. There's a fucking ghost. Something big is going to happen in Huang'e City. Governor Ye Fei has definitely gone mad..."
No one questioned Lane's judgment. Nine shots — the light-energy shells alone had cost 6,400 rainbow coins, which came to 640,000 gold coins, a number people could not even picture. That was a full quarter's tax revenue for Huang'e. In less than an hour, Governor Ye Fei had burned through an entire planet's quarterly tax income.
"Six hundred forty thousand gold coins is just the cost price. Figure it by the numbers that actually go on the books and it has to double. I know Ye Fei too well — there's no way that bastard doesn't skim a little off the top..."
"But I really can't figure it out. A cautious man like him shouldn't be embezzling this blatantly. Twelve hundred thousand gold coins gone in a single hour — isn't he afraid the capital star ring's Anti-Corruption Bureau will notice?"
Boss Pan's question had no answer. It wasn't just their squad that was bewildered; the whole of Huang'e City, mining districts included, was struck dumb.
The ship cannon's power was so great that Huang'e City, a hundred kilometers to the north, had seen it all perfectly clearly. Nobody knew what had gotten into the Governor today — a cannon that in past years couldn't be fired even once in twelve months, so how had it suddenly fired nine times in a row?
Mine Supervisor Roda and Coyote Seven were drinking on a sealed observation deck in a bar. Through the reinforced glass beside them the scenery of Huang'e City lay spread out for the taking — though there wasn't much worth looking at. If you enjoyed viewing hellish landscapes, this really was an excellent spot.
The two of them were idly pointing out the distant lava falls to each other when the cannon fire startled them both.
"Firing? What's this about? Has the Governor got nothing better to do? Or is Ye Tian rounding up cannibals again?" Roda drained a glass of wine and said indignantly. "These members of the Ye imperial clan are a pack of lunatics, completely unreasonable. A few days ago Ye Tian turned down the money I gave him, and today the two of them have nothing better to do than play with the cannon."
Roda could get away with the occasional complaint about the Governor and the Guard Captain, but Coyote Seven absolutely dared not — not only because of the gap in rank, but because Ye Fei and Ye Tian were both peripheral members of the imperial clan, and in the Horsehead Star Ring anyone surnamed Ye was always best left alone, because it was the imperial clan's name.
"Ah, Captain Ye is so dedicated. It's precisely because of his tireless hunting of cannibals that Huang'e City hasn't been troubled by them for decades..."
"Just drink. Save the flattery, they can't hear you." Roda had no patience for Seven's obsequious act.
At first the two took it for an interlude, but moments later they were astonished to see the cannon firing again on the southern horizon — and this time eight shots in succession.
"God, something's going to happen. Something is definitely going to happen. Ye Fei and Ye Tian are hiding something from us." Roda leapt up, pacing back and forth across the room, scratching at his ears and cheeks in his agitation.
"What is it, then? What's the big deal? What could make a miser like Ye Fei fire nine shots in a row? What is he trying to do?" Just as Roda was so frantic he wanted to tear the fat off his own body, the portable terminal on his wrist lit up — an email had come through.
Roda opened it, and his eyes lit up at once; he slammed his right hand on the table. "Despicable, truly despicable. You two bastards, hogging the whole thing for yourselves. Don't think I won't curse you out just because your surname is Ye..."
"Bastards. You two are bastards..."
Seven felt for the Mine Supervisor's arm and caught hold of it. "Chief, don't scare me like that. What on earth is it? Just tell me straight."
Mine Supervisor Roda suddenly seized Seven's arm, his face savage. "I don't care what method you use — even if you have to fill the pit with men's lives — you will find me a rainbow crystal over ten centimeters long within one month. It's mandatory. This is a matter of life and death."
"Huh?" Seven looked ready to burst into tears. "Ten centimeters? You want my life?"
Cry he well might. Rainbow crystal was an incredibly delicate thing — anything over five centimeters could already be fitted to an orbital warship, and as for ten centimeters, that was enough to build the space-folding engine made specially for frigates.
"Ten centimeters! Chief, you graduated from the Imperial University too, you know this stuff isn't just there whenever you want it..."
Before Seven could finish, Roda grabbed him by the collar and whispered, "Do you realize that the chance to change your whole life is right in front of you? One month from now. All this strange behavior from Ye Fei and Ye Tian these past days is groundwork for this opportunity."
"Don't ask me. Telling you now won't help you in the slightest. What you have to do is use every method at your disposal to get me that crystal. And don't say I didn't warn you — if we grab this chance, you and I might both move up a step and get off this disgusting planet."
In the end Mine Supervisor Roda never told Seven the secret he was sitting on, but Seven didn't doubt a word of it — after all, Mine Supervisor Roda had an uncle serving as an official on Three Seas Star, the capital, and a status like that was beyond anything Seven could imagine.
Seven did not dare drag his feet over Roda's order. He immediately gathered his men, got into the land vehicles and flew off toward the mining district. How Seven browbeat the miners down the shafts hardly mattered; given his intelligence and his temperament, he probably wouldn't bother with carrots and sticks — he'd simply swing the stick, as violently and directly as possible.
Nine straight bombardments from the orbital warship really did throw Huang'e City into enormous chaos. Countless citizens poured into the streets to gaze at the southern sky, everyone whispering and murmuring to one another.
In all that chaos, the most excited people were A Yun and his bunch of pickpockets. Three or four kids ran in packs, weaving through the crowd, and within a short while the little gang had cleaned up nicely.
In a dark alley, four small figures were dividing the take.
"A Yun, you ought to take the biggest share of this. Otherwise your mom's going to beat you again."
"Yeah, A Yun. Your mom smokes three tins of Phantom Mist a day — that's thirty gold coins. How are you supposed to keep that up?"
"What kind of mother is that? If A Yun doesn't bring home thirty gold coins she beats him half to death. Why doesn't she ever talk about how she abandoned A Yun back then?"
The two friends were working themselves up over A Yun's lot, but A Yun said nothing. Keeping him company in his silence was a small boy everyone called A Liang.
A Liang had stayed quiet the whole time. Only after the two chattering kids had split the money and left did he quietly say to A Yun, "You know I don't need much money. I'll keep a bit for food and you can have the rest." With that, A Liang pushed the gold coins in his hand into A Yun's arms.
How could A Yun take his money? Giving him the largest share was already the others looking out for him; if he still wasn't satisfied and took what was owed to A Liang, that would be a truly rotten thing to do.
In the end A Liang couldn't wear down A Yun's refusal, and could only leave with his own gold coins. But on his way out he said to A Yun, his face forlorn, "Whenever you need money, you can come to me."
A Yun watched A Liang walk away, puzzled. He thought about it for a while, couldn't work anything out, and finally turned and left. When he got back to the Ration Center of Mining District A332, he happened to find his mother leaning against the bar, drinking.
"Fuck, you think the great Sister Jing would owe you for a few drinks? My son brings back dozens of gold coins any day he goes out. Don't you go looking down on people." The heavily made-up woman in her skimpy clothes argued with the attendant, and in no time the attendant gave up and could only accept the fact that she was running a tab.
The woman had barely taken a few sips before she spotted A Yun huddled in the corner by the wall. "Oh, my son, why don't you come over here? Why are you hiding from me?" She stood and pulled A Yun into an embrace, kissing and fussing over him, but to outsiders the smile of this woman called Sister Jing was far too fake — the powder was flaking off her face.
Sure enough, once Sister Jing fished the money pouch off A Yun and opened it, that loving expression vanished entirely.
"You lazy good-for-nothing. Out all day, and this is all you bring back? What is this supposed to buy?" Then, smack, she dealt him a hard slap across the face.
"What use was giving birth to a piece of trash like you? You only stole twenty-two gold coins for me — how am I supposed to live? What's this supposed to cover? Lazybones. Swine..." Sister Jing cursed and kicked A Yun as she railed at him.
A Yun was only thirteen this year, still small and frail, and under his mother's kicks he soon curled up beneath the bar, drawn in like a dog too frightened to fight back.
Sister Jing was probably starting to crave a hit, because her blows grew crueler and crueler; her sharp leather boots lashed out at A Yun blindly, tearing several gashes and soaking the front of his clothes with blood.
"Stop it!" At that moment a young voice rang out from the airlock door, and they turned to see A Yun's friends, A Liang and the others.
"You crazy woman, if you dare hit A Yun again, I'll fight you to the death!" A Liang planted himself in front of A Yun like a little tiger cub, and his ferocity actually made Sister Jing take a step back.