Wuchang and Lai En were crouched in front of a slag heap as tall as a small hill, each holding a little sieve and carefully sifting it for treasure: rainbow crystal.
"Now, this rainbow crystal is good stuff. See this six-sided, seven-colored crystal? Don't let the fact that it's only as thick as a finger fool you — it's the key mineral that carried mankind into the interstellar age."
"To put it plain, a bar-shaped crystal like this is an energy amplifier. Once energy goes in one end, depending on the crystal's length the energy is amplified to an extraordinary degree. It's exactly because of that boost that folded-space engines can even fire up."
"And it's not only engines. These crystals have other uses too. Word is the mages can cast with them — a treasure crystal like this amplifies spell energy just the same."
"Shame is, there's plenty of it coming out of the ground, but the stuff itself is too brittle — one light knock and it shatters. That's why a crystal long enough is so hard to get. You know what? Here on our Huang'e Planet, a rainbow crystal thirty-nine centimeters long once came out of a pit. Damn, that mine owner had the Emperor make him a noble on the spot. Tsk tsk — absolutely badass."
The filthy old man Lai En was plainly a chatterbox. Sitting on the ground, he picked through the tailings for anything the mine had missed while filling Wuchang in on how the world worked. Before long he tipped a whole sieve of slag onto the conveyor belt beside him. From the look of it, that sieve had come up empty.
Wuchang listened to the old man while carefully picking over the slag in his own sieve, and before long he actually turned up something that glittered.
"Hm? Lai En, take a look — is this rainbow crystal?" Wuchang asked, pinching a crystal the size of a fingernail.
"Well now, you lucky little bastard. Not even half an hour in and you're off to a winning start? Not bad, not bad at all. That piece is worth at least one gold coin."
"Huh? Something this small is worth money?"
"What kind of question is that? Small it may be, but small has its uses. Interstellar warships take the big ones, but ordinary land vehicles, naturally they use the small ones. And all the little machines too — anything that runs a folded engine needs rainbow crystal."
Wuchang pinched the little crystal, and all at once everything inside him turned sunny — very sunny. So surviving in this world isn't so hard after all.
Today's good mood was only getting started. When Wuchang went on to find rainbow crystal again and again, the filthy old man Lai En could not stay calm. He even swapped sieves with Wuchang, but no matter how many times they swapped, it was still Wuchang who came away with the most crystals.
Old Lai En was furious. He snatched the sieve right out of Wuchang's hands and shoved his own pile of already-sifted tailings back at him instead.
"Search. I'd like to see you pull a crystal out of that."
The result was unexpected. In a mere twenty minutes, Wuchang actually picked another crystal out of the tailings Lai En had already gone through.
This time the old man had to admit defeat. He squatted there on the ground, practically in tears. "Teach the apprentice, starve the master. Teach the apprentice, starve the master…"
Wuchang felt bad, seeing the old man like that. Wuchang wasn't truly an amnesiac; his memories had merely been scrambled, some important nodes erased. But the skills long since ingrained in him had not been forgotten — above all, the art of meditation.
Seven years of studying dhyana under his master had made his perceptiveness far sharper than an ordinary man's — not just a little sharper. Never mind full concentration; even when Wuchang split his attention two ways, or three, each portion of that perception still outdid a normal person's by a wide margin.
A brimming sieve of tailings might look to others like nothing but a heap of annoying pebbles, but in Wuchang's eyes a subtle field emerged among those tiny stones; he could even feel a kind of energy field running from stone to stone.
The worthless rubble was eliminated at speed, while the stones that struck Wuchang as strange were kept. When the stones left grew fewer and fewer, he gave up on intuition and picked through them with his bare eyes, and soon a bright rainbow crystal was in his hand.
Wuchang looked at the dozen or so rainbow crystals of assorted sizes in his hand, then at the old man squatting on the ground saying nothing. He didn't think it over much; he grabbed four or five at random and pressed them into the old man's hand.
"You taught me plenty. Take this as my thank-you gift for teaching me…"
"A thank-you gift for teaching you?" The filthy old man's eyes lit up all at once. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that in this dirty, low, utterly lawless savage mining district, someone could say those words.
The old man said nothing. He tucked the few pieces of rainbow crystal into his coat and pulled Wuchang back toward the settlement.
"It's almost noon. Let's go eat — I'll stand you a few drinks."
When Lai En walked into the distribution center, he craned his neck like a rooster fresh off a win. He came up to the bleary-eyed Smith Pan and set the rainbow crystals down in front of him.
"Have a look — yours truly struck it rich today." Then he swept his eyes around the room, fixing the surrounding miners with a challenging stare.
Boss Pan got interested too. "Impressive. The filthy old man's luck is good today — five pieces in a single morning. Let me see… not bad, quite good. This is worth at least three gold coins." He turned and called to Eileen, "Put it down for the filthy old man — he's earned three gold coins on this batch."
Three gold coins in one morning had the miners excited. For men like these, three meals of meat and drink a day plus a night on a duck-down bed at the distribution center cost only one gold coin. The filthy old man had earned three days of easy living in a single morning — enough to turn anyone green.
Right then and there, plenty of them demanded the old man treat them to drinks.
"Old Lai En, you've done so well for yourself — so where's that big apprentice of yours? Why not let us get an eyeful?" Some troublemaker in the crowd started egging them on.
Wuchang had, after all, spent seven years studying the Buddhist teachings with his master, and he well knew there was no need to stick one's neck out over everything. He was just about to tell a little lie and change the subject when old Lai En got a wild hair and yanked the cloth bundle out of Wuchang's arms.
"Feast your eyes." He flicked his hand, and seven rainbow crystals dropped onto the alloy bar counter with a crisp, pleasing clatter.
"Whoa!" The crowd gasped on the spot. Who would have thought this amnesiac fool could find so many rainbow crystals in one morning — and the biggest of them was the size of a fingernail.
"Damn, that biggest one has to be worth a gold coin at least, doesn't it?"
"I'd say more than that. Two gold coins wouldn't be a problem."
Boss Pan ignored the talk around him and fixed his eyes on Wuchang. "At the usual price, these crystals of yours come to at least five and a half gold coins. But seeing as it's your first day and you've had luck like this, I can't be stingy."
He turned to Eileen. "Open an account for this guy… oh, right, what's your name?"
"Wuchang."
"Ah, Wuchang. Open an account for Wuchang, and put six gold coins down for his first entry…"
Some joker in the crowd whistled. "Boss Pan's a real sport — a real stand-up guy." A pack of them crowded around the boss, ladling on the flattery.
Just as everyone was noisily demanding that Wuchang stand them a round, the airtight door of the distribution center suddenly opened and a short little man came in coated head to toe in volcanic ash.
"Gopher Pike, how'd you do today? Back by noon — that's not like you at all."
Wuchang knew the fellow called Pike as well. He was said to be the best miner in the B1313 pit: short in build but unbelievably nimble, darting through the underground caves like they were his own home. He was the pit's biggest earner.
Gopher Pike's little eyes glared at Wuchang. He walked up to the bar, ordered a drink, downed it, and then spoke to Boss Pan with a taunting edge.
"I've been listening for a while now. Some new kid picks a few scraps of tailings and you're all drooling over it — have some self-respect." With that, he pulled a thick white foam rod out of his coat.
The miners knew their goods. One look at that solid foam and they knew there was treasure inside.
"How long is it? Four centimeters?"
Pike ignored them, only carefully peeling off that layer of springy solid foam with a pair of pliers. In a moment, a rainbow crystal a full five centimeters long appeared before everyone's eyes.
"Hell, that's gorgeous — five whole centimeters?"
"Damn, near-orbit warships use exactly that standard. That Pike kid has struck it rich."
"Hush, let's see what price Boss Pan names."
Smith Pan got excited too; he hadn't seen goods this good in over half a month. He thought it over carefully for a good long while before he spoke. "I'll round it up for you — three hundred gold coins. Generous enough, isn't it…"
The crowd blew up like a pot. Three hundred gold coins was a family of three's yearly expenses, and Gopher Pike had earned it in one morning. Red-eye set in right then; several men drained their glasses in a single gulp, pulled on their work clothes, and headed down the pit.
That was when the filthy old man Lai En whispered to Wuchang, "This Gopher Pike, his dream his whole life is to marry Eileen and run this distribution center with her. You're the one Eileen dragged in, so he's jealous."
Sure enough, Pike turned and started wagging his tail at Eileen. "Eileen, hold on to this money for me — we'll spend it together later…"
Wuchang had no time to admire the lovebirds. He hurried off with a plate of roast meat and black bread and ate it beside his own cot. Apart from Lai En pouring him two drinks, nobody else showed much interest in him.
The food on his plate was nearly finished when the airtight door opened again. This time it wasn't a familiar-faced miner who came in, but a hot blonde beauty — with four bodyguards trailing her.
Wuchang couldn't say for sure whether this woman counted as a beauty — the freckles on her face and that coarse skin were awfully conspicuous — but one thing he was sure of: in this mining district, she was definitely the number one beauty. The miners' breathing, visibly growing heavier, and the heat in their eyes said it all.
The woman was clearly used to this atmosphere; being fawned over by a whole room must feel fine indeed. She never even noticed the murderous look in Eileen's eyes.
"Ugh, how is this place so filthy? Look at these alloy walls, broken down like this — the circuit boards are showing."
"And the viewing window — still the oldest model. Are you people really this broke?"
"Tsk tsk, the lighting system is a full thirty percent destroyed and you still haven't fixed it."
As if the hall were hers to wander, the woman paced back and forth, her long legs in a leather miniskirt and stockings drawing the eyes of every animal in the room.
"Blood Rose! What are you doing here making trouble? You're not welcome — get out!" Eileen stood up and shouted at the woman.
The woman called Blood Rose paid no mind to Ailin's scolding. Shamelessly she kept roaming the room, still picking at faults, and at last plopped herself down beside Boss Pan and spoke, dripping with coy charm.
"Boss Pan is a sensible man. The anti-crime sweep in Huang'e City is right around the corner — I'm merely making some preparations in advance for the handover." At that, Blood Rose looked at Ailin with utter contempt.
"Little Sister Eileen shouldn't have such a temper either. Sell me the distribution center now and you still walk away with some money. But if the mine inspector confiscates this rundown shop of yours, you'll have nothing at all…"
Ah! Now Wuchang understood. Isn't this just robbery in broad daylight? Using the muscle of the lawful side to force a buyout of someone else's assets — that anti-crime business was probably nothing but an excuse.
Wuchang lowered his head; he had no intention of sticking his neck out now. But trouble comes looking for you whether you go looking for it or not: the moment Wuchang swallowed his last bite of roast meat, Blood Rose's spearhead swung around and pointed at him.
"No unregistered residents? No smuggled immigrants? You think I'm an idiot? That big fellow over in the corner — go on, all of you, who is he? How come I don't know him?"