Brother Mad Dog's reputation wasn't blown up out of nothing — he'd built that name more than ten years ago, back when he was just a young errand boy in the black market.
Nobody knew what had gotten into the Mine Supervisor back then; the man had decided to wipe out the black market, and that particular Mine Supervisor was the strongest of Huang'e City's three big bosses, with even part of the Guard taking orders from him. Bursting with confidence, he overrode every objection, ignored the Governor's warnings and the Guard Captain's alike, and insisted on going to war with the smugglers.
The Guard was a professional army, after all. Once they set their minds to crushing the black market, the few guns the smuggler merchants had were no resistance at all. After that one raid, a full hundred black-market operators and smugglers were locked in the fire prison, and every last asset in the black market was confiscated.
After that clash, the furious smuggler merchants put out word: whoever killed that Mine Supervisor, they would make him the underworld boss of Huang'e City.
Nobody was a fool. The higher the bounty, the harder the job — and one of Huang'e City's three big bosses was not going to be easy to kill.
But one errand boy who had just lost his job refused to believe in impossibilities. This black-market errand boy actually dug up, through intelligence channels, the Mine Supervisor's taste for men. And to get close to him, the boy went and worked in a brothel as a rent boy for three solid months.
A young man with a perfectly healthy sexual orientation, willing to whore himself out for three months just to reach his goal — if that isn't a madman, what is?
Having used his body to get close, the errand boy finished the Mine Supervisor off in bed — and then offered no resistance at all as the Guard threw him into the fire prison underground to await execution.
The boy's deed stunned every smuggler in the whole Horsehead Star Ring. They were utterly won over; they pooled their resources, actually worked their way to Dao Tuo in Fallen Star, and pleaded with mountains of money for Dao Tuo to step in and save him.
The Pirate King Dao Zhi, moved by the boy's sheer madness, really did pull a letter of pardon out of Three Seas Star. From that day on, Brother Mad Dog became the underworld boss of Huang'e City; no matter how the official three big bosses came and went, Brother Mad Dog's position never shifted.
But today Brother Mad Dog was acting strangely. Why would the great Brother Mad Dog play tour guide for a miner he'd never seen before — and with such respectful smiles, at that? What was going on? Had Huang'e's volcano clouds stopped rolling today or something?
Brother Mad Dog's strange behavior left every merchant dumbfounded, and it made that miner look mysterious besides. Several shops didn't dare open their mouths to fleece anyone; whatever the miner bought, he got the lowest price.
"Wuchang, what else do you need? Short on money? If you are, just say so — Brother Mad Dog will front you..."
"I'm not short, really I'm not. I still have money on me. Just having Brother Mad Dog show me the way is already more than I can take in..."
"Come on, what's with the politeness? I've heard all about what you did — going head to head with Coyote Seven single-handed right up to now. You're a real man, that's what you are..."
"Don't, please — praise me any more and I'll die of shame. Oh, by the way, do you know which shop in the black market pays the best for rainbow crystal?"
Huang'e City's black market was really just one wide mine tunnel converted for the purpose: people had carved rooms out along it, one after another, and used them as storefronts. Here you could buy and sell crystal freely, and also pick up every kind of luxury or drug, plus weapons of all sorts, precision parts included.
The list of parts the dirty old man Lane needed had already been handed to the biggest parts dealer here. After paying a thousand rainbow coins at cost, the shopkeeper promised to deliver the goods to their door.
He needed a few weapons for self-defense, too. Two hundred rainbow coins flung down bought him a good half truckload of high-powered standard-issue arms.
And all sorts of smuggled food — canned fruit from the agricultural planets, lollipops in every color of the rainbow. Wuchang bought plenty of those as well, so A Yun could hand them out to the children later.
The feeling of having money really was wonderful. In one hour Wuchang burned through more than two thousand rainbow coins, and by the end even Mad Dog felt the sting for him.
"You spend like a madman. Lollipops, seriously? Since when do you have a sweet tooth?"
Wuchang scratched his head. He had to admit it was a bit extravagant, so in the end he decided to unload a few crystals in the black market to tide himself over.
"If you want to move crystal, you'd best go to Boss Jiang. He's the top man among all the smugglers on Huang'e — a loyal sort, generous to a fault. But he has his rules: low-grade goods, Boss Jiang won't even glance at. Though for your sake, Wuchang, I doubt Boss Jiang will turn you down..."
Boss Jiang's place wasn't down in the pitch-black tunnels; the man had a gorgeous mansion in the southwest corner of Huang'e City. When Wuchang walked into the courtyard, what filled his eyes was a reinforced-glass greenhouse — and inside it, vegetables and fruit growing in great quantities.
Staring at the bright red tomatoes and the emerald-green melons, one after another, in the greenhouse, Wuchang's eyes went fixed and round. He never would have imagined he could see such living plants on Huang'e. That flood of rich color washed over his soul and scoured it clean.
"Oh, that's good. Good from head to toe." Wuchang said it without thinking.
"Haha, since you like it, come in and have a look. You can eat anything you want in the greenhouse." The voice came with the round-faced boss himself — the very man who had stood so deferentially at Minghe's side.
Boss Jiang led Wuchang and Brother Mad Dog into the greenhouse. Breathing in the fresh green scent the plants gave off, Wuchang was so moved he nearly wept; he had come from Earth, a world bursting with life, and going so long without seeing green had nearly driven him out of his mind.
Wuchang's emotion lasted only a moment. After finishing one tomato with something close to reverence, he finally got down to business.
"I have some rainbow crystal here in fine condition. I'd like Boss Jiang to appraise it for me. On all of Huang'e, I figure you're the only one who can offer a good price."
When Wuchang pulled the fifteen-centimeter foam rod out of the miner's pack on his back, both Boss Jiang's and Mad Dog's eyes went wide.
"Fifteen centimeters? That's frigate-grade crystal. You truly live up to the name Ghost Wuchang," Boss Jiang said with feeling, stroking the foam-wrapped rod. "Good thing you came straight to me — anyone else would have refused your goods. The black market has its rules too, you know. Military-grade crystal like this? Whoever dares touch it is asking to die..."
"Ah!" Wuchang cried out in surprise, his heart flip-flopping. He thought to himself, This is bad. If Boss Jiang is the only one who dares take this stuff, he's bound to lowball me, isn't he?
Wuchang silently counted his blessings. Good thing I didn't bring out that twenty-one-centimeter crystal I just mined. Good thing I tested the water with this fifteen-centimeter one first. If I'd tipped my whole hand at once, I'd really have lost out.
Wuchang knew that once treasure was exposed to the light, it had to be sold as fast as possible, before it brought trouble down on him. Now, even if Boss Jiang did lowball him, there was nothing he could do about it — he already had enemies on every side and couldn't afford another. And if these people wanted to smuggle themselves off-world, they still needed Boss Jiang's help.
Boss Jiang seemed to see right through him. Smiling, he said, "A fifteen-centimeter crystal — the official buying price is two hundred rainbow coins, the equivalent of twenty thousand gold coins. And the black market's rule has always been double the official price. So that makes four hundred rainbow coins..."
Wuchang understood at once: so forty thousand gold coins was Boss Jiang's floor. He didn't haggle. Instead he dug eight more rainbow crystals out of his pack and piled them all on the table.
"These crystals run from eight centimeters at the longest down to five at the shortest. I'll sell them all together — Boss Jiang can set the price as he sees fit. You know my situation; without you, I'm afraid no one would dare take my goods." Having thought it through, Wuchang decided to play the hard-luck card: since he couldn't fight it, he'd act pitiful and hope the man would grant him a little more.
Boss Jiang looked over the treasures on the table and nodded. "At the usual rates, I'd offer five hundred rainbow coins for these at most. But today..." He broke off and suddenly stood up. "Excuse me a moment, both of you. Wait a few minutes." Then he turned and walked out.
Wuchang looked at Brother Mad Dog beside him, baffled, but Brother Mad Dog was busy gnawing on a melon and paid him no attention at all.
Wuchang waited a full ten minutes in mounting unease, and when Boss Jiang came back, his first words knocked Wuchang senseless.
"One price: eight thousand rainbow coins. Is that enough?"
Pfft — the melon pulp in Mad Dog's mouth sprayed across the floor. The great underworld boss, Brother Mad Dog, was staring at Boss Jiang like an idiot.
"My god, not since I was old enough to remember have I seen a buying price that high! Eight hundred thousand gold coins — you're quoting Fallen Star prices!"
"That's right, these are Fallen Star prices. From the place of origin to Fallen Star, a twentyfold profit on rainbow crystal is perfectly normal. I admire you, Brother Wuchang. I won't earn a single coin on this deal — I'm working for you for free..."
Now Wuchang was the one dumbstruck. He'd taken a million gold coins from Coyote Seven, and that had been bought with his life; this merchant across from him had just tossed him eight hundred thousand with one offhand sentence. How rich were these smugglers, really?
Wuchang stood, brought his fists together in the fist-and-palm salute — the most common courtesy among the greenwood heroes of Earth — and said, "Great kindness needs no thanks. If there's ever anything you need from Wuchang, I'll repay your kindness with this life of mine."
That archaic courtesy startled one person in the house — Minghe, who had been hidden behind the one-way window all along. He never in his wildest dreams would have imagined Wuchang using the fist-and-palm salute that only the Imperial Guard of Dao Zhi used. Where on earth had he learned such a thing? Could the fellow have some connection to Fallen Star?
At the thought, Minghe straightened his clothes and cap and, gravely, through that one-way glass, returned Wuchang a standard fist-and-palm salute.
"Little brother, you surprise me more and more."
While Boss Jiang kept Wuchang there to taste pure, natural vegetables, in the secret base back in the slums, the dirty old man Lane had finally finished repairing the Hercules war armor.
"Lucky it's the most primitive Hercules series. If it were the higher-grade Raider series, there'd be no fixing it at all with the low-grade parts on hand."
Boss Pan gazed at the armor spread across the floor, a flood of feelings in his chest. "What is your real identity, anyway? How do you know how to repair armor this ancient? The Hercules series is tens of thousands of years old, and you can fix it?"
Pan wasn't the only one moved. Beside him, Wild Bull had been staring at the armor with his eyes shining for a good while. "Let me try it — come on, let me try..."
Before he could finish, Lane smacked him on the back of the head. "Are you an idiot? Without the physique of a fourth-dan martial artist as a baseline, there's no way you could ever pilot a Hercules series. Never mind anything else — the power of the magic film lining the inside of that armor alone would wreck every muscle and nerve in your body..."
Just as Lane was dressing Wild Bull down, the window overhead burst apart with a crash, and agile figures came pouring in through the broken frame.
"Everybody on the floor! You're under arrest!"