"Ye Tian! Right now I want an explanation from you — why are these trash-grade scumbags saying you gave the order to shoot? Answer me..." Furious, Gu Bai jammed a finger against Ye Tian's nose and let loose with a roar.
Ye Tian stood at attention with impeccable military precision. Gu Bai, standing before him, was called a centurion, but that was merely an honorific inherited from ancient tradition within the Imperial Guard; his actual rank was already colonel. Ye Tian might be Guard Captain of Huang'e, but his rank was only that of captain — which showed just how low Huang'e's administrative grade really was.
"Reporting to the commander, I never issued any order to set an ambush or to open fire. On my honor as a soldier of many years, I absolutely never gave such an order..."
By then Coyote Seven was frantic too; with life and death on the line, he no longer had the spare fear for Ye Tian. "He's lying! General, look — that's Ye Tian's order on Big Fatty and Little Fatty's terminals. It never went through me at all, it was sent straight to them..."
Gu Bai bent his head and read the brief messages on the two terminals, then checked them against Ye Tian's number segment. Sure enough, they had been sent from Ye Tian's number.
"Fuck. You're Huang'e's Guard Captain — I've got no authority to try you. But you, kid, have made me suspicious." With that, Gu Bai turned to the four personal guards of the Imperial Guard. "You four, keep him under watch for me. Anything unusual, report it to me."
Ye Tian's face was all grief and indignation. "You can't do this to me. I've risked my life at the front. I've served His Majesty with loyalty. I'm a war hero of the Horsehead Star Ring — you have no right to confine me..."
Gu Bai had no interest in arguing it out with him. He simply waved a hand. "Get out. I'm not confining you — you can still command your men. But I don't trust you, so I'm keeping an eye on you. What are you going to do about it? Now get the hell out of my sight..."
Once Ye Tian was chased off, Gu Bai jabbed a finger at Coyote Seven and his men, spitting with anger. "Put all these useless pieces of garbage in a suicide squad. Send them wherever the mission's most dangerous. Put the whole lot under military control..."
At that, Coyote Seven's legs went weak and he dropped to the ground, eyes swimming with tears. But just then the two fatties stupidly shuffled over. "Boss, what's military control mean? Does that make us soldiers? Are they going to give us war armor?"
Before the two idiots could finish, Coyote Seven leapt up and gave their heads a sound beating. "Stupid pigs! Stupid pigs! Why did you act without clearing it with me first? You've gotten me killed! You and that mother of yours, a whole family of disaster-bringers..." Well, well — so Coyote Seven had known about Blood Rose's little secret all along.
While the Pillar Forest was in that chaos, far to the south in the great ocean, on a lonely, unremarkable little island, Wuchang lit four miner's lamps and sat keeping warm together with Princess Ye Mei.
Ye Mei chewed on a dry strip of meat, stared at the darkness in front of her, and glumly tossed pebbles at the sea surface out of boredom.
"Nights on Huang'e are so boring, and the ocean's pitch-black too. I wanted to fish up a dreadbeast, but it's been ages — how come I haven't seen a single one?"
Wuchang shot her a look. "Dreadbeasts live in the deep sea. Nobody sees them easily. This is the shallows. Stop hoping."
Ye Mei bit off another chunk of dried meat, then in a fury flung the unchewable jerky into the sea. "I want a seafood feast! I want blueback fish sashimi! You go catch some for me — go on, go!" With that, the woman shoved Wuchang hard, as if he were her servant.
"What the hell's wrong with you? How am I supposed to fish at night? I'm not your slave. Get lost."
"Oh-ho? You dare tell me to get lost? You bastard, do you even know who I am?"
"Fuck, of course I know who you are. But right now you're my hostage, so get a clue, would you?"
"Ah... are you a dog? What kind of person bites people?"
Wuchang was going out of his mind. This was the first hostage he'd ever met with zero sense of her situation — she'd actually opened her mouth and bitten him. Did princesses not take etiquette courses? Wasn't a princess supposed to quietly accept the people's adoration and pampering?
The two of them fought for a solid hour, and in the end it was Wuchang who lost. Three separate times he had resolved to give her a good beating, but he simply could not bring himself to do it.
Finally, worn out from all the fuss, Ye Mei leaned back against a rock, panting, gazing at the faint red glow emerging in the sky — and suddenly struck up a conversation with Wuchang.
"Hey, dumb boy. Have you figured out what to do next?"
Wuchang rubbed his aching arm and said sourly, "Obviously I'm going to trade you, my hostage, for my friends. Isn't that what kidnapping is for?"
"Then how about you tell me about it? Tell me what happened to you, and the mess you're in now. Maybe I can even help you." Under the lamplight, Ye Mei's shining eyes glinted and flickered.
Wuchang didn't know what wire had crossed in his head, but he actually repeated his whole story from start to finish. Ye Mei listened carefully, but her expression grew graver and graver.
"You're too naive. You really think you'll finish the trade without a hitch? Don't forget, among the people you're taking along there are old folks and women — even children six or seven years old. Where exactly do you think you can run to?"
"I can let slip a bit of information. What you're counting on is nothing more than that Stag transport of the black-market merchants. Let me tell you — a single soldier could shoot down a broken-down transport ship like that."
"And another thing — right behind Huang'e City's main volcano, there are a hundred twelve-barreled Earth-Moon missiles. How many of those do you think that Stag could take?"
Ye Mei's face was now utterly serious. She sketched out on the ground for Wuchang every weapons emplacement on Huang'e, including the warship deployments in space, going on and on until Wuchang was sunk in despair.
"And up in space — don't you know I came here on an escort ship? Do you know how powerful my Flying Maiden's combat capability is? What makes you think that broken transport of yours could break through my defenses?"
"Ah, you're thinking of those little escape pods. True, escape pods really are hard to intercept. But I've already placed the surrounding space under electromagnetic control. No black-market transport can fold-space in here. You'll all most likely slowly turn into freeze-dried corpses in space..."
The scenario Ye Mei painted was one Wuchang didn't even dare imagine. He sat with his head down, dejected, for over ten minutes — then suddenly raised his head with a smile. "I'm a man who's died once already. I'm not afraid of death at all. Since you've painted such a hopeless ending for me, then I won't dodge it either. Worst case, I die together with my friends... It's just a shame that this magnificent age of the cosmos — I won't have the luck to see it with my own eyes."
"In life, be a hero among men; in death, be a king among ghosts. If you think you can make me, Wuchang, die a sniveling, pathetic death, you're dreaming..."
Wuchang's fervor swept Ye Mei up in it. The woman stared at him in astonishment and blurted out, "Another one? You've quoted another ancient saying I've never heard before. Who on earth were you before you lost your memory?"
Wuchang didn't answer her, and Ye Mei didn't press. She suddenly stood up and clapped him on the shoulder just like a man. "I'm partial to you, so I'm going to give you a hand..."
"Help me?" Wuchang looked up at the woman brimming with confidence. "Are you going to use your princess status to force Ye Tian into letting them go? Why would you do that for me?"
Ye Mei twisted her lips. "Tsk. How could I knowingly break the law? I'm the future empress who's going to inherit the throne — I'm not about to add a stain to my record. If I dared use my authority to let you all go, it wouldn't take three days before those ministers on Three Seas Star would be impeaching me for all they're worth."
"Then what do you plan to do?" Wuchang asked, crestfallen.
"Simple. We break into the prison."
Pfft — Wuchang choked on the water he'd been drinking and sprayed all of it back out. Hell, and that doesn't count as a stain? She's already talking about breaking into a prison — just sit tight and wait for that impeachment.
Just as Wuchang and that mad princess were discussing their grand prison-break plan, an odd public mail went out to every last person's terminal on Huang'e.
The mail held a single sentence — "Three days from now, exchange of persons in the Pillar Forest" — and the signature at the bottom was Ye Tian's name.
Ye Tian knew Wuchang would be sure to receive it, and he trusted that Wuchang would certainly choose to make the exchange. Ye Tian also knew it was highly improper of him to trade a lowly miner for the princess; once the exchange was done, there would likely be countless people with ulterior motives coming to impeach him.
But there was no way back. Ye Tian could only see to the princess's safety first. He believed that so long as the princess witnessed his merit, even if his career took a small knock, it wouldn't stay knocked for long.
Ye Tian had sent his mail over a public channel; there was no way Wuchang could miss it. But when he saw the mail, he was holding Princess Ye Mei in his arms, swimming through freezing seawater.
Had Ye Tian — who secretly pined for the princess — seen this scene, he would have gone raving mad: Wuchang and Ye Mei, soaked to the bone, wrapped in a cloak, embracing as they swam through the sea. And Ye Mei's clothes were thin, flimsy things to begin with; soaked through, she was practically on full display.
"Is this cloak of yours even going to work? I've never heard of a cloak that can hide you from satellites," Wuchang said, one arm around Ye Mei, swimming for all he was worth.
"Quit yapping. What would an amnesiac like you know? This cloak has saved my life twice. With it on, any radar, infrared, shortwave — any detection equipment in the world — is useless..."
"With just the two of us trying to break in, we have to get past the eyes in the sky. Right now nobody would expect us to go on the offensive. The underground base there is bound to be the weakest spot in their defense. If Ye Tian goes left, we go right — catch him completely off guard..."
"Oh, I get it. All warfare is based on deception — that I know," Wuchang said quietly. "All right. I hope your idea works." When it came to high technology, Wuchang was a complete, ignorant idiot; everything could only depend on Ye Mei.
Abandoning the land vehicle for swimming was certainly not fast. It took them a full two hours to set foot on the glassy land along the shoreline.
"Come on, let's take the mine tunnels. Let that fool Ye Tian slowly set up his exchange — this time we'll strike straight into his lair." The excited Ye Mei hopped up onto Wuchang's back, pointed a hand at the dark, gaping mouth of the sewer ahead, and spoke.
"Now carry me properly. Let's go!"