The black snow kept falling, the thugs kept swinging, Pike kept weeping, and Wuchang kept shivering. The scene looked cruel enough — but to Wuchang it really wasn't much of anything.
In his previous life he had been a thief and a bandit, and had even spent a few years as a mercenary under hellish training. A man like him had been drilled to withstand interrogation, and couldn't care less about blows of that intensity; on the other hand, men of that sort had unusually mature heads on their shoulders, and would never throw their lives away in a fit of bravado for the sake of something called face.
Most important of all were the seven years he had spent studying Chan under the Chan master Qili, which had made his emotions remarkably steady and taught him exactly when to advance and when to give ground. In a chaotic situation a man must never act on feeling; you solve the mess in front of you with the calmest mind you can muster.
Wuchang's calculation worked. The beating lasted less than five minutes before the thugs began to find it boring. Bullying people was satisfying, sure, but bullying someone who lay there like a puddle of mud without the slightest reaction was another matter entirely.
Pounding away at a puddle of mud just wasn't any fun.
Just as the thugs shook out their hands and turned to leave, a cold voice came from the edge of the pit: "Friend, you sure can play dumb. Only someone out of the ordinary could pull off a self-torture act like that..."
Before the words were even finished, Wuchang felt a killing intent lock onto him, and the voice was growing steadily closer — whoever was speaking was definitely charging at him at high speed.
"Adu? It's Poison Wasp Adu..." Pike's shout came with a gust of wind that shot straight at Wuchang where he lay on the ground.
Wuchang, armed with the secret art of Dragon-Tiger Rush, reacted with uncanny speed. Instead of leaping straight up, he kicked hard off the alloy plate, sliding his whole body a meter sideways, then kipped up onto his feet.
At the very instant his body slid clear, an iron boot came down with a whistle of air on the spot where he had just been lying, the savage force splitting the rock of the pit floor.
What came charging in was a wiry little man in black, his face covered by a mask airbrushed with the image of a wasp, cold eyes stabbing at Wuchang.
"Heh. So I wasn't wrong after all. Friend, with reflexes like that you're definitely a trained fighter. These useless bastards couldn't touch you. You were faking it, weren't you?"
"Friend," Wuchang said calmly, "there's no grudge between us. Why attack me?"
"Heh. Why? This is the abandoned mining zone of Huang'e. What kind of why do you expect to find here? Because I damn well feel like it." With that, a fist drove straight at Wuchang's face.
Because I damn well feel like it. Now that was a fine reason. Wuchang had gotten another taste of the order that ruled the abandoned mining zone. No wonder people called this planet Huang'e — what was foul here wasn't only the environment, but men's hearts.
This time Wuchang couldn't play dumb any longer. The exquisite moves of Dragon-Tiger Rush poured out one after another, and the two figures quickly became tangled together in the pit.
"Out of my way!" Poison Wasp Adu sent a thug who was in his path flying with a punch, and the dagger hidden in his sleeve cut a cold gleam straight at the artery in Wuchang's neck.
Wuchang's reaction was fast as lightning. Before the dagger could land, a Triple Nail Fist had already struck Adu in the armpit.
The Nail Fist, as the name suggests, gathers the strength of the whole body into a single point and drives it into an enemy's body like a nail. The Triple Nail Fist is more formidable still: three punches in an instant, every ounce of their force hammered into one spot, producing a thrusting effect in the shortest possible time.
The Triple Nail Fist was already the highest-level move among the Dragon-Tiger Rush techniques Wuchang had mastered. As for the two legendary levels beyond it, Tiger Break and Dragon Coil, Wuchang had only ever seen his master use them — he was nowhere near that standard yet.
But this was enough. Adu had plainly never seen such exquisite technique; after the Nail Fist struck his armpit three times in a row, the man staggered back three steps, thump, thump, thump, his arm hanging as if it had been broken.
"Good, good, good — that's more like it. To think a martial artist who's made it into the dan ranks like me can't beat you. You've been hiding yourself deep, kid." Adu, breathing hard, fixed his eyes on Wuchang, the killing intent coming off him thicker and thicker.
Wuchang stared back without a trace of weakness. "You can't do anything to me. I'm leaving now. Anyone who tries to stop me gets a taste of my fists."
That said, Wuchang took Pike with him and edged cautiously toward the mouth of the pit, a ring of stunned thugs all around them.
Wuchang was starting to regret it now. If I'd known everyone in the abandoned mining zone was this unhinged, I'd have just fought my way out from the start. Clearly he still didn't understand the rules this world ran on. This hellhole was nothing but a jungle where the strong devoured the weak.
Wuchang had it right. A hellhole like Huang'e had always been where the Horsehead Star Ring dumped its convicts, and countless thugs, criminals, smugglers and persecuted souls had washed up here too. In a place like this there was no such thing as reason — all you needed was your fists.
Wuchang's performance today had made everyone present sit up and take notice. No one had expected that the good-for-nothing who had just been taking a beating could turn into a tiger in the blink of an eye, and even overpower Coyote Seven's top enforcer, Poison Wasp Adu.
Poison Wasp Adu was Seven's chief enforcer, and the man was a lunatic. In him you could find no notion of rules at all, not even the basic logic of being human. Today's business proved it: he had merely noticed that Wuchang's defensive stance was textbook, and on that alone had decided to kill him.
And all of it simply because he thought it would be fun.
The situation in the pit had become extremely delicate. Wuchang and Pike moved warily through the crowd while the ring of men followed close behind, and neither side dared to make a move.
Just then, as the two of them were about to leave the pit, a dark streak came flying straight at Wuchang.
"You little bastard — on Coyote Seven's own turf, and you still dare act this cocky?" The dark streak grazed Wuchang's face and struck the ground; a glance down showed it was a big chunk of tailings.
With the voice came a tall, bald man, a howling coyote tattooed across his shiny scalp. No need to ask — this was the overlord of a dozen-odd mining zones around them, Coyote Seven.
Beside Seven stood Blood Rose, in a leather outfit and a breathing mask, glaring at Wuchang with hatred and cursing aloud.
"You little shit, if you'd stayed hidden in that rat hole of yours, I really couldn't have touched you. But you delivered yourself to me today, so don't blame me. Seven — beat him to death..."
The woman didn't need to give orders; Coyote Seven was already charging. No fancy flourishes — he simply raised a leg and snapped out a kick straight at Wuchang's chest.
Fast. Far too fast. A perfectly ordinary move had produced the sound of wind and thunder. Whatever arrogance Wuchang had felt a moment ago was gone; with no time even to dodge, he could only cross his arms in front of his chest.
With a crack, the snap kick slammed into his crossed arms, and the enormous force sent Wuchang flying. He smashed into a tool rack, and the five-meter-high alloy rack toppled over with a thunderous crash under the impact.
"Nice! As expected of a third-dan martial artist — that snap kick was beautiful." The onlookers erupted into an uproar.
Wuchang wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes still calm. He had already taken Seven's measure: the man was a notch above him, but by no means unbeatable.
Before I transmigrated I got hurt somehow, and I've only been recovering a few days — my strength is at its weakest right now. And down below just now I burst out Dragon-Tiger strength twice, which overdrew a lot of what my body had left, and then there was Poison Wasp Adu's attack on top of that. All told, my fighting strength has been cut in half.
Third-dan? Is that what they call a fighter of this level in this world? Then the 'entered the dan' Adu mentioned — is that a lower grade still? This ranking system is a lot like Go.
There was no more time for Wuchang to think. The crazed Seven came at him like a real wolf, unleashing the full strength of a third-dan martial artist, and the weakened Wuchang was instantly suppressed, able only to defend doggedly. Luckily the footwork in Dragon-Tiger Rush was ingenious, and that alone let him slip past many lethal blows.
While Wuchang and Seven were locked together, Poison Wasp Adu, one arm hanging limp, quietly slipped over to Gopher Pike and snatched Wuchang's pack away.
"Hand it over, you little shit..." With the pack in hand, Adu kicked Pike to the ground and started rummaging through it.
"Give it back!" Pike charged in like a madman to grab it, but Adu didn't have to lift a finger — Big Fatty and Second Fatty caught Pike from either side, hoisted him up, and threw him more than five meters.
Adu gave Pike a contemptuous glance without pausing his hands for an instant, and dumped everything in the pack onto the ground. When that long foam rod appeared in front of everyone, the whole pit drew a collective hiss of breath.
"Boss, stop hitting him, boss, quit it — look, look what this is!" Adu raised the foam rod and bellowed at Seven.
Puzzled, Seven jumped out of the fight and turned to look, and at the sight of it he nearly burst — his eyes crinkled straight into a single line with his grin.
"Damn, these two little shits were hiding a treasure this good? A rainbow crystal this size is enough to trade for a villa in Huang'e City..."
Now the whole pit was in a fever. No one had seen a rainbow crystal this big in three years, and every pair of eyes bulged wider than an ox's.
Blood Rose jumped down from the earthen slope, snatched the crystal away, and held it up close to study the cross-section.
"Treasure! My treasure! My dream of a villa depends on you now..."
Seven's people were all struck dumb. This was, after all, the biggest crystal Huang'e had produced in three years; apart from the collections in the Governor's mansion, no crystal could compare with it. When a treasure like that turned up, who wouldn't want a second look? Everyone shoved forward with all their might.
By now Pike was nothing but tears, circling helplessly outside the crowd and cursing without pause: "That's ours! Wuchang mined it! You can't just rob us..."
In that moment Pike seemed to have forgotten that this was Huang'e — and the most despicable, shameless abandoned mining zone on Huang'e, at that.
Just as the crowd was in a frenzy, just as Blood Rose was cradling the crystal in bliss, a sharp hydraulic pipe suddenly appeared in front of her, its pointed gleam flickering at her throat, and a big hand wrenched her arm up behind her back.
"Everybody back the hell off! Anyone who crowds in, and I'll run this bitch through..."