Wuchang was furious — furious past all measure. Being beaten and insulted was only part of the reason; the real source of the rage in his chest was himself. His own miscalculation.
He had overestimated these people's moral floor by far too much. This place deserved its name as the most lawless abandoned mining zone on all of Huang'e — here, morality was like the sun in the sky: everyone knew it existed, but no one had ever seen it. Thick volcanic clouds pressed down overhead year in and year out, and apart from the lofty pilots, nobody got so much as a glimpse of the sunlight above that cloud layer.
Right now Wuchang wanted to slap himself hard across the face, as a reminder to stop being such a naive fool. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. He had sunk as far as an abandoned mining zone, so he had better stop thinking he could muddle through by playing the meek little grandson.
"Coyote Seven, is it? You're going to put my crystal nice and gently back in the pack, then toss it over here. If you still want your woman to live, don't get any clever ideas."
Seven's eyes lit up. All at once he felt a flicker of appreciation for this kid. He could play dumb, he could fight, and even in the middle of a mess he could grab hold of the situation's main artery — like right now, one hydraulic pipe and he had the whole pit under control.
"Clever. Damn clever," Seven heard himself blurt out in praise of Wuchang. "You're called Wuchang, right? Not bad. Really not bad. I like you. How about you come and work under me? I'll split off half my men and put you in charge of them, same rank as Adu. What do you say?"
Before Wuchang could answer, Blood Rose — still in his grip — would have none of it. She screamed shrilly, "Seven, you bastard! So you don't care whether I live or die? You're actually fucking recruiting this—"
She never finished. Something cold bloomed at her throat, and a wet trickle slid down inside her collar: Wuchang's hydraulic pipe had already broken her skin, and blood was running.
Blood Rose shut her mouth on the spot. The woman wasn't entirely stupid — at least she understood what it meant to bow your head beneath another man's eaves.
Wuchang leaned close to her ear and said softly, "Don't think I won't kill. Your miserable life is worth less than a chicken to me." Then he raised his head and said coldly to Seven:
"Cut the crap. If you want to recruit me, wait a few days and ask again when I'm in a better mood. I don't sign any treaty under the city walls."
"A treaty under the city walls?" Coyote Seven clearly had little ink in his belly; he chewed on it for a long while and still couldn't work out what the phrase meant. But if he couldn't work it out, there was no need to keep trying. He looked at Wuchang with a cold sneer and said:
"You think I was raised on being scared? What the hell do I care whether some bitch lives or dies? Go on, kill her then."
"Fuck — you think I don't dare?"
"Dare! Of course you dare. But you can also take a gamble: just how willing am I to throw this bitch away?"
Seven's counterquestion backed Wuchang into a dead corner. He truly did not want to shed blood again. His years as a mercenary had been the bloodiest stretch of his life; later, by chance, he had become a disciple of the Chan master Qili, and his seven years of studying Chan had also been seven years of repenting his own killings.
But now cruel reality had backed Wuchang into fate's own corner. Even if he wanted to retreat, there was no retreat left to him.
Wuchang's hand had begun to tremble — too faintly for the naked eye to catch. An ordinary man might have missed it, but it could not escape the eyes of a third-dan martial artist like Seven, and Seven knew that Wuchang's heart was starting to waver.
Just as Seven was watching Wuchang with that meaningful look, a booming voice came in from beyond the wall of bodies and instantly drew the attention of the whole pit.
"Heh. Seven, you can fool outsiders, but don't try your tricks in front of me, Smith Pan. Would you really let Blood Rose die? That woman has a third of your fortune in her keeping — would you really let her die?"
The voice came with a crowd. At its head was the B1313 pit's contractor, Smith Pan, with the dirty old man Lane and Wild Bull behind him, and behind them a whole pack of miners and bodyguards.
The moment Pike saw that his pillar of support had come back, he scrambled over on hands and knees, and before he even got a word out he shoved the terminal off his wrist into Pan's hands.
"Boss, that crystal is ours — Wuchang mined it. I recorded the evidence of Seven and his men robbing us right in front of everyone, it's all in there. You have to do something about this..."
Boss Pan patted Pike's shoulder to set his mind at ease, then walked up to Coyote Seven. In that moment his steady, weighty presence was enough to make Seven put away his dismissive look.
"Haha, Boss Pan, keeping well, I hope?"
"I'm not well. I'm very much not well. My miner got beaten, and my crystal got robbed. Tell me, how could I be well?" Boss Pan stared at Seven, needling him without pause.
"It's been three years. It seems you've all forgotten the old rule here on Huang'e: any rainbow crystal of interstellar main-force warship grade must be traded under official protection. You could say that from the moment this nineteen-centimeter rainbow crystal appeared, Wuchang and Pike came under the protection of Huang'e's administrative system..."
That one sentence opened everyone's eyes. Coyote Seven and all the old miners present remembered this unwritten rule. The crystal in Seven's hand suddenly felt hot — really, genuinely hot.
Boss Pan looked at Wuchang and said quietly, "Let her go. The Guard captain will be here any moment; with him around, nobody will dare make trouble."
"Ye Tian?" A buzz erupted through the crowd. Huang'e's Guard was the equivalent of an army, and its captain, Ye Tian, held power second only to Governor Ye Fei.
At that point the dirty old man Lane slipped over to Wuchang and said in a low voice, "Let her go. You never needed to cross hands with them at all — you and Pike, you're both just too green..."
If you asked who Wuchang trusted most on all of Huang'e, there was only one answer: the dirty old man Lane. The old fellow had treated his wounds and had been walking him through this place bit by bit. Wuchang, who could read a man's face at a glance, had seen right away that the old man was worth making a friend of.
Released, Blood Rose stumbled over to Seven and buried herself in his arms, weeping and sniveling.
"Avenge me! Look, my neck's been sliced open..."
Before she could finish, Coyote Seven's palm cracked across her face. "Get lost, you bitch."
It was a savage slap. The breathing mask flew right off Blood Rose's face, and she dropped onto her backside, forgetting even to cry, one hand pressed to her cheek as she stared at her man in disbelief.
When it counted, the two fat twins' instinct to run to her held true — they were the very first to come running. "Boss lady, are you all right? Does it hurt?"
Coyote Seven had no time for the woman. He switched to a smiling face and said to Smith Pan, "Old Pan, what happened today is nothing but a misunderstanding. My hands just got itchy, so I stepped in for a bit of fun with the boys. As for this crystal..."
At that, Seven heaved a long, heartsick sigh, then gritted his teeth. "The crystal belongs to Wuchang. I was just looking at it. Looking." With that he stuffed it straight into Boss Pan's arms.
Right then a faint buzzing came from the northern sky. Nobody needed to look to know what it was: the sound of land vehicles.
Sure enough, twelve land vehicles came flying out of the northern sky through the black snow. Fitted with anti-gravity units, they floated half a meter above the ground, racing in from Huang'e City to the north.
Facing a real army, every soul in the abandoned mining zone became an ant. Apart from the two contractors, Coyote Seven and Smith Pan, every last person squatted down on the ground of his own accord, hands clasped over his head.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot, get down and squat — don't make Captain Ye unhappy." Seeing Wuchang looking a little dazed, Lane hurriedly pushed him down to the ground.
Wuchang would never have imagined that one Guard captain's arrival could cow several hundred people into not daring to let out a peep. Lane knew he was baffled, and hurriedly leaned in to his ear to explain.
"You silly boy — Guard Captain Ye Tian is a fourth-dan expert, and the lowest-ranked man under him is still a second-dan martial artist. There isn't a soul here who's a match for them."
"And on top of that, look at those twelve land vehicles: they're mounting the 'Swarm' dense-array weapon system. One salvo and a hundred mu of ground turns into a sea of fire. Facing absolute force, never mind making you squat — if they told you to kneel, you'd kneel."
Ever since Lane had accepted that little 'thank-you gift for teaching me' from Wuchang, he seemed to have genuinely taken Wuchang for his own disciple. Whatever Wuchang was curious about, Lane told him everything he knew and then some.
"Remember this: whatever Ye Tian tells you to do in a bit, just agree to it. You lucky brat — that crystal of yours just saved your life."
Wuchang asked, puzzled, "Isn't this the case of 'the man is innocent, but his jade is his crime'? So how do you figure the crystal saved my life?"
"Eh?" Lane's eyes suddenly lit up. "You actually know that saying? Don't tell me you went to a noble school? You've studied the ancient tongue?"
Before Wuchang could answer, a big leather boot planted itself in front of him, followed by a low voice: "You're Wuchang? Get up."
Wuchang stood obediently, and before he could even size up the newcomer's face, an enormous fist came straight for his face.
Nameless fury blazed up in Wuchang's chest. This world was beyond all reason. There has to be a limit to how far you can trample a man! Hit when you like, curse when you like, grab another man's belongings when you like? Even a clay figure has a bit of temper in him. In an instant Dragon-Tiger strength flooded his whole body — this was the third time that day Wuchang had deployed the secret method of Dragon-Tiger Rush.
The man throwing punches in front of Wuchang was none other than Guard Captain Ye Tian. He had only meant to test Wuchang's skill; a fellow who could fight Seven to a draw had genuinely sparked his interest. But that little test was all it took for him to become the barrel Wuchang vented his anger into.
Honestly speaking, a fourth-dan martial artist's strength still clearly outclassed Wuchang's, but Wuchang's martial arts had the edge of sheer uniqueness — those exquisite moves were like nothing Ye Tian had ever seen. The instant they crossed hands, Ye Tian's left fist was sealed off, and a Nail Fist landed on his right shoulder a heartbeat later, staggering him where he stood.
"Good boy — sneaky as hell." The more Ye Tian fought, the more excited he got. He had taken a small loss at the start, but after that he leaned on his fourth-dan strength and began to steady the fight.
Wuchang was fighting in agony. His physical condition was poor to begin with, and the string of fights had already worn him out. Worst of all, on this planet nobody dared to take off their breathing mask while the black snow was falling, and the mask had been giving him a faint sense of suffocation all along.
But Ye Tian had no such fear. His strength was better than Wuchang's to begin with, and he was completely at home in this environment. In the end, less than ten minutes in, a vicious punch buried itself in Wuchang's belly, and then his arms were locked down tight by Ye Tian — he couldn't move an inch.
"That's the stuff — fucking glorious!" Ye Tian's excited shout made everyone present break out in a cold sweat. From the look of things, Wuchang's chances were grim.