At Mingfa City Plaza, a group in sharkskin armor examined the marks on the ground and quickly found the hastily buried bodies.
“Yuan Changjiang’s unit. They’re dead.” The speaker wore a black eyepatch that gave his face a particular quality of menace. “Tire tracks head toward Taishan Town.”
Someone crouching to examine the tracks looked up. “The track depth is substantial — axle spread close to five meters. This vehicle weighs at least a hundred tons. Heavy modified truck. Probably an Eastern Theater Command iron person.”
“Eastern Theater Command iron person? What are they doing back here? Patched up and coming for revenge?”
“Doesn’t matter why they came. They came — they’re not leaving. Black Blood Group needs iron people to maintain equipment. Kill the jin people. Keep the iron person as labor.”
“Boss, it’s getting dark. Do we go check Taishan Town?”
“No.” The eyepatch man’s voice was flat. “Ghoul Babies come ashore at night in the river. Get tangled up with a Ghoul Baby and you won’t know how to write the character for ‘death.'”
“What if the iron person runs?”
“They can’t run far. Every road out of the Heliuqu area has been cut except the two expressways back to Yizheng. A vehicle that size has no off-road capability. They either head into Heliuqu or come back through Taishan Town. Let the Ghoul Babies give them a proper welcome tonight.” The eyepatch man waved his hand. “Tonight we go back to the Rat House station. Pedal through the tunnel to Yizheng, report to Group headquarters. Tomorrow we come back with more people and take the iron person and the vehicle together.”
Seven rat-catchers mounted their stilts.
Two meters up was nothing to them — a single jump and they were elevated and moving. Within moments all seven were gliding through the ruins in sharkskin, the wide padded tips of the stilts silent against the rubble, moving like shadows.
Three minutes at that pace brought them to a particular section of ruins. They dismounted, shifted a massive stone slab, and revealed an opening below.
A tunnel.
A battered sign still clung to the wall above the entrance:
WELCOME TO LINE 10 — NANJING METRO
Below it, someone had painted in thick red strokes: RAT HOUSE STATION — WATCH FOR CAVE-INS — DIE IF YOU WANT TO — YIZHENG TUNNEL MANAGEMENT OFFICE
They descended to the platform level and found the tracks — or rather, where the tracks had been. The rails had corroded to nothing. The tunnel itself was in precarious condition: visible cracks in the walls, dust falling intermittently. This was the reinforced version; the original supports had lost most of their load-bearing capacity to metal corrosion, and wooden struts had been wedged in along the ceiling to prevent complete collapse.
Where the tracks had been, a wooden tricycle sat waiting. No chain drive — the pedals were mounted directly to the front wheel. No handlebars — steering was done by twisting the feet on the pedals.
Seven people piled on. One produced a flint and lit a coal-oil lamp mounted on the frame. The lead rider settled into position and started pedaling.
They were all death-eaters. Physical conditioning well above ordinary. The awkward, primitive tricycle moved fast through the faint lamplight, the riders taking turns at the pedals, talking over each other about nothing in particular. The oil lamp needed refilling twice.
When they passed a marker sign, one of the rat-catchers called out: “Yizheng cross-river tunnel.”
The tunnel ahead showed light. Then voices.
By the lamplight, wall graffiti resolved into readable text as they rolled through:
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU WEREN’T CRUSHED. YOU’RE SAFE. — YIZHENG TUNNEL MANAGEMENT OFFICE.
WANG CHANGJUN, GO [EXPLETIVE] YOURSELF.
LIFE IS PRECIOUS, LOVE IS MORE, BUT IF YOU WANT TO PASS, LEAVE YOUR TOLL — YIZHENG CROSS-RIVER TUNNEL TOLL STATION.
[EXPLETIVE] YOU, I’M BROKE. I’LL PAY WITH C1 UP YOUR [EXPLETIVE].
WEATHER FORECAST: HEAVY RAIN TOMORROW, TUNNEL WILL FLOOD, YOUR WHOLE FAMILY DIES IF YOU GO OUT.
WELCOME TO THE ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL — LOST PARADISE AWAITS. BACCARAT, STUD, SLOTS — EVERY GAME YOU WANT.
DON’T TRUST ZHAO THE OLD DOG. TRUST SISTER CHUN. RESPAWN ON THE SPOT.
EIGHT TIMES A NIGHT — CHINESE DIVINE OIL.
NEW HOPE LABORATORY — HUMANITY’S HOPE — JOIN OUR VOLUNTEER PROGRAM TODAY.
ZHAO [SLUR] GET ON YOUR KNEES AND [EXPLETIVE].
None of them paid any attention to the walls. They rolled to a checkpoint, where several other wooden tricycles were parked.
The checkpoint guard rubbed his eyes and slid open the window. “You one-eyed idiots back again? Didn’t die? I bet you wouldn’t see tomorrow’s sunrise. Lost again. [Expletive]!”
The eyepatch man kept his face blank and tossed several black coin-shaped objects through the window. “Go [expletive] your wife.”
The guard caught them, spread them on his palm, and counted. “One, two, three… only six jin-crystals? You blind morons — price went up. Seven per crossing now.”
“Seven? Why don’t you just rob us outright?”
“Ha. Inflation. Social labor productivity insufficient. Market supply below demand.” The guard waved a hand. “I know you don’t follow economics. Just get another one out.”
“Bloodsuckers.” One of the rat-catchers produced the additional crystal and slapped it down, jaw tight.
The guard took it without reaction, then called out as they started to move: “Hey, wait — you said you’d go [expletive] my wife? I’ve got four of them. Which one? Fellow Black Blood Group members — I’ll give you a discount. Five crystals per visit. Deal or no deal?”
Outside the tunnel, the complaints started immediately.
“They squeeze us harder every week. Seven crystals just to cross. We catch rats all day for what — how many crystals? They vacuum up everything above us and leave us scraps. At this rate, how many runs before we can afford one dose of C1? Boss, this can’t keep going.”
The eyepatch man’s expression had gone somewhere darker than usual. One syllable: “Damn.”
A team member spoke up. “What if we sell the information ourselves? Report to Group headquarters and they’ll throw us a few crystals to shut us up. But we sell to every faction separately — Eastern Theater Command iron person in the area — we make a real profit.”
The suggestion spread through the group immediately.
“Boss, let’s do it. Fortune doesn’t come without crossing lines. Why should all the good stuff go upstairs? We earn our own.”
“Right. Let’s.”
“They show us no loyalty. We owe them none.”
The single eye swept the group. A long pause. Then the eyepatch man nodded.
“Tonight. We sell the information tonight.”
(End of Chapter 226)