Flower Duck and the other star bandits changed color at the sound.
That was not Raven’s voice.
Never mind Raven — no star bandit alive could speak in so refined and mincing a manner, and certainly none would crack jokes at a moment like this. And if it wasn’t a star bandit, wasn’t one of their own, then the man knocking could only be one thing: the enemy.
They’d been found. What now? Cut their way out, or hold the cabin and fight?
Both choices were equally terrible.
Cutting their way out likely exceeded their strength; holding the cabin was plainly a road to death. So which was it to be?
But while Flower Duck and the rest were still agonizing, unable to decide, the man knocking outside had already solved the difficulty for them. Through the door’s seam — so fine that even blood could only seep slowly through — a nearly transparent arm came snaking swiftly in, elongating without limit, moving as nimbly as though it could see with its own eyes, and found the door-release button without the slightest trouble.
That transparent hand seized the button. It gave it a hard twist.
Shhk!
The cabin door opened in an instant, sliding rapidly upward.
A wave of blood came surging in from the corridor outside, flooding the entire room like water swallowing a mountain, soaking the ankles of Flower Duck and the others, who still stood there dumbly, not knowing what to do.
Standing in the doorway was not one man, but three.
One was a middle-aged man, pale-skinned, plump and well-fed, with a kindly, benevolent face. He glanced into the cabin and said mildly: “Winged Tiger, Wind Hawk, and Flamingo aren’t here. Griffin, Golden Eagle, and Mao Podi all have tasks of their own. Apart from that little friend, it seems nobody’s home. In that case, I’ll go attend to other business. Nether Flame and Phantom, you two sisters should be quite enough here. Very well — I’ll leave this to you.”
That said, the middle-aged man bowed courteously to the room at large, and drifted away.
Had it not been for the contemptuous snort of the strange woman whose body flickered with ghost-fire, half there and half not, Flower Duck and the others might well have mistaken that kindly, courteous middle-aged man for a good person. But then the ghost-fire woman spoke — and Flower Duck and the rest were instantly shaking from head to foot, teeth chattering beyond their control. For what the ghost-fire woman snorted was this:
“That revolting creature Poison Maggot, playing the boss. Among us five great evildoers, we may fall a little short of the three of them in methods of slaughter and viciousness of heart, but in raw strength, my sister Phantom and I still hold a slight edge. So he’s got a bit more seniority — and now he thinks he can give us orders? Preposterous!”
Five great evildoers? Poison Maggot? Phantom? And this strange woman flickering with ghost-fire!
Flower Duck and the rest would have had to be deaf, blind, and stupid all at once not to guess by now exactly who their enemies were.
If the strange ghost-fire woman’s body was half-visible, the other woman standing beside her was wholly transparent. Long of arm and long of leg, her body exceedingly gaunt, she wore a loose, voluminous robe — and every part of her, the robe included, was transparent. If she stood still, an ordinary man’s eyes could scarcely detect her presence at all. Only when she moved could one barely catch a faint difference between the air and her body.
This transparent woman had long hair veiling her, and her face could not be seen.
Needless to say, she was Phantom, of the five great evildoers.
And the strange woman flickering all over with ghost-fire was that other famous name among the five: Nether Flame.
Phantom and Nether Flame were no ordinary murderers. Long ago, Flower Duck had heard a secret rumor that these two women were in fact undying existences — that unless you were a god, no one in this world could possibly kill them; that even wounding them was extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult.
Already outmatched, and now facing enemies who could never be killed—
For Flower Duck there was despair, and beyond that, only more despair.
“Shall we come in and fetch you ourselves, or will you come out of your own accord?” Nether Flame glanced with keen interest at Yue Yang, who still lay with one leg crossed over the other, feigning a doze, entirely unmoved. Her voice turned suddenly so sweet it might have dripped honey: “Your guests have been standing at the door a good while now. Won’t the master of the house invite us in for a cup of tea?”
“Fall back!” Flower Duck ground the word out through his teeth.
The several star bandits who looked to him as their backbone rushed toward Yue Yang, meaning to haul him up and withdraw through the cabin’s emergency escape passage. Trigger the emergency mechanism and the deck plating would split open, revealing a glide-shuttle already prepared and waiting below.
Of course, however fast they moved, opening the mechanism and boarding the shuttle would take at least a little time.
Would Nether Flame and Phantom simply stand by and watch?
Flower Duck had never entertained such an extravagant hope.
So even as he forced the word fall back through his teeth, he loosed a wild roar and hurled himself at the enemy like a tiger. He’d wager he had never in all his life been so brave. Across from him stood Nether Flame and Phantom of the five great evildoers — monsters so utterly vicious that either one could annihilate him with a lifted finger — and here he was, taking on both at once. This could not be called mere courage.
It was duty.
A duty solemnly entrusted to him by Boss Winged Tiger and by Raven.
Knowing full well that his heart exceeded his strength, Flower Duck resolved to throw everything away and spend his old life to see it done.
One second. Just buy one second, and the brothers can trigger the mechanism, get the boy onto the shuttle, and escape with their lives… Flower Duck’s perfect scenario hadn’t even finished assembling itself in his mind before he felt his throat tighten — and found himself lifted bodily into the air by one hand.
It was Phantom. With one absurdly long arm she had hoisted Flower Duck’s burly frame clean off the ground.
Before her, Flower Duck — thick and powerful as an ox — was no different from a small insect.
Never mind resisting; even struggling was impossible… And at the same moment, as Flower Duck’s men rushed to trigger the mechanism and carry Yue Yang away, they discovered to their horror that the woman Nether Flame was already standing atop the emergency escape hatch — how, they hadn’t seen. That half-visible face was grinning cheerfully at the star bandit charging toward the mechanism, a sight so appallingly terrifying that the poor fellow’s heart and gall burst within him, and his limbs went limp and dropped him to the floor.
“You there, lurking at the door — since you’ve come all this way, do come in and sit down!” Yue Yang sat up and poured himself a cup of water, as though no one else were present.
“You’ve still got the leisure to worry about other people?” Nether Flame found this a little odd.
“I hadn’t meant to pay it any mind — but the sound of that fellow’s teeth chattering is simply too loud. It’s making it impossible to sleep!” Yue Yang hadn’t finished speaking before, outside the cabin door, half a face poked cautiously in — pinched with misery and drained white with fear. Indeed: this was one of Yue Yang’s few acquaintances. Guoguo.
“I — I didn’t want to sell you out, but that Poison Maggot stuffed a giant maggot into my mouth. He said if I didn’t confess honestly he’d have the maggot chew through my organs and bore a great hole out through my belly. I — I truly couldn’t bear that revolting thing. You don’t understand. That maggot’s mouth was full of teeth — a thousand of them at least, and every one serrated like a saw. I — I truly didn’t want it burrowing down my throat!” Guoguo, face crumpled with grief, explained to Yue Yang that he’d had his reasons.
“It’s fine. It’s hardly the first time you’ve sold me out. I’m quite used to it by now.” Yue Yang consoled Guoguo instead.
And indeed — stuff a giant maggot that liked to eat organs into a man’s mouth, and no one could endure such torment. What could be more horrifying than watching, wide-eyed, as a great hole was gnawed through your own belly? Never mind that Guoguo was a coward to begin with. A man made of iron couldn’t have held out either.
So Yue Yang understood Guoguo perfectly. Besides, even if Guoguo had said nothing, Poison Maggot, Nether Flame, and Phantom could have found their way here easily enough. Dragging along a traitor who’d sold out his own companions was merely a way to break their spirit and crush their morale.
“If there’s ever a next time, I definitely won’t sell you out. I promise I’ll be brave, just once.” Guoguo was so ashamed he could have crawled into the ground.
“Thank you. The thought alone makes me happy. In fact, you ought to make survival your priority — after all, nothing matters more than staying alive.” Yue Yang was as magnificent as a saint, and by the end of it he’d nearly moved himself. When did I become this magnificent? A pity there’s no way to record it — it’d make excellent material for boasting.
“Ha. What an interesting little friend. I like you more and more.” Nether Flame’s face flickered in and out of visibility, and she asked with a grin: “Now then — your other friend is still in my sister Phantom’s hand. Her patience is very poor. If you don’t rescue him soon, she’ll crush his windpipe. Or she may simply tear open his chest with her bare hands and pull out his heart and lungs — or perhaps yank out his spine and make a necklace of his bones… Have you any good way of persuading my sister Phantom? She’s famously introverted, you know. Quiet, taciturn — very hard to persuade!”
“I have two methods of persuading people.” Yue Yang smiled, and held up two fingers. “The first is rapid persuasion. The second is to enlighten them as to the greater righteousness — to win men over through virtue.”
“Let’s hear about rapid persuasion first.” Nether Flame was most interested.
“Rapid persuasion is where I very rapidly sever the arm or the leg of the party requiring persuasion, so that he — or she — comes to understand that I am a very persuasive man.” Yue Yang’s explanation left even the star bandits gaping. Frankly, they’d never seen anyone as persuasive as Yue Yang, nor a rapid persuasion of quite this kind.
“An excellent method of persuasion. I like it.” Nether Flame clapped her hands in praise, then asked: “And enlightening them as to the greater righteousness — winning men over through virtue?”
“Enlightening them as to the greater righteousness and winning them over through virtue is where I punch the party’s head until it bursts, so that they understand I possess both the patience and the sincerity to enlighten them as to the greater righteousness and win them over through virtue. On the whole, since adopting the method of winning men over through virtue, the response has been rather good — at the very least, not one person has raised an objection.” Yue Yang indicated that ordinarily he rather preferred to persuade people by winning them over through virtue.
Gulp. Several star bandits swallowed hard in unison. Only now did they realize that, set against this Yue Yang and his fondness for winning men over through virtue, their own powers of persuasion were gravely deficient.
“Is there any difference between the two methods?” Nether Flame knit her brows, puzzled.
“There’s actually a considerable difference — the difference is time.” Yue Yang explained, in fine spirits: “One is a rather quick method of persuasion, clean and decisive, wasting nobody’s time. The other is more decisive still, and requires no time at all! Now then — which method would you like me to use to persuade you? Rapid persuasion, or winning you over through virtue?”
(End of Chapter 1145)