"Knock, knock!" The curtain was drawn back, and knuckles rapped twice against the sunlit glass window.
Zhe Qiuhong heard it. With an idle hand, she smoothed down the wet white shirt she was hanging. The clothesline swayed gently as her profile turned out of the sunlight. Speaking through the glass would have required raising her voice, but not wishing to be loud, she merely tilted her head and let out an inquiring, "Hmm?"
Han Qingyu clenched his fist and turned his arm outward, pressing his left forearm against the window pane. Pointing excitedly at a spot on it, he said, "Doctor Zhe, look! Look at this."
A tiny flake of skin curled upward there, not yet detached.
Before going to sleep that morning, feeling far too anxious from waiting, Han Qingyu had taken the initiative to pop two metal blocks, treating them like supplements to speed up his molting.
Sure enough, while he slept, the pulse coursing through his entire body had grown noticeably stronger. He had awakened in excitement an hour later, inspected himself, and discovered this change on his forearm.
Zhe Qiuhong leaned close, peering at it through the pane. Then she vanished from outside the window and soon stepped into the room. Walking up, she lifted Han Qingyu's forearm, examined it closely, and tossed it aside like a dead fish.
"It's just an ordinary bit of dead skin."
"Ah... is that so?" Han Qingyu looked dejected for a second. "Doctor Zhe, don't leave just yet. There's one more thing I'd like to discuss with you."
Zhe Qiuhong stopped at the doorway and looked back.
"Look at this." Han Qingyu drew the curtains shut first, then turned, retrieved his wooden box from the inner side of the bed, and opened it in both hands. Revealing the dazzling blue starlight column sword inside, he held it out. "Doctor Zhe, take a look at this thing. Is there any way to dye it?"
"Dye it?" Zhe Qiuhong asked in confusion, reaching out her right index finger to brush the column sword's surface. It felt extraordinarily smooth to the touch, devoid of any friction.
"Yes, dye it black. It needs to hide the color and the glow, and adhere so well that it won't peel off even from combat impacts. Is that possible?" Han Qingyu asked.
Zhe Qiuhong understood the general idea. This blue starlight column sword was simply too iconic; using it in battle was tantamount to exposing his identity. And by all accounts, it provided a tremendous boost to his combat prowess and tactics.
If dyed black, it could probably be put to use at night. From any distance, most people would likely mistake it for a large black saber.
"I can try to figure something out, but it'll be difficult. It probably won't be quick," Zhe Qiuhong said.
"All right, no rush." Han Qingyu closed the wooden box and handed it to her without hesitation.
Zhe Qiuhong took it and looked at him for a couple of seconds. "Do you need to use it? What I mean is, things are going fairly well for us right now. Unless necessary, you'd better not use it—dyeing it black isn't foolproof either."
She realized she had grown rather fond of these days. Only upon speaking the words did she realize it herself.
"Just in case. Better safe than caught unprepared," Han Qingyu said with a serious look in his eyes. "Truth be told, even now, attentive people observing from the top behind the scenes might already be suspicious. As long as I know Alphonse doesn't dare show up, that's enough. Everything else will just have to be handled step by step."
"Oh." Zhe Qiuhong nodded and turned.
"Actually, what I'm more worried about is your brother showing up and stirring up trouble. After eating so much of your cooking and having you wash my clothes all the time..." Behind her, Han Qingyu paused, then said, "I will kill him."
"Mm, I remember. You said you'd only spare him once," Zhe Qiuhong said.
"Yeah."
"Still, my guess is that since your Huaxia Front has their eyes on him, he's probably having a very rough time right now and won't be able to come here and cause trouble."
With that, Zhe Qiuhong knitted her brows and walked out holding the wooden box.
Han Qingyu returned to bed and slept, woke up for lunch, and then slept some more, sleeping straight through until dusk.
***
In the desert outside the City of Iniquity, roughly seventy kilometers to the southeast, the time was past eight at night.
Shuttle-shaped craft crashed down here during the day as well, but everything that landed during daylight was carved up among the major factions. Only at night were certain designated zones opened up, allowing lower-tier groups to enter and fight over the craft.
This was the first time Boss Dao's reorganized gang had mobilized to hunt wild drops, sixty-one people strong.
"Is this the place?" Wen Jifei asked.
The moonlight was faint, making visibility ahead atrocious. They had inquired beforehand and learned that no one turned on flashlights during wild drop hunts. At the same time, the sand beneath their feet was soft; each step sank in up to the tops of their shoes, which was terribly unsuited for running.
This was by no means suitable ground for intercepting and killing Great Spikes.
"Yeah. There's one area in each of the four directions, and this is the southeast one." Filio nodded. Nominally, he was the gang's supreme commander now, but due to Boss Dao's instructions, the standing of Han Qingyu and his group of five had been elevated considerably.
The group advanced for another three or four minutes.
"Holy shit, so many people?! Are they planning to crush the Great Spikes under sheer weight?" He Tangtang exclaimed in surprise from atop a low dirt mound. Farther off in the darkness, figures milled about in clustered shadows.
"Old Hugh's gang, Anillo, Storm Blood..." Filio and a few veterans who had joined from the Third Gang peered into the gloom, calling out the groups they recognized.
By now, most of the positions were already taken—though there was always the chance a Great Spike might happen to drop right over here.
In short, there were simply too many people and groups present, giving the impression of far too many wolves and not enough meat. For a fleeting instant, one might even feel a twinge of pity for the Great Spike. Turning his head, He Tangtang asked, "How's this supposed to work? When a Great Spike drops, does everyone start hacking at each other first?"
"No... In the past, it was just as you said: they'd hack at each other first. Later on, everyone realized that whenever a group did that and engaged in an all-out brawl, both sides would take a dive together and might never climb back up, handing an easy advantage to the other factions for nothing. Since nobody wanted to decline, everyone grew rather restrained."
The one explaining to He Tangtang was Liu Lang. He stood in an awkward spot, solitary, neither close to the former Third Gang members nor to Boss Dao's original crew.
After all, he was the one who had tied up A'Jing and A'Xi and brought them back.
Now both sides had somewhat mixed feelings toward him, and neither was very friendly.
Back on the fifth floor, Liu Lang hadn't been badly injured because he had caught on quickly, surrendered, and even tried to turn himself into a "meritorious contributor."
As a result, he personally had to bear ten metal blocks in compensation.
He had paid two blocks from his savings and still owed eight.
The interest on the eight owing metal blocks was four source energy blocks per day, compounding and compounding...
"So that's how it is. Then how do we actually contest it?!" Han Qingyu spoke up for the first time.
Eyes turned toward him.
A strange phenomenon in the group right now was that the men from the Third Gang looked utterly relaxed, whereas most of Boss Dao's original men were tense and fearful, palms sweating.
"Block positions, cut off their lines." "You don't kill people, but while others are hacking away, you charge their formation from behind, and there's psychological warfare." "...Mainly using the Great Spike to mess people up."
A flurry of voices chimed in, quickly throwing out a whole slew of tactics.
Chapter 457