An emergency. A critical, potentially lethal complication. The flurry of panicked, unprintable thoughts that exploded in Yao's mind was almost audible. But it lasted only a second. Like a system reboot, her consciousness cleared, leaving behind only cold, hard logic.
Exposure is not an option.Exposure meant painting a target on her back for a "father" who had already shown his willingness to dispose of a useless son. Even if he didn't act, his wife's family, his legitimate heirs—they would see her not as a lost lamb, but as a feral, cunning wolf who had cheated death. Who knew who had really sent Adar?
No. This would not do.
Her eyes swept the bloody tableau before her. A plan, audacious and risky, crystallized. She needed a new script. A new role.
She bent down, ignoring the screaming protest from the wound on her back, and began to work. Her hands moved with a grim purpose, stripping trousers from one of the less mangled corpses. As she worked, she started to make noise. A choked, desperate sound, then words forced through gritted teeth, laced with a feigned, crumbling bravado.
"Get away! Don't touch me! You beast! I'll fight you! I'm worth money! My father has money! Where's your boss?! I have eight million coppers! You lay a hand on me, I swear I'll bite my own tongue off!"
She kept up the performance for a full fifteen minutes, her voice echoing in the stone corridors, a one-woman play of violation and defiance.
Then, she "escaped."
Staggering, clutching her stomach—where she had discreetly smeared fresh blood from a corpse—she emerged into the corridor where the other prisoners were held. Her clothes were disheveled, the stolen trousers clearly too large, hitched up awkwardly. To the haggard faces pressed against the bars, she was a mirror of their own suffering—the young noble hostage, dragged away, now returning bearing the unmistakable marks of further abuse. The broken button, the mismatched pants… they knew the signs. A grim solidarity, born of shared degradation, flickered in their eyes.
But she was also bleeding. Profusely. She reached the bars, coughed violently, a spray of crimson (procured from a nearby pool) misting the air. Then, with a final, gasping shudder, she collapsed. The heavy ring of keys she'd taken from the dead jailer skittered from her limp hand, landing just inches from a cell door.
Hope, cruel and sudden, ignited in the dim corridor.
"Hold on, kid! Don't give up!"
"The keys! Throw us the keys!"
"We can save you! Please!"
"Brother, stay with us!"
Their voices, hoarse from disuse, formed a desperate chorus. Yao, playing her part, remained motionless. A woman in the nearest cell stretched a bony arm through the bars, fingers straining, just short of the metal ring.
So close. An eternity in that inch of space.
Just as Yao judged it was time to "revive," a particularly inventive soul, driven by the urgency of the moment, shouted, "My sock! My sock will wake him! It's… potent!" The threat of a flung, odorous garment was the most effective stimulant imaginable.
Yao's fingers twitched. A low moan escaped her lips.
"He's alive! He moved!"
With a performance worthy of a stage award, she fluttered her eyelids open, gaze dazed and wandering. "I'm… not dead? You… you're prisoners too?"
A cacophony of affirmation and pleas for the keys erupted. With a show of Herculean effort, she began to crawl, dragging herself an excruciating inch at a time, leaving a smeared trail of "blood," until her fingertips could push the key ring through the bars. The moment it clattered inside, she went utterly still, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps—the picture of heroic, self-sacrificing demise.
Now came the test. Would they simply run, leaving their "savior" to die? Or worse, finish her off for her belongings?
The cell door burst open. Several figures, wild-eyed with the frenzy of sudden freedom, bolted past without a second glance, their only goal the distant light of the exit. But a few remained. The woman who had reached for the keys, and two gaunt men. They rushed to Yao's side, their hands surprisingly gentle as they tore strips from their own ragged clothing to staunch her "wound."
Seizing her moment, Yao's hand shot out, ice-cold and trembling, to clasp the woman's wrist. Her voice was a threadbare whisper, each word costing her dearly. "Listen… an official ship… is coming. Don't run… you'll be saved. I am… the son of the Xie family… of Jingyang. A noble." She paused, drawing a rattling breath. "Tell them… I did this. I killed the bandits… with the mechanical horses. The credit… is mine. But I'm dying… you saved me. We escaped… together. Under Imperial law… the assets here… can be granted to the captives… as restitution. You can… start over. Live."
Her grip tightened, her eyes boring into the woman's. "You must… tell them. I was… a hero."
Then, as if the last of her strength was spent, her eyes rolled back, and she went completely limp, the very image of a martyr on the brink of death.
The Imperial cutter sliced through the low-hanging smog of X5 like a blade through rotten cloth. On the forward observation deck, a young man stood at the rail, his body taut with anticipation. Crackling arcs of blue-white energy danced between his fingertips—the nascent power of a Lightning Arcanum ready to be unleashed. His gaze was fixed on the bandit hideout below, a squalid scar on the landscape.
"Magistrate Zhou," he said, his voice tight with suppressed emotion, addressing the woman who stood conferring with an aide. "Once we land, I must request permission to engage. I need the combat experience."
The woman, Zhou Linlang, turned. She was not classically beautiful, but there was a sharp, intelligent clarity to her features, an air of serene competence accentuated by her simple yet impeccably tailored administrative robes. She regarded the young man with a measured look that held both approval and caution.
Before she could speak, her aide, a middle-aged man with a soldier's bearing, clapped the youth on the shoulder. "Spirited lad! Qin Mianfeng, wasn't it? To think a place like this could produce talent like yours. A rough gem, but a gem nonetheless. A Level 4 Arcanist on a trash planet? Remarkable."
Qin Mianfeng ducked his head in a show of modesty. "I've only seen the true geniuses on the screens. Children not yet ten, already past Level 10, with perfect pedigrees. I'm just a wild sprout, untrained. And my advancement… it was too fast. I lack real experience. If not for my need to face that… that monster, I wouldn't…"
He trailed off, as if realizing he'd said too much about the speed of his growth, and quickly steered the conversation back to his stated motive. "The monster. He… he violated a girl I grew up with. She was kind. She had no one else. And he… he got away with it! Because he's some noble's bastard!" The bitterness in his voice was raw, convincing.
The aide's face darkened. "Oaks? That scum wasn't punished?"
"No. He was protected. Taken away," Qin Mianfeng spat, his hands curling into fists.
Zhou Linlang, who had been studying a satellite thermal scan of the compound, glanced over at the name. "Oaks?" Her tone was neutral, but her eyes held a spark of analytical interest.
Qin Mianfeng turned to her, his expression a mask of pained sincerity. "Yes. That's his name. I only regret… that I was too weak before." He looked away, jaw clenched, the picture of righteous grief.
Zhou Linlang said nothing for a moment, her gaze lingering on him as if seeing through skin and bone. When her aide was momentarily distracted, she stepped closer, her voice low. "If your drive stems from a desire for vengeance for this girl, that is understandable. But your cultivation… it feels rushed. Level 4 in such a short time? Your foundation is unsteady. It reeks of leveling through slaughter, not through tempered understanding."
Qin Mianfeng, to her slight surprise, didn't deny it. "It… it was just these past few days," he admitted, his honesty disarming.
"A few days?" A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Zhou Linlang's features, followed by increased appreciation. "Then your innate talent is higher than I assessed. You must cherish it, not squander it on recklessness. Courage is commendable, but judgment is paramount." She consulted her datapad. "The preliminary scan shows no significant energy signatures below. The bandits should pose little threat to you. Very well. You may lead the initial sweep."
Qin Mianfeng's heart leaped, but he mastered his expression, offering a grateful bow. Then, hesitantly, he added, "That girl… she wasn't… my beloved. She was just… a friend." His eyes, as he said this, briefly met Zhou Linlang's before flickering away, a faint blush coloring his cheeks.
The implication hung in the air. My feelings lie elsewhere.
Zhou Linlang recalled, then, the cleverly encrypted data packets this young man had managed to send her recently—evidence of Li Conglomerate violations, pieced together with surprising acumen for someone from such a resource-starved world. He wasexceptional here. A fledgling eagle among carrion birds.
"One question," she said, her tone casual but her eyes sharp. "How did you know he would be here, at this specific bandit den?"
Qin Mianfeng's gaze shifted minutely. "Before he left town… I managed to place a rudimentary tracker on one of their mechanical steeds. Crude, but it served its purpose." In truth, it had been the spectral old man's guidance, but Zhou Linlang saw only a resourceful, determined youth.
She nodded, storing the information away, and gave the order to land.
The assault team descended with practiced efficiency, energy rifles humming. They expected resistance, a final stand. What they found was a scene of bizarre, post-cataclysmic liberation.
Prisoners, emaciated and wide-eyed, were stumbling into the open, helping each other. At their center, surrounded by a protective ring of the most resilient survivors, lay a figure on a makeshift stretcher.
Qin Mianfeng's blood ran cold, then hot. Oaks!His carefully constructed persona of grieving avenger shattered under a surge of pure, unadulterated hatred. Lightning crackled wildly around his hands. "OAKS! YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT!"
He lunged forward.
He was met not by guards, but by a wall of ragged, desperate humanity.
"Stop! Don't you touch our savior!"
"He's our benefactor! He saved us!"
"You monster, get back!"
"Stand down!"
They surged around the stretcher, their bodies forming a frail but impassable barrier. Their faces were gaunt, but their eyes burned with a fierce, protective light.
Qin Mianfeng stumbled to a halt, utterly bewildered, his righteous fury turning to ash in his mouth. A cold, slithering doubt took its place. What trick is this?
Zhou Linlang moved forward, her presence calming the immediate tension. "Explain," she commanded, her voice cutting through the babble.
And they did. A chorus of overlapping, earnest voices painted a picture of miraculous heroism. The terrifying explosion (attributed to the young master's cunning with the mechanical horses). The brave, bloody escape from a tormentor. The selfless distribution of keys. The final, dying wish for them to bear witness and share in the spoils so they could rebuild their lives. It was chaotic, heartfelt, and remarkably consistent on the key points. Even those who had fled first confirmed the explosion and the noble youth's capture.
The narrative was airtight. The vile, lecherous Oaks had been transfigured, through fire and sacrifice, into the noble, selfless "Young Master Xie," a tragically wounded hero.
The imperial inspectors exchanged baffled glances. The aide scratched his head. Qin Mianfeng looked like he'd swallowed something particularly sour.
In the privacy of his mind, he screamed at the spectral old man, 'What now?!'
The old man's voice was heavy with reluctant acceptance. 'Public sentiment is a tide. To swim against it now, without overwhelming power or evidence, is to drown. You are not yet strong enough to be an outlier.'
Zhou Linlang stood slightly apart, her sharp eyes taking in the scene: the bandit corpses, the scorch marks, the grateful prisoners, and the pale, "dying" youth on the stretcher. Her gaze lingered on Qin Mianfeng's stricken, frustrated face, then returned to the unconscious "hero."
Oaks, she thought, the name tasting strange on her mental tongue. What exactly are you?
Something here didn't add up. The pieces fit together a little too neatly, the transformation a little too complete. It felt less like a redemption arc and more like a masterfully staged play. And she had never enjoyed being part of an audience without knowing the script.