Stars.
A vast, endless sea of them, scattered across the curtain of night.
Roya drifted among them, dazed, lifting his head as though he could see the gaze hidden beyond the cosmos.
So he looked up.
Looked directly into that cold, unfathomable eye.
And inside it, he saw himself.
No—
That gaze was fixed on him.
"Tch... damn, that hurts."
Headache.
Roya climbed out of bed clutching his skull, feeling as though he'd chugged three bottles of Captain Morgan and then headbutted a utility pole.
"So you do know what pain feels like."
Lin Yuhsia sat by the bed peeling an apple, her tone dripping with sarcasm as she tossed the fruit at him.
"I'm not a machine. Of course I know what pain feels like. Hm... this isn't my place."
He bit into the apple before finally realizing the room was far warmer and more comfortable than his own shabby little residence. The bedding was expensive. There was a vanity, a wardrobe—things his own room rarely had time to be properly arranged around.
"It's my room." Lin Yuhsia's tone was flat, though there was a trace of dissatisfaction in it. "After all, you're Miss Chen's fiancé. If anyone saw some unrelated woman bringing you back to your quarters, it wouldn't be good for the two of you."
"That makes sense. People would gossip about her, too."
Though he had the distinct feeling that Lin Yuhsia's words carried another layer, Roya found the logic reasonable enough. He lived in Guard Department housing; if his colleagues saw Yuhsia bringing him back, no matter how it was explained, Ch'en's reputation would still take a hit.
"And you still care about her reputation? What, that punch wasn't hard enough?"
"Why do I get the feeling you're angry about something?" Roya looked at her suspiciously. But then again, when he thought about it, she had always worn that same expression ever since they first started working together half a year ago, so he didn't dwell on it.
"Obviously I'm angry. You made an absolute mess of things this time. You kidnapped the thirteen biggest gang leaders in Lungmen, killed one of them, crippled two, and the remaining ten still haven't recovered. And then there are the dozens who died back at the compound. You call that debt collection?"
Thanks to Roya, the state of the slums was now one of utter turmoil. If not for the fact that the entire incident had lasted less than two hours, and if not for the surviving twelve gang bosses' extraordinary cooperation afterward, the slums would almost certainly have seen much more bloodshed that day.
"I didn't have a choice. Every play needs someone to play the villain and someone to play the white-faced role. Wei and Old Lin didn't want to do it, so I had to."
"Don't make my father sound so old. And have you even thought about what happens after this? Sure, they'll fear you for now—but they'll hate you even more. And they'll retaliate."
Fear faded over time.
Revenge did not.
Perhaps for a month or two, things would remain relatively quiet. But after that?
"Should I go find a time machine and head back to the past, then?"
Roya took another bite of apple and casually reached out to pat Lin Yuhsia on the head, only to have his hand slapped away at once.
"You're not afraid of dying?"
"I'm not even afraid of being poor. Why would I be afraid of death?"
With the apple between his teeth, Roya stood up, took his bloodstained coat from the rack, and prepared to leave.
His head still hurt.
But he was used to that.
One glance outside told him it was already dark, which meant he had slept for a long time.
"Do you really mean that?"
"Do you remember what my codename was, back when we first met?"
Of course Lin Yuhsia remembered.
That first meeting half a year ago had also been the moment she finally understood why Wei Yenwu and her father, the Rat King, indulged Roya so much—no matter how many petitions Ch'en Hui-chieh submitted, they always suppressed them.
"Trash Bag."
That had been Roya's own chosen codename.
Even now, Yuhsia still didn't understand why he'd picked such a thing.
"At the time, you even asked why I didn't go with Trash Can instead. After all, trash bags and trash cans don't seem that different. Both are used to deal with garbage."
Roya pointed at himself.
"The only difference is that once it's full of trash, a trash bag gets thrown away together with the garbage."
Ignoring the way Lin Yuhsia's expression froze, Roya finished putting on his coat and headed for the door. Before leaving, he waved lazily at her.
"I'm off. I'll treat you to dinner next time I get the chance."
He went downstairs, but didn't see Lin Keshui, the Rat King. Roya guessed that at the moment, Wei Yenwu and the Rat King were probably in the middle of planning how to use today's incident to take control of the slums.
Most of the people living there were Infected and gangsters. Those poor souls who had contracted Oripathy were never accepted by the majority of Lungmen's citizens. After all, the disease was simply too infectious. A single cut from Originium, too much exposure, and you could end up infected yourself.
That had created a sharp divide between the slums and the city proper, making governance all the more difficult. With the gangs fanning the flames behind the scenes, neither Wei Yenwu nor the Rat King had found it easy.
Now that Roya had created an opening, neither of them would let it go to waste.
First, they would bring the gangs to heel.
Then, bit by bit, they would reshape the slums.
"My van. Good, it's still here."
Roya opened the door and got in, but did not drive straight home.
He was still exhausted.
His head still hurt.
He had overdrawn himself too severely today.
Under ordinary circumstances, his power could affect at most ten ordinary people for three minutes. Against trained Guard Department officers, that number dropped to five. Against the Black Cloaks, maybe only a dozen seconds at most—and even that would leave him mentally drained.
But if the target feared him, the power's strength and duration both increased.
That was why he had deliberately cultivated fear back there.
It was an extremely useful power.
But the price scaled with its use.
If all he did was command simple people—or even simple objects—to perform simple actions, at worst he might forget certain things for a short time. But if he crossed a certain threshold, he would become what he had been earlier:
Something unhinged.
And that side effect would last a long time.
For the foreseeable future, it would be best if he didn't use his power again.
He took out his communicator and looked at the dozen or so missed calls from Ch'en Hui-chieh. Suddenly, he thought back to that freezing, rain-soaked night more than a year ago when he first arrived in this city—the hand that had reached out to him, and the warm plate of fried rice placed before him.
"Mr. Wei does not intend to act?"
Roya looked at the Black Cloak sitting in the back seat. He was not sure whether they had crossed paths before, but the man's presence here was obviously at Wei Yenwu's command.
"The deputy chief has rendered great service to Lungmen. Wei-gong is not a man who repays loyalty with betrayal."
"Then it seems this trash bag can still hold a little more." Roya smiled with self-mockery and slid into the passenger seat. "You'll have to drive. My head hurts."
The Black Cloak did not refuse. He merely cast Roya a long look.
He could understand why Roya would dirty his own name.
What he could not understand was why the man seemed determined to destroy himself.
Given Roya's contributions, Wei Yenwu could never simply kill him. Yet Roya carried himself as though death were what he deserved.
At the same time, in Lungmen's council chamber, Wei Yenwu and the Rat King stood side by side overlooking the city below.
Though they had just successfully used Roya's chaos to gain control over most of the gangs, neither man felt any joy.
"Should we move against him?"
"...Forget it." Wei Yenwu shook his head. "At this point, I can't do it. In a few months, we'll find a reason to remove him from office. I'll send him to Great Yan and see whether that person can cure his illness. Publicly, we'll announce that he accepted bribes and has already been executed."
For now, that was all they could do.
The Rat King remembered Roya's trash bag metaphor from that day and felt a bitterness he could not quite name.
After all, Lungmen's transformation over the past year had owed a great deal to him.
-------
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