Ninety

The girl was about to pull out her key when a huge hand suddenly covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief. She hadn’t even managed a scream before consciousness vanished and she collapsed.

“Who brought this woman in too?” Tangda glanced at the new cargo, then wheeled around and slapped one of his men hard. “How many times have I said this? Only women from the Outer Quarter!”

“She works at Fishwater Joy, so she’s got no backing at home,” the first subordinate muttered, half covering his face in embarrassment. “Mainly because the last batch was awful. Boss Gou was not happy.”

The unconscious girl lay on the floor like a mangy dog, her ragged coat torn open. Beneath it the Fishwater Joy uniform was exposed, unmistakably bright and obvious.

“Let this not happen again. If I catch you acting on your own one more time, I’ll finish you right there.” Tangda gave a cold laugh. “I can tell—you fixed your eyes on her back when we went to Fishwater Joy with me. You wanted her, but couldn’t afford her then, so you’ve been tailing her for a long time, right?”

“There’s no way.” The second subordinate gave a lewd smile. “Not that. We just had to inspect the goods. If you want proof of loyalty, you’d rather make the first move yourself.”

“I’ll pass. I’ve got plenty of fine women waiting for me.” Tangda sneered, a smugness he couldn’t hide. “Even the deputy manager of our club has taken a bit of interest in me lately. Next to her, this one doesn’t move me.”

“You mean that Madam Tiger?” the third man blurted, clearly shaken. “Everyone on the street is terrified of her. Whenever they hear she’s coming to clean, they vanish faster than anything. For a month or two they’re too scared to do business and brush her bad luck away. Boss, you…”

“You don’t understand anything,” Tangda said, chuckling. “Women that are hard to handle are the ones that give the greatest satisfaction. And she has real influence. If I became her man, our operations would be safer later, and the big boss would praise how capable we are.”

“Boss is brilliant!” A, B, and C all laughed.

As Tangda and his men were still lost in fantasy, the door was suddenly kicked open with force. A line of armed soldiers stormed in and instantly encircled them. Ye Yin entered last, walking in with calm stride.

“Vice manager…” Tangda stood open-mouthed, stunned, and before he could react he was tied up tight and restrained like a hog headed for slaughter.

“You have truly disappointed me.” Ye Yin stood in the dark doorway, her eyes red around the rims, grief and anger hardening her voice. “I had planned to tell you after the job was done. I never thought the ringleader of this pack—worse than a pack of swine—was you. Have you fed your conscience to dogs? Selling human beings as if they were animals… I misjudged you. So I’ll end all of this myself.”

“Yin—Vice Manager, listen, let me explain…” Tangda had barely begun when she shot him in the knee. He cried out, collapsing into pain.

“Burning you alive would be too merciful.” She covered her mouth with her hand for a breath. “Perhaps a thousand cuts would be faster.”

By using her identity and privileges as an ability bearer, Ye Yu had long operated in secret, moving women between bases for profit. Because she managed well, and because she was a woman herself, women in her base were relatively protected. To this day their numbers had remained roughly balanced. Other bases, however, were far from so fortunate.

Even in a world where life was cheap, trafficking in human beings remained forbidden on paper. For people fallen from a base, the offense was especially severe, a sin that base authorities treated with utmost horror.

Most of the time they trafficked in young women. The ugly ones were sent to breeding centers. The prettier ones were sold to brothels. The most beautiful were kept behind as gifts for certain powerful lords, who used them for their own cruel amusements.

A breeding center was, by nature, a place of endless darkness and dread. After the Collapse, population had plummeted; infant survival was low; women, as a vulnerable group, died in greater numbers. Every base now faced a real risk of extinction.

Base Three had only managed to pass policies encouraging couples to have more children, and not every base had the money or capacity to do even that. Some simply rounded up women with no protection and treated them as breeding stock, forcing them year-round to conceive, give birth, then conceive again. Many women stayed in such centers only a few years before disease consumed them. Their internal organs rotted like overripe fruit. No one cared. Their reproductive value was extracted to the last possible ounce.

At times, to make them produce more, special methods were used to force multiple births. In the end, a fatal labor became, for those women, a cruel blessing—escape through death.

Brothels have always been lands of blood and tears; no need to explain further. As for those handed to lords, they fared no better than legend suggests. Being handled like a toy and lashed about was already the lesser fate. If they met truly deranged patrons, they could be tormented in every way, sometimes killed and cooked, then presented in their former beauty at private secret dinners for equally depraved guests.

In an age where the strong ruled, once people with diseased minds gained power, they grew worse than ever, violating what humanity imagined and tolerated, more dangerous than any king of the dead.

“How did they do ancient slow slicing? Like this?” She looked down at the tools.

“Wheh—whee…” Tangda’s eyes almost popped, his gag nearly slipping as he watched the strips of his own flesh come off and be set neatly on the floor. He blacked out and was quickly revived by icy water poured over him by one of Ye Yin’s people.

As Ye Yin reduced him to a state of no life and no death, Ye Yu arrived with her team.

“Hmm, your methods are severe,” Ye Yu said, lighting a cigarette with interest. “Is this how you keep a grievance alive forever?”

“It was just momentary confusion.” Ye Yin replied lightly. “With a vermin like this, once you see who he is, there is no need to spend time on him.”

“I like your attitude.” Ye Yu exhaled a ring of smoke. “Still don’t want to marry and become someone’s wife?”

“Can’t throw away the whole forest for one rotten root, can we?” Ye Yin said.

Ye Yu grabbed the front of Ye Yin’s jacket and hauled her against the wall. “What on earth did you eat to ruin your brain? What use does a man have except for the occasional release? If you’re empty and lonely, don’t you already have your sister and your friends? I can send you the finest, strongest men for nightly use, no repeats. Marriage can wait until another life.”

Ye Yin gently pushed her hand away and smoothed her collar. “So this mission… it was arranged by you on purpose?”

Ye Yu didn’t deny it, but she didn’t confirm it either. “Even if not by you, his fate and nature would have remained the same.”

“Same reasoning then,” Ye Yin said. “I got tired of unstable living long ago. He was only a trigger. Whoever he is, I am decided.”

As they locked eyes, Ye Yin made a small hand sign.

“P-please… spare me…” The gag cloth somehow fell from Tangda’s mouth. His breath was thin as thread. “Commander… I am from the Capital Base, under Commissioner Zhao’s team… Please let me live…”

Ye Yu turned her head away and shot him dead.

“Fine. Do as you wish.”

After a long silence, Ye Yu dismissed her men with little interest. She ordered them to take the entire gang, including the soldiers assigned to accompany Ye Yin, and all of them left without comment, leaving only Ye Yin in the vast warehouse.

She stood there in the dark for a while, peeled off her blood-splattered outer coat, tossed it to the floor, and slowly pushed open the door before leaving.

The reason she moved first against that gang, beyond a woman’s disgust for what they were, was this: behind Tangda stood Commissioner Zhao, and he had been one of Ye Yu’s informants planted in the Capital Base.

Zhao had been doing this for some time, hiding it from Ye Yu. He wasn’t even betraying out of ideology—he had simply squandered too much on gambling and then used his authority to line his pockets. But between superior and subordinate, concealment and failure to report are among the worst possible sins. If suspicion ever arises, no amount of denial will clear it—once someone stirs it, not even the sea will wash it away.

What kind of bloom would the seed of doubt in Ye Yu’s heart bear, at that point?

Two weeks later, Ye Yin left the military cleanly. After some restless turns on the street, she went straight to Blue Rose, the transgender bar she had opened with Snow and the others.

Blue Rose had been opened when she first became Minister of the Fifth Bureau. With heavy investment, a prime location, and backing, it became wildly popular. Every day a steady stream of men and women came through, and even Ye Yu had once graced it with a visit.

“Such a rare guest! Yingying, how did you get here?” Snow rushed forward with a warm embrace as soon as she walked in. “It’s been so long!”

“Let go…” Yin said.

“Hey, this feels strange…” Snow suddenly sensed something off and, to her surprise, let her go. She looked down along Yin’s body and then shrieked, covering her face. “Goodness, where did you get this surgery done? Bring everyone over, introduce it to the girls!”

That one line drew all the hostesses in. New and old voices clattered with questions. A newcomer didn’t know the situation, and Lily nodded grimly as she pointed: “She used to be sunken here. Now she’s so full?”

“Really? I want it too!”

“Me too!”

In the end, Yin sat in a deep booth with a dark expression, drinking. All around her stood women with heavy makeup and rough stubble, the kind who usually worked the floor at the bar, each trying to drape an arm around her shoulder or shoulder her with concern, others arguing to feed her grapes. A few customers yelled teasingly, “You all like men, right? Why has everyone run over to the women’s side?”

“Tonight we’ll close early. You all, go home!”

Once the guests had mostly left, Yin asked, “There are a lot of people. Have you hired many new staff?”

“Yes,” Snow said. “They all say they’re happy here, that they found their true selves. In truth, every man carries a woman in his heart. Look, Rose—come here.”

The person called came forward slowly. When Yin saw her, she froze.

Long black straight hair, a slender, tall frame, a beautiful face… and then the telltale line of a man’s neck.

“Anything I need to know?” The voice was deep and magnetic, unmistakably male.

“This is him,” Snow said. “Rose. He’s our real big boss here. Say hello.”

“Hello, boss.”

“Uh, hello,” Rose said with few words, then walked away to continue working.

“This new Rose?” Snow went on to the others. “He’s got a lot of popularity, yet he only wants to work as a server. Such a waste of talent. I asked if he had prejudice against this line of work. He said no—he came here just to fulfill a dream.”

“His dream is simple, isn’t it?” Yin snorted. “A pity. If he agreed, he’d have been the number one.”

Compared with Snow and the others, Rose was in fact one of the finest among the trans performers, and he carried an aloof, proud intensity with that glossy black hair. Customers would absolutely line up outside the shop for him.

“Exactly, we say the same.”

When the evening’s laughter finally moved toward bedtime, Yin gave Snow a look. Snow beamed and said, “You two go ahead, leave first. Tonight I’m staying up talking with Yingying.”

“Such a clever boss lady,” someone joked.

“Then we’re coming too.”

“No, another time. Be careful and go rest early, or you’ll get dark circles.”

Snow’s apartment was as clean and warm as always. Once Yin sat down on the sofa, Snow brought her a glass of grapefruit tea. “You’ve had too much to drink today. Have this and clear your head.”

“Thank you.” Yin drank a few sips and looked around the room before asking, “How is business?”

“It’s doing all right. We’ve mostly filled the team. There’s quite a bit of good quality inside, too.”

“That’s good. Stay alert all the time.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve survived the nightlife long enough to know where the pitfalls are.” Snow suddenly remembered something. “By the way, Lily keeps pestering me to ask about First Base.”

“I’m not very clear on it either,” Yin said. “But if I get word about Feng Ying, I’ll let her know.”

“Mm.” Snow’s eyes bent into a bright smile. “The zombies out there are disgusting. If a route ever opens between First Base and Third Base, I bet Lily would be running over every few days.”

“I guess there’d be fighting.” Yin smiled. “The current no-travel arrangement is for the best, perhaps.”

“But we can’t stay so fragmented forever,” Snow said. “People only have strength when they gather together. In a real disaster, there’s at least mutual support.”

“If everyone thought like you, there would be fewer troubles under the sky,” Yin said, standing up. “Next time I’ll stay up and talk again. Tomorrow is Minor New Year; I have to get back today.”

“Fine, then I won’t send you off. You won’t need it. You’ll be the one sending me back afterward, anyway.”

Yin laughed quietly.

On her way home, deep in thought, Yin collided with a person wrapped in a cloak.

“Sorry,” she said at once. The person paid no attention, hurriedly pulled their head down, and fled without even turning to show a face. Yin stood staring at the disappearing figure. For a moment she was sure it looked like someone she knew, but she couldn’t place who.

Maybe it was her imagination. She shook her head and went home directly.

Even in hard times, the year had to be marked. On the morning of New Year’s first day, Ye Yin and Ye Hua set off a few little firecrackers at the gate and were about to go inside to play mahjong when Situ Fei arrived carrying supplies.

“Do you know? That dead woman Qiao Xinran has advanced to a Tenth-tier ability user,” she said, slumping on the sofa with an almost offended tone. “Apparently the Association now fawns over her, as if she’s being lifted to heaven. Why? My sister is a full-star ability user too, and she’s still only eighth tier, yet this one progressed so fast!”

Yin had no real answer, so she could only smile faintly. Even though Hua had better aptitude than Qiao Xinran, Qiao had glow and all the advantages; naturally she would rise faster in the later stages. Talent cannot outpace an installed cheat, and even a knockoff Refinement Hall is still no joke. Besides, now that Qiao Xinran had reached a complete tier, she could already prepare to push her ability rank higher.

“Ten tiers? Amazing,” Ye Hua said with admiration. “I think I still have a long way to go.”

Situ Fei pinched Hua’s little face kindly. “Don’t lose heart. Push hard and maybe you’ll break to the eleventh tier before that woman feels it.”

“How could I?” Hua stood and laughed. “I’ll bring you more snacks.”

“Go ahead.” Situ Fei chuckled. “I don’t even realize—I’ve eaten a whole tray of your pastries without noticing. Ha ha.”

“Don’t make excuses for yourself,” Yin teased while shelling melon seeds. “I’ve never seen you so unceremonious. One New Year visit and you’ve already emptied three trays.”

“What formalities between us?” Situ Fei took the tray from Hua and set it on the tea table, then neatly picked her favorite red-date cakes. “Since Dad was moved from Minister to Vice Minister, his treatment dropped by more than one level. If I hadn’t done so many missions and brought back my rank by hard work, our whole family would struggle just to keep a normal standard of living.”

“Commander Ye has been fairly good to your family. Most of the old Mu-clan former officers have already been dealt with.”

“Mm, I’m not complaining about her.” Situ Fei was a little melancholic. “I just feel that in this world, besides one’s own ability, nothing is truly dependable.”

“Of course.” Yin said. “But you’re exaggerating. Even so, a deputy minister’s pay is almost the same as a minister’s. He just has no real authority.”

“It’s not the same. We have a huge network of relatives, and some old subordinates. They used to be able to do business with us because of the family; now the new elites push them out and shut them down. They keep coming to us for support. Once in a while it feels manageable, but over time it’s heavy. Sometimes I think these people are a curse on us—no skills of their own, and yet they drag us down.”

Situ Fei laughed loudly. “I said that to Dad and got a huge slap to the ear—stars right in front of my eyes.”

“Dad, though—”

“I was wrong to say it,” she said. “I understand that not everyone is a bloodless wolf. And I said it because I’m not strong enough myself. Our family started from loyalty and comradeship. I almost threw that away.”

Yin patted Situ Fei’s shoulder. “You’re doing fine. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Why do your old subordinates need your support too? Doesn’t the army still pay salaries?”

“My father laid out that whole team himself. They were all dismissed. They said he was too old,” Situ Fei said. “Not really. Those veterans were too loyal; new commanders are afraid to use them. Besides Dad’s people, several old friends and their squads are in the same boat. Many of them still have two sound hands and feet, but every assignment is restricted and they live in shocking hardship. It pains Dad.”

“If someone asked him to follow that someone, to be the new minister with his men, to go out begging together—would Dad agree?”

“Ahh!” Situ Fei groaned. “Don’t say ‘minister’—even if he were to be a rank-and-file with his men, he’d still do it. Don’t say impossible things. Hua, another tray.”

Yin gave a soft smile. “What kind of tragic life you must be living…”