The autumn wind rustled the hem of Chen Mo’s tattered linen robe.
On his thin back, he carried a rough pine crate containing six miniature wooden coffins. Each one was hand-carved from cheap leftover lumber.
Beside him stood Su Qing. Her knuckles were white as she clutched a wicker basket of dried clover herbs. Through the tears in her coarse tunic, long red whip welts crossed her pale shoulders.
They looked at the sixty-foot jade archway, then at the eighty-foot screen fading into the clouds above.
“Brother Chen, maybe we shouldn’t,” Su Qing whispered, her voice trembling like a dry leaf. “We are only outer-sect trash. If the machine zaps us like it zapped Young Master Lei, Deacon Wu will flay the rest of my skin off.”
“We have nothing left to lose, Junior Sister,” Chen Mo said quietly. His lips were dry and cracked. “Last night, three more injured outer boys died of frostbite in the storage sheds. The sect wouldn’t even give them straw mats. I spent my last copper on pine boards so they could rest with dignity. If this company is real, we have to try.”
In the front row of the watching crowd, an older handyman wiped his eyes with a dirty sleeve.
