Patriarch Xue Ba swallowed hard, staring at the glowing bronze arch of the Pure-Heart Morality Terminal.
The eight-foot giant took three hesitant steps forward. His heavy iron-toed boots dragged against the smooth marble steps of Taichu Central Hospital. The midnight breeze rustled the hem of his torn leather coat.
“Boss Lin,” Patriarch Xue Ba whispered, glancing back over his shoulder. “Are you completely sure this thing will not shoot divine lightning at me? Last year, an orthodox priest from the Azure-Cloud Sect waved a brass mirror at my face. He claimed my demonic aura would summon thirty-six heavenly bolts to incinerate my soul.”
“The Azure-Cloud Sect priest was trying to sell you a fake protective amulet for fifty thousand stones,” Lin Mo said, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. “This terminal does not sell snake oil. It only reads your karmic balance. Press your palm against the bronze plate.”
Patriarch Xue Ba wiped his sweaty right palm against his trousers.
Ten thousand skull-masked giants held their breath in the wide plaza. The silence was so deep that one could hear the flutter of moth wings around the paper street lanterns.
An eight-foot brute who wrestled five-hundred-pound mountain boars for breakfast was trembling like a schoolboy waiting for exam results. Technology truly was the great equalizer on this continent.
