The black void between Green-Sprout Star and Warm-Spring Star was usually quiet, except for the steady golden hum of the permanent Sky-Rail.
Along that glowing track of Moon-Spider Silk and Black-Iron rails, No. 8 Passenger Star-Train—also known as the 3:15 PM Bathhouse Express—chugged along at three thousand miles an hour. Steam made of sweet spirit-mist puffed from its front smokestack. Inside its twenty wide iron carriages, five thousand tourists sat in floral cotton bathrobes, sipping cold green bottles of Dry-Well Healing Soda and peeling Longevity Herbal Tea Eggs they had bought on Warm-Spring Star.
In the very front observation lounge behind the engine room, Ye Guhan sat on a wooden stool with his spine straight as a spear.
He was a Rank 6 Peak Sword Cultivator on the verge of Rank 7, a cold-faced genius whose name once made whole sects tremble on Planet Canglan. Today, however, he wore a crisp dark-blue railway uniform, white cotton gloves, and a flat-topped blue cap with a brass badge that read: [Chief Ticket Inspector — Employee #004].
In his left hand, he held a white porcelain teacup filled with hot wolfberry tea. In his right hand, resting across his knees, was a three-foot rusty iron ruler painted with inch marks.
