SHING—CLANG! SHING—CLANG!
Out in the starry void at the western edge of the Sword-Mountain Sector, a breathtaking sight was unfolding at the head of the [Light-Year Sword-Rail Express].
Two figures stood side by side on the open construction platform at the nose of the giant golden locomotive as it surged forward through space: Ye Guhan in his grease-stained blue work coat and yellow hard-hat, and the eight-thousand-year-old Sword Ancestor Ling in his matching railway overalls and yellow “DEBTOR #01” vest.
Even though Sword Ancestor Ling had already paid off a large chunk of his streetlight fine by helping clear two hundred solar systems of asteroid rubble over the past five days, the old monster flatly refused to take off his yellow Debtor vest—because wearing it got him to the front of the line at Old Guo’s noodle window every evening!
“Watch the cosmic crosswind on the left flank, Old Ling!” Ye Guhan called out calmly, his eyes locked onto the glowing red laser guideline projected by the [Galactic Land-Survey & Tax Compass] stretching across the dark void toward Solar System #1,000. “The gravitational pull of that binary red star ahead is bending the space-bed by zero point zero-two degrees! Channel seventy percent of your Solar Furnace Qi into the back spine of your blade, not the cutting edge!”
