Thirty minutes later, at Repair Site #104 beside the first severed Star-Train bridge, Sword Emperor Bai Xinghe let out a low groan and slowly opened his silver eyes.
The first thing he felt was a throbbing, egg-sized bump right on the crown of his skull—warm, round, and humming with a strange, soothing earth-Qi that actually made his fifty-thousand-year-old headache feel surprisingly refreshed.
The second thing he saw, when he looked down at his own chest, was a sleeveless, neon-yellow vest with two bright silver reflective strips across the stomach and bold black letters printed on the front pocket:
[ DRY-WELL PUBLIC WORKS — PROBATIONARY DEBTOR #109 ]
Around his ankles clinked a pair of heavy black-iron [Rank 9 Gravity Ankle Monitors], each flashing with a small green indicator light that read: [Battery Charging: Converting Wearer’s Grumpy Sword Qi into Streetlamp Electricity — 12 Kilowatts/hr].
“I... I am wearing the yellow vest...”
Bai Xinghe stared at the reflective stripes on his chest, his fingers trembling as the memories of the past hour came crashing back into his mind.
His fifty-thousand-year slumber disturbed by a train whistle. The yellow tax notice glued to his coffin. His 10,000-Light-Year Milky Way Sword River slurped up like a noodle and burped out as train tracks. His Silver-River Sovereign Sword caught between two bare fingers and tossed into a radish crate. And finally... that flat, black mud-brick descending from the heavens like the palm of a Supreme Creator to smack him straight into a cement mixer!
