By the third morning of the Phase Two expansion, Ye Guhan and Bai Xinghe’s Inter-Galactic Tunnel-Slicing Rulers had carved the wormhole expressway all the way to Galaxy #70.
Millions of merchant ships, mining barges, and passenger shuttles were now zipping back and forth along the six-lane black-brick highway every hour.
However, as Pei Xuan stood on the inspection balcony above the entrance to Galaxy #65 (Golden-Scale Merchant Spiral), he noticed a new kind of traffic jam building up at the galaxy exit ramp.
Because Dry-Well Village’s highway rules were strict about cleanliness and safety, every merchant fleet entering a new galaxy had to stop at a temporary wooden booth so Hong Ling’s clerks could weigh their cargo, collect the five-copper highway maintenance toll, and check if anyone needed to use the bathroom.
Right now, three hundred thousand cargo captains were dancing from foot to foot in a five-mile line outside two portable wooden outhouses, while twenty bookkeepers clicked their abacuses until their thumbs cramped!
“Young Master, my fingers are going numb!” Hong Ling complained, shaking out her right wrist as she ran up the stairs to Pei Xuan’s platform. “In the last two hours alone, twelve million cargo ships passed through Exit Sixty-Five! Collecting five copper coins one ship at a time takes too long! And worse—half the sailors drank three thermoses of Sweet-Spring tea on the road, so the line for the public restroom is backed up all the way to Mile-Marker Sixty-Two!”
