The crystalline airlock of Barrier Gate #7 gleamed like a hall of mirrors carved from blue diamond.
Standing directly in front of the [Trojan Nine-Grid Hotpot Cart] was Valkyrie Captain Leng Yue, a tall, silver-armored Rank 7 Peak swordswoman whose frost-blade was leveled at the velvet tablecloth hanging around the wagon’s lower chassis. Behind her, two hundred female warriors of the elite Frost-Valkyrie Squadron gripped their ice-spears, their visors locked onto the bottom of the cart.
Just above Leng Yue’s right hand hung a red-gold Fortress Lockdown Pull-Cord. One yank on that cord would seal the seventh, eighth, and ninth rings simultaneously and alert Warden Tianfa.
“Do not move a muscle, cook!” Captain Leng Yue commanded, her voice ringing crisp and cold like clashing icicles. “I saw five pairs of small white shoes underneath that tablecloth when your wagon crossed the expansion joint!
Unregistered stowaways in Ring #7 are subject to immediate execution! Lift the cloth on the count of three, or I pull the alarm!”
“One!”
Up on the driver’s seat, Gu Changsheng didn’t reach for his spatula or his belt.
Leng Yue’s dossier in the Plot-Spoiler Notebook says she was drafted into the Valkyrie Squadron at age fourteen after her younger brothers and sisters were separated from her during a sect war, Gu Changsheng recalled calmly, keeping his hands in plain view on the brass ladle. *She behaves like a ruthless ice statue to survive Tianfa’s inspections, but she secretly hides sweet berries in her armor pouch to…
