A woman in leather armor pointed a hunting rifle at Yuan's head.

He didn’t raise his hands up in the air though. Instead, he grabbed his revolver and pointed it at his assailant’s face before she could react. A tense silence quickly settled between them, both ready to pull their trigger on a moment's notice.

Yuan knew he would win a gunfight–he was quicker on the draw–but he cautiously waited for her to explain herself first.

“No weapons inside, cowboy,” the woman said gruffly. Yuan immediately recognized the voice that had spoken to him earlier. “You’ll get your gun back on your way out.”

Instead of answering immediately, Yuan first scanned the room. It was a bit difficult to see much with the low lighting, since flickering chandeliers provided most of the light and the few lamps remained shut. Yuan assumed that the owners kept their precious electricity for the turret outside.

The Golden Gate turned out to be a small caravan bar fit to house a few dozen patrons. Scrap merchants played cards on metal tables, while their guards drank booze near a rusted counter. A trio of cultivators sat on a carpet in a corner, cycling their qi before a small altar dedicated to the Spiral Dancer.

None of them were armed.

“I can tell how many bullets I've left,” Yuan said as he handed his revolver to the guard. He didn’t like it, but keeping his weapon would surely cost him the locals’ friendship and any chance of obtaining intel. “Don’t try to abscond with them. I know the music.”

The woman snorted and lowered her weapon. “Don’t start trouble here. No second chances.”

“Where can I find Kyung-sun?”

The woman guard pointed at a counter to the side with her chin. Unlike the bar proper, the nearby shelves were filled with notebooks and scrolls instead of bottles. A woman in a blue fur dress sat behind it: one with silky black hair, eight eyes, and four spider legs popping out of her back.

A yaoguai. Odd. They usually put up an illusory disguise when interacting with humans. Yuan supposed that this one didn’t bother considering her home’s remoteness. Yuan walked towards her when a bounty board caught his eye.

A sketch of Revolver’s ‘face’ occupied its center. Yuan stopped just long enough to read the notice underneath.

“Fourth Coil Cultivator wanted dead for abolitionist crimes against the Yinyang Khan, the Flesh Mansion Sect, and the Fanged Caravan Company. Don’t bother taking him in alive. Bring his head as proof to the closest bounty office.”

Revolver was wanted dead. Not dead or alive. Just dead. His head was priced at two-thousand soulstones too; a rather hefty sum for a lone cultivator. No wonder he didn’t want to stick around for too long.

Between the mention of ‘abolitionist crimes’ and Revolver’s hatred of slavers, Yuan figured his fellow Gunsoul earned his bounty fighting slavers. If anything, it only increased his respect for the man. To defy a warlord and live to tell the tale was a feat worth celebrating.

Perhaps I will have a bounty notice of my own one day. The idea of seeing his own face on a board right next to Revolver’s amused Yuan. He was a benchmark of power he hoped to reach. One day, we’ll meet each other again as equals.

Yuan pushed Revolver out of his mind and approached the spider-lady. She finished writing down words on a notebook with a quill before she deigned to greet him. “Scrap or cultivator?”

Yuan’s fists tightened on their own. He hated that question and everything that it implied. “What difference does it make?”

“A big one.” The yaoguai studied Yuan with her many eyes, all of them pitch-black as a New Moon night. “I’ll repeat myself: Scrap or cultivator?”

“Cultivator,” Yuan replied, almost reluctantly. How strange. He always thought that he would say that word with pride, like showcasing a trophy he had rightfully earned through his efforts. Yet here, he felt almost ashamed. “First Coil.”

“Zodiac sign?”

“Yang Metal Ox.” Yuan scowled. “Is this an astrologer’s parlor or a trading post?”

“Both. A visitor’s sign informs their fate, and yours is a stubborn one.” The yaoguai scribbled notes on her notebook and then closed it. “I am Kyung-sun, the manager of this fine establishment. Is that a bullet stuck in your head? You should remove it. It’s unsightly.”

“Not until I catch up to the man who put it there,” Yuan replied dryly. Something about this woman rubbed him the wrong way, and it wasn’t about being part spider. “I am Yuan Guang, from the Eastern Express. My group was ambushed by a large group of marauders with humvees. You must have seen their convoy.”

“We did. Our lookouts sounded the alarm when they came roaring in from the west. For a moment, I feared we had a fight on our hands.” Kyung-sun joined her hands, her expression utterly unflappable. “They forced their way into my establishment and asked questions.”

A shiver ran through Yuan’s back. “About us?”

“Yes. They wished to know if a delivery team of three people from the Eastern Express had stopped in Gatesville.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought. “I told them that you had yet to arrive, for a fee.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“You sold us out?” Yuan choked in outrage. “Why?!”

“Because if I hadn’t, they would have tried to take that information by force; a fight we would have lost considering their numbers and armament. At least we received financial compensation for our trouble this way.”

Yuan’s hand reached for his belt and failed to find his revolver. His gaze wandered to the guard at the entrance, who proceeded to maliciously wag her finger at him.

“Son of a…” Yuan complained.

“We get that a lot,” Kyung-sun replied with a stone-faced expression. From her reaction, she was used to visitors trying to hold her at gunpoint.

“I see why you confiscate your customers’ weapons,” Yuan said with an angry grunt. “Smart.”

“Do not take it personally, Mr. Guang,” she replied, her eight eyes blinking all at once. She seemed a little bit ashamed, though not enough to apologize. “You would have done the same in our situation, and even if I kept my mouth shut they would have ambushed you at our trading post anyway.”

She was only half-right. Yuan would rather bite the dust than betray someone’s trust—it was too rare and precious in the Unmade World—but her silence wouldn’t have changed anything. The fact that Slash knew their company, numbers, and the direction from which they were coming before reaching Gatesville could only mean one thing.

Someone at Eastern Express had betrayed Yuan’s team.

And that traitor would pay.

“Considering the trouble you’ve suffered and the damage to our reputation, I am willing to compensate you,” Kyung-sun offered. “Up to a point.”

“What, will you buy tombs for my dead teammates?” Yuan mocked her.

“That’s within our budget.”

Yuan didn’t want money. He wanted blood. Both for himself and his dead comrades. “Start by telling me who these people were.”

“Your attackers belonged to a warband affiliated with the Yinyang Khan; the region’s most powerful cultivator.”

That name again… “The warlord?” Yuan asked. “Where does he rule from?”

Kyung-sun grabbed a scroll from her shelf and unveiled it on the counter. Yuan found himself facing a crude map of a long coastal area between the Bitten Sea to the north and the Oil Lakes region to the south. The Fanged Coast.

“The Yinyang Khan rules from Battletown,” Kyung-sun explained, one of her spider-legs pointing at a distant city a hundred leagues west of Gatesville. “A third of the region’s settlements pay him tribute, as do many sects.”

“Including yours?” Yuan’s jaw clenched. “I thought his influence didn’t reach so far east.”

“We are too remote for any warlord or sect to bother conquering, so we remain beneath his notice. He is allied with the Flesh Mansion Sect that rules Fleshmarket, however.”

That would explain how he caught wind of the delivery. “How many men does he have?”

“Thousands of Scraps and hundreds of cultivators, many of which have reached the Fourth Coil.” Kyung-sun folded her map. “I humbly suggest that you let the matter slide. Crossing the Yinyang Khan is a quick path to one’s next life.”

“Don’t bother, I already know the way out,” Yuan replied with a grunt. “Did the warband stop here on their way back too?”

“No, they did not.”

Interesting. Gatesville’s trading post didn’t look too well-defended in Yuan’s mind, so a large warband like Slash’s would have no trouble raiding the place or extorting supplies from the locals. The fact that they didn’t—and bothered to pay for quick answers—meant that they were on a time limit of some kind.

Everything pointed to Revolver’s hypothesis being correct. A greedy conqueror wanted to add another trinket to their collection, and the murder of Yuan’s team had been a small price to pay to obtain it.

That meant Yinyang Khan was likely out of Yuan’s reach, but not Slash. Now that he knew where his murderer came from, he would track him down across the wastes and return the bullet to its sender. With interest.

“I need this map,” Yuan told Kyung-sun. If she wanted to compensate him, here was her chance to prove it. “And a ride to Fleshmarket.”

Yuan would need to stop there on his way to Battletown, both to inform their original client of the package’s loss and to question them about the cube. What made this artifact so precious that a warlord would send a warband a hundred leagues away from their seat of power to steal it? It made Yuan curious.

“I can lend you a copy of the map, but you will have to find your own vehicle.” Kyung-sun curtly nodded at her drinking patrons and cycling cultivators. “If you wish to reach Fleshmarket, you can join the present caravan. They intend to take the northern road there. I’m sure they will welcome a cultivator mercenary.”

This option didn’t appeal to Yuan in the slightest. The northern road was both the longest path to Fleshmarket from what he gleaned from the map, and the caravan rode kirin. Those horses were a sturdy and hardy lot, but only half as quick as a motorbike.

“Doesn’t anybody have a car or a cruiser?” Yuan asked. Though he had nothing to buy a ride with, he could always try to negotiate. “I need to reach Fleshmarket as fast as I can.”

“If you’re strapped for a car, you can always tame one,” Kyung-sun suggested. “Herds of wild car-spirits drive through the Thunderlands. With luck and moxie, you could ride one to Fleshmarket.”

A spirit-car? Yuan had tamed a few in his youth when he still worked for the Stoneskin Sect. The issue was baiting them with oil and preventing them from fleeing the moment their driver exited it, but he could ride one through the Thunderlands and straight to Fleshmarket. It would be the shortest path.

Moreover, Thunderlands abounded with qi. Cycling there would drastically shorten the time that Yuan required to reach the Second Coil. It would help make a difference once he caught up to Slash’s band.

“Your company already paid for the refuel, so I can hand an oil canister over to you,” Kyung-sun said. “You should bait a spirit-car with it easily enough. I wouldn’t recommend it though.”

“I can take care of myself,” Yuan replied. “I’ve braved Thunderlands before.”

“Not this kind,” Kyung-sun warned him. “The radioactive winds from the nearby ruins have corrupted the local caretaker spirit into a rad-hag. Her Thunderlands have become a den of mutants and demons. Our own trappers don’t dare to hunt there alone.”

Few things scared Yuan, but Kyung-sun’s words gave him pause. A rad-hag was a dangerous creature. A blighted witch with an appetite for destruction whose presence cast a dreadful curse on the Thunderlands under her control. Even cultivators stayed wary of them.

The thought caused Yuan to scoff. He was still thinking like a Scrap.

“Whatever.” Kyung-sun let out an inhuman chitter. Yuan suspected it was her kind’s equivalent of a sigh. “You are free to risk your life as you wish. Are we done?”

Yuan quickly picked up the hidden question: was her debt to him settled, or should she expect him to come back seeking revenge later? Yuan considered his decision for a minute.

“Yeah,” he replied warily. “Yeah, we are.”

He wouldn’t gain anything from antagonizing her now, and had bigger fish to fry. He wanted Slash's head on a platter and the Eastern Express worm who told him about his team’s package. Picking a fight with a warlord’s retinue would bring him enough enemies; he didn’t have time to make more.

Yuan considered his options. He could either travel with the Caravan and take the longer road, or skip straight through the Thunderlands. In the first case, he could ask fellow cultivators for guidance; but the latter would let him cycle to the Second Coil quicker.

Tough choice.