Rust Harbor

All the buildings had a look of being used for too long without anyone bothering to maintain them. They weren't about to collapse, but looking at them, you could tell they had given up on holding on any longer.

Across the street was a row of small storefronts. In front of one sat a middle-aged man in a tank top, squinting as he smoked, his gaze vacant on the road.

He glanced at Chen Guan once, then looked away.

In a place like this, unfamiliar faces weren't worth a second look.

A bus came—an old one that had seen who knows how many years of service. The advertisement on its side had faded into a blur of indistinct color. The door opened with a drawn-out clatter.

Chen Guan got on and dropped in a coin.

There were only three passengers on the bus: an old woman, a young man, and a man in a duckbill cap sitting in the very last row, the brim pulled low, hiding his face.

The bus started off with a jolt.

The scenery outside the window shifted from the rundown residential area near the station to an even more desolate industrial belt.

Factories replaced apartment buildings, ranging high and low on both sides of the road. Most had their doors and windows tightly shut. In the yards were heaps of rusted equipment and abandoned shipping containers. Occasionally, you could spot one or two workers in uniforms standing by factory gates having a smoke, but most of the factory zones were empty. Their gates were padlocked, and the iron chains had layers of rust.

At the second stop, one person got off, and two got on.

The two who boarded were both dressed in dark clothes—one tall, one short. After getting on, they walked straight to the last row and sat down next to the man in the duckbill cap.

The three of them huddled together, their voices so low you couldn't make out what they were saying. Every now and then, they glanced over at Chen Guan.

Chen Guan kept his eyes on the bus window. The glass reflected a blurry image of the cabin, and from his angle, he could just barely see what was happening in the back row.

The three of them talked for less than half a minute, then fell silent.

The two who had just gotten on each pulled out their phones and started scrolling, as if that conversation had never happened.

The third stop arrived.

East District Dock.

Chen Guan stood up and walked toward the door, casually retrieving the ticket stub that had been lifted from him earlier.

As he passed, the man in the duckbill cap tilted his head slightly, as if sensing something.

But Chen Guan had already gotten off.

The door closed behind him, and the old bus rumbled off, spewing black smoke.

...

East District Dock.

The dock itself was still running. In the distance, a few crane arms could be seen moving slowly, hoisting containers up and setting them down, the dull clash of metal echoing in the air.

Chen Guan walked a stretch and spotted a rust-streaked iron sign nailed crookedly to a concrete utility pole by the roadside.

Thirteenth Warehouse Cluster.

The characters were almost swallowed up by rust, but they were still barely legible.

Peering inside, he saw a dense cluster of old factories and warehouses packed tightly together, crammed haphazardly one against another. The alleys between them were so narrow that in some places, only two people could walk side by side. Overhead, tangled power lines and clotheslines crisscrossed, while the ground below was covered in filthy water that had accumulated for who knows how long.

White Tiger hadn't lied—this place was as chaotic as a maze.

The people here weren't much better. Even just taking a bus, you ran into thieves. It was a rough place. Chen Guan wasn't unfamiliar with this kind of environment. It didn't bother him exactly, but he had no love for it either.

Standing at the entrance, he slowly swept his gaze across everything he could see.

No obvious sentries. No cameras. No signs directing you where to go.

Chen Guan reached into his pocket, his fingertips brushing the edge of a stiff piece of cardboard.

The Jester Cap.

He took a deep breath of the iron-scented air, pressed the mask onto his face, and stepped inside.

From this moment on, he wasn't Chen Guan.

He was He Chenguan.

...

Ah Dong Hardware.

The shop was small. Behind the counter sat a man.

Male, about forty-something, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing two sturdy forearms. On the web of his right hand between thumb and forefinger, there was an old burn scar.

Chen Guan stopped in front of the counter.

By his side, a cheetah sat crouched, its tail placidly flat against the ground, its purple eyes half-closed, looking utterly lazy.

"Boss," Chen Guan said.

The man didn't look up. He was still inspecting the iron pipe in his hands.

"What do you want to buy?"

Chen Guan didn't answer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the card printed with the Jester Cap's image, and placed it on the counter.

The sound of the pipe being spun stopped.

The man's gaze shifted from the pipe to the card.

Then he raised his head, finally taking a proper look at Chen Guan.

"Where'd you get this?"

"The Southwest."

"Who introduced you?"

"No one. Heard there was work here."

The man set the pipe down on the counter with a dull thud.

"Name."

"He Chenguan."

"What do you do?"

"Odd jobs. I'll take anything."

The man picked up the card from the counter, turned it over to look at the blank back, then flipped it back to the front.

"Where did you actually get this?"

"Someone gave it to me."

"Who?"

"Don't know him. Met him drinking. He said they were hiring around here and handed me this."

He didn't need White Tiger to fill in every detail. When it came to the small stuff, Chen Guan was perfectly capable of making it up.

After confirming it was an authentic card, the man slapped it back on the counter.

"Alright, have a seat."

He pulled a low stool from behind the counter and kicked it over to Chen Guan.

Chen Guan sat down. The man fished a pack of cigarettes from the drawer, pulled one out, and put it between his lips. Then he pushed the pack toward Chen Guan.

"Smoke?"

"No."

"Good habit." The man struck a match, lit his cigarette, took a drag, and let the smoke stream out of his nostrils in two thin jets.

"What's your ability?"

"Summoning," Chen Guan said, and summoned the Cheetah.

The man glanced at it. "This beast of yours—what species?"

"Cheetah. A mutant variant, so the coat color's off."

"I can see that." The man looked down at the Cheetah. "Purple. Pretty nice. Can it fight?"

Chen Guan agreed with the man's taste. "It can fight, but not against anything too tough."

"How tough is too tough?"

"Anything above the fourth tier gives it trouble."

The Cheetah's tail twitched. Above fourth tier gives me trouble? Me?

The man nodded, as if that answer fell perfectly within his expectations.

For people applying as freelance hired hands, being too strong was actually suspicious. A level around third or fourth tier was just right.

Generally speaking, that was the sweet spot—not too high, not too low. It meant a decent income for an ordinary person, but given how much the ability users burned through money, they always ended up in a state where they weren't starving but weren't exactly full either—exactly the kind who needed shady jobs to fill the gaps.

"Ever done anything before?"

"Watched some venues, escorted cargo, picked up the occasional job cleaning up aberrant beasts."

"Ever killed anyone?"

The question came straight out of nowhere, no room for hedging.

Chen Guan's expression didn't change.

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If they attacked first."