He came out of the light into grey wind and the smell of rust, standing in the open outside District D, and immediately regretted the choice of arrival point. This was not a safe stretch of ground to appear on.
Is she even home at this hour, he thought, hurrying. And behind that, another thought he did not like: could he trust Uncle Wei with this? An old man who had been starving three days ago, who now knew that food came out of nowhere when Chen Yang wanted it to.
Later. Leelu first.
He reached the rusted gate above her basement and called down. "Leelu? It's me—"
He was already on the steps when he saw her, a girl with long red hair, in the middle of getting changed.
Chen Yang went crimson from the collar up, and his nose began to bleed for the second time that week.
Something hit him in the face.
"WE'LL TALK WHEN YOU'RE DRESSED," he bellowed from the floor, both hands over his eyes.
She came out a minute later, fully dressed, pulling her hair back off her neck, entirely unbothered. "What happened? What's so urgent?"
He got up and asked her, very seriously: "Is it true that cancer stopped being fatal a long time ago?"
Leelu looked at him as though he had asked whether water was still wet.
"Since the disaster? Boss, treating cancer is routine. It's — I don't know how to explain it. It's a thing that gets fixed."
"But cured. Cured completely."
"A hundred years ago they were curing almost everyone," she said. "After that people stopped keeping count of it, because why would you count?"
He shut his eyes. Right. He had been right.
"Can I buy the medicine in Grey Rat?" he said, already moving. "Today? Tonight?"
"In Grey Rat?" She pulled a doubtful face. "No. Nothing like that in Grey Rat. The Doctors' Association makes the cancer cure, and only the association — the shops in the city just sell what filters down—"
Chen Yang seized her hand and started hauling her up the steps.
"Then we're going to the association. Now."
"Boss—"
"You don't understand, I need this medicine urgently, tonight, I don't care what it—"
"Boss."
Leelu dug her heels in, reached into her jacket, and held up a sealed syringe of pink liquid.
Chen Yang stopped dead.
He took it out of her fingers and turned it over. "Where did you get this?"
"From the association," she said, pleased with herself. "I traded for it. It came with the serums." Then she saw his face and panicked. "It was a bonus! It wasn't the main part of the deal, I swear, it was thrown in on top—"
"You got this," Chen Yang said, "for one cabbage."
"...For one cabbage," she admitted, in a very small voice.
She took his hand again and towed him inside. "Come and look, come on, before you decide I've ruined you."
She hauled a case up onto the bed and opened it.
Inside, seated in cut foam in a neat rising row, was a full set of enhancement potions. Level one. Level two. Level three, four, five.
Level six.
Chen Yang stood there with his mouth open.
Leelu watched him go quiet and misread it completely, and her heart sank. He was gloomy. Of course he was gloomy — she had spent an entire cabbage, an irreplaceable, priceless cabbage, and come home with bottles.
Inside his own head, Chen Yang was doing sums, and the sums were making him lightheaded. A cabbage. Twelve yuan at a supermarket checkout. Traded for a case that could turn six ordinary men into something that could tear a car apart.
They had no idea. The association had no idea what they had given away, and he could bring them a truckload of the stuff whenever he wanted.
"Boss." Leelu's voice was small. "Do you think the exchange was bad?"
He turned around, smiling, and shook his head. "The deal was excellent. Genuinely. Don't ever think otherwise."
My lucky charm, he thought, looking at her. That is exactly what she is.
"I was glad to help," Leelu mumbled, going pink to the ears.
"Then here's what we do." He tapped the case shut. "Trade at that same price, and buy up every single thing they have. Everything they'll sell you, however much it is."
"Understood."
"Now tell me about the middleman."
"He's a level nine enhancement," Leelu said. "Association. And I think a serious one — he moved across a room faster than I could see him do it."
Chen Yang nodded slowly. That explained the quality of what was in the case, and it explained the manner she had described.
"If you think that's too risky," she offered, "we can find somebody else. There are other traders, they're just—"
"No. This Hei Yijian seems like a good partner."
"Why?" she said, so loudly that she startled herself.
"Three advantages." He held up a finger. "First, he has access to high-level goods. He showed you a set of bio-armour, which means what we've seen is not the ceiling. There's more behind him."
Second finger.
"Second, he wants something. He's been pushed out of the association and he intends to get back in — a man like that isn't looking for one lucky trade, he's looking for a supply line that lasts years. Which means our cooperation can last years too."
"And the third?"
"The third is the simplest." Chen Yang smiled. "He's intelligent. He worked out inside five minutes that you weren't the one in charge, and he didn't press you, and he didn't try to force a deal out of a subordinate. A greedy man would have squeezed you. He waited for me."
Leelu rubbed the end of her nose, embarrassed and enormously proud at the same time.
"You did well," he said. "Really well."
She flushed with happiness. "Thank you, boss."
He picked up the case and tucked it under his arm. "I'll come back tomorrow and we'll talk properly about—"
"WAIT!"
She grabbed the back of his jacket in a panic. "You can't inject those. Not like that. Not the way you're thinking."
He turned around with the case in his hand. "Why not?"
"Because there has to be a gap between them." She counted it off on her fingers. "Between level one and level two, three days minimum. After that it gets longer — more than a week between the higher ones, and it keeps stretching."
"And if the gap's too short?"
"Side effects." Her face was grim. "You wait until the last dose is fully absorbed, boss. That's not advice, that's the rule. If you don't, the body can't take the strain and it collapses. That's all. It just collapses."
Chen Yang recoiled a step, clutching the case to his chest.
"How am I supposed to know when it's absorbed?"
"You'll feel it," Leelu said, and smiled at him. "Believe me. Nobody has ever had to ask twice."
"...Right. Tomorrow, then."
"Tomorrow, boss!" She waved from the gate as he walked off into the ruins.
In a toilet cubicle in the Wanghai city hospital, light flared white against the tiles and went out.
Chen Yang stepped out of the stall with a briefcase in his hand and let out a breath.
"That was easier than I thought," he said to the mirror, and hefted the case. "Treasure. Actual treasure."
He took the syringe out of his pocket and held it up to the light, watching the pink liquid roll, and grinned at it. This was going to work. He knew it in his bones. This was going to work.
Out in the corridor, a doctor in a white coat was talking to his father, with her hands folded and her voice pitched low and kind.
"—and I do want you to think it over carefully, Mr Chen. Take today. Talk to your family."
"Yes," his father said. He looked at the floor. "Yes, I need to think about it."
Chen Yang came up beside him as she walked away.
"Is that his attending physician?"
"That's Dr Han."
They walked down the corridor together. "What did she want to talk about?"
His father did not answer for several paces.
"She suggested we transfer your grandfather to palliative care."
"Palliative care," Chen Yang repeated. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"It means he's discharged. He goes home." His father's voice was very level, which was how it got when he was holding it together. "With medication. To make the last days easier for him."
Chen Yang stopped walking.
They were asking his grandfather to go home and wait to die. That was the medical recommendation. Go home, and wait.
"The cells have metastasized," his father said. "They're saying two months now. Maybe less." He rubbed his face. "And Dr Han knows what the ward costs. She knows what we've got. I think she suggested it partly for that — so we don't spend everything on a bed."
Chen Yang put a hand on his father's shoulder.
"I understand," he said. "I understand everything."
"Come and see him."
They pushed open the door of the ward. His grandfather lay on the bed by the window, small under the blanket, grey against the pillow, and the sight of him went through Chen Yang like a nail.
He crossed the room and took the old man's hand.
"I'll go and find out about the discharge paperwork," his father said. "Sit with him."
The door closed. Out in the corridor, on the other side of it, his father put a hand over his face and could not hold the tears back any longer.
Inside the ward, Chen Yang glanced up at the corners of the ceiling.
Good thing there are no cameras in the general wards, he thought.
"Grandpa." He leaned close. "Listen to me. I've got a medicine. It's a special medicine, and it can cure you — properly cure you."
He drew out the syringe and held it where the old man could see the pink liquid moving in it.
"Will you try it?"
His grandfather looked at the syringe for a long moment. He did not believe in it. That was written on his face as plainly as the illness was.
"All right," he said, and patted his grandson's wrist. "Go on then. If it makes you feel better, boy."
Chen Yang rolled up the thin sleeve and put the needle into his grandfather's arm and pushed it down.
Then he sat back and waited, his hands locked together, hoping with everything he had.
The old man's hand went suddenly to his chest.
"Grandpa?" Chen Yang half rose. "Grandpa, are you all right, is it—"
His grandfather's eyes came open, and he let out a cry of pure surprise.
"It's — I'm light." He lifted one arm and stared at it, and then the other. "The pain's gone. The pain in my side is gone. I feel like I could stand up. I feel like I could stand up and walk out of here."
Chen Yang clenched his fist under the edge of the bed. It worked. His impossible medicine had actually worked.
"It's a miracle," his grandfather whispered. Then his face changed. "Xiao Yan. This is going to cause you trouble."
"Grandpa—"
"Think about it." The old man gripped his hand hard, and the grip was strong. "If word of this gets out, every terminally ill person in this province comes looking for you. Every one of them. And their families. What are you going to tell them? What happens to you then?"
"Don't worry about it." Chen Yang patted his hand, smiling. "Honestly. Don't worry about a thing."
"But—"
"We'll blame it on medicine. A rare remission, a case they can't explain — hospitals get those. They write papers about them." He shrugged. "Nobody in the world knows this cure exists except the two of us in this room. Nobody."