The Authorities' reinforcements arrived in a sudden rush. Bai Zhou had never expected help from the Red-Blue Twins, old foes he had gravely wounded on the battlefield, or from the Fog City delegation, a foreign team that had once stood against him—
Both were reinforcements he had never imagined would come.
But they really had come to support him.
Ten minutes earlier.
At No. 3 Base, three sticks of incense sent thin trails of smoke curling up from the altar before a Buddha statue in an office.
A breeze slipped through the window, carrying a welcome coolness that eased the heat. As it passed through the gap, it made a soft, murmuring sound, as though someone were indistinctly reciting scripture.
A pink-haired boy knelt on a cushion before the Buddha, palms pressed together and head bowed. His lips moved in prayer, while his face remained hidden in the shadow of his long hair.
A blue-haired young woman stood by the window, her waist resting against the sill and her arms folded. She chewed gum as the breeze stirred her stylish, androgynous blue hair.
One high heel braced against the wall behind her, the other planted on the floor. In the unusually quiet,
spacious office, she waited off to the side, her bored gaze drifting from the Buddha statue to the pink-haired boy before her.
After watching for a while, she shook her head in boredom, looked away, and shifted her gum to the other side of her mouth. Her cheek bulged slightly.
She said nothing.
Only when the three incense sticks had burned down by a little less than half did the boy finish praying. He followed it with a practiced series of kowtows, as though he repeated the ritual every day and every night.
He rose slowly. The wrinkles