(Thanks to Son of the Round Clam, Pete Griffin, for the tip bonus chapter 35/50)
A powered car was parked in the lot beside Saints' Avenue. The driver held a pack of plant-based cigarettes in his hands, fiddling with it nonstop.
This car had been assigned to Li Qinwu by the Inquisition, and the driver was a civil servant assigned to him.
Seeing how diligently the man drove for him, Li Qinwu had found time to give him a pack of cigarettes.
These were plant-based cigarettes. On Terra, where the natural environment had been so thoroughly ruined that plants could no longer be cultivated, this pack was ridiculously expensive!
Low-ranking civil servants like drivers earned around three Thrones a month and could only smoke chemically synthesized e-cigarettes.
Only mid-level officials could afford plant-based tobacco. A single pack like this cost at least half the driver's monthly salary!
The driver pulled out a cigarette and kept sniffing it in front of his nose. He wondered whether he should light one up.
But as soon as the thought surfaced, he shook his head again.
The tobacco was simply too expensive. He needed to take it home and store it in an iron box. Maybe he could use it as a gift someday when he needed someone to do him a favor.
As he was thinking, he heard the rear door of the gravity car being pulled open, and someone got in.
The driver hurriedly stuffed the cigarettes back into the pack and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
"My lord, you're back. Where are we going?"
Li Qinwu looked awful. He sat down in the rear cabin, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and kept smoking.
He did not answer. He just sat there and smoked.
The driver had good instincts.