...The next morning, Ensign Rudolfson announced he was going on patrol and told Li Qingyu to find a sentry at the camp gate named Little Joel—he would escort him to the Great Lift.
Li Qingyu grunted in reply and tossed four potatoes onto the hotplate for breakfast.
"Discipline in the PDF really is trash," Li Qingyu thought. "Rudolfson left me in the company commander's tent just because we chatted a bit. If I were a spy, you'd be finished."
After eating the potatoes, Li Qingyu casually stuffed the hotplate into his pack, filling it to bursting—like the thing had belonged to him all along.
Leaving the tent, he spotted a young PDF soldier on guard at the gate.
"Little Joel?" Li Qingyu called.
"Yes, sir!" the soldier barked.
Li Qingyu hurriedly waved his hands.
"I'm not an officer."
Joel, a very green recruit, scratched the back of his head in confusion. He couldn't make sense of how a man walking out of the company commander's tent could not be an officer.
Li Qingyu didn't bother explaining.
"Rudolfson warned you, right?"
Joel nodded.
"Follow me, sir. I'll escort you into the hive."
He moved out, leading the way. Li Qingyu didn't bother correcting him again and simply followed him into a railcar.
There were quite a few wounded riding the train into the city. Li Qingyu looked at the hive spire rising high into the atmosphere. No matter how many times you looked at that behemoth, it still inspired awe.
People of the forty-first millennium could casually build structures tens of kilometers tall. What power of technology!
And with all that, the Imperium still managed to be half-dead, torn apart by xenos, daemons, and other filth. Absurd, nothing else.
About ten minutes later, the train stopped—they had arrived at the Great Lift sector of the Mid-Hive.
There, they had to pass through gene-scanner gates. Ordinary people passed without issues, but the moment Li Qingyu went through, the device flashed red and blared a siren, drawing the attention of enforcers with electro-batons.
Little Joel had to intervene every time, show his PDF identification, and explain, to let them proceed.
Li Qingyu looked around the Mid-Hive with curiosity. To be honest, he was disappointed. He'd expected neon cyberpunk: signs, green streets, ads—nothing like that.
Grey everywhere. Grim buildings of grey ceramite, crowds of factory workers with dead eyes.
Though, thinking about it, that was logical. This was Warhammer 40,000. Outside the Upper Hive aristocracy, nobody could count on a comfortable life.
As Joel led him toward the Lift, Li Qingyu kept turning his head.
"Joel, is your home here in the Mid-Hive?"
The soldier nodded.
"Yes, in the military sector. Families of PDF troopers like me are assigned housing. Praise the Planetary Governor."
"And you make enough to live?" Li Qingyu asked.
Joel's face darkened.
"My pay is a thousand tokens a month. My father works at a chem plant, makes two thousand one hundred. My mother does handicrafts at home—another hundred twenty."
He sighed.
"There are four of us: father, mother, me, and my little brother. Expenses are about two and a half thousand, plus a five hundred tax. At best we can save two hundred."
"But my brother will soon come of age, and we'll have to pay for schooling. All our savings will barely be enough for him to get even basic education and make it into a factory."
Li Qingyu clicked his tongue. Real Warhammer.
To farmers outside, it seems like the hive resident's two-thousand income is five times their wages—a paradise.
But the environment squeezes everything out. Every income tier has its own expenses: food, water, taxes. The moment you start saving, it all goes to medical treatment, education, or bribes. Nothing remains.
Mid-Hive families live on the edge. One illness—and everything collapses: you can't pay, you miss taxes, you lose citizenship, and you're exiled into the Underhive.
That was why there were so many people below. You could call it a feature of the forty-first millennium. Agri-World 496b was still merciful.
They walked about twenty minutes and reached the Great Lift. Platforms went up—into paradise—and down—into hell. This lift went down.
Thousands of people crowded around. Some rode daily to work in Underhive zones; others had been stripped of citizenship and chained in manacles. Families cried, begged for mercy, and got only baton strikes in answer.
These wretches were those broken by tax pressure. Once a thousand people gathered, the Lift sent a batch down into the depths.
Looking away from the crowd, Li Qingyu noticed a sign above one shop—two red entwined snakes with a cross between them.
He caught his companion by the elbow.
"And that shop over there?"
Joel looked.
"That's the School of Two Snakes. A medical shop. They have their own doctor—treats almost anything. They sell everything health-related."
He grimaced.
"But it's expensive. Unbearably expensive..."
Li Qingyu rubbed his chin, studying the sign. "I wonder if they have parts for upgrading the Medbay. I need chemical purification equipment, a thermoregulator, and a mixer-precipitator. I've got the first two, but the mixer... Maybe I can buy it from these 'Snakes'?"
"Sir, the lift is here," Joel's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
"Ah. Right. Go back," Li Qingyu nodded.
He put two potatoes into the soldier's hand, waved goodbye, and stepped onto the platform.