I'm About to Start Showing Off

The second muffled thud was louder than the first.

This time, several other slaves in the mine tunnel heard it too.

A young slave raised his head and looked blankly overhead.

Another stopped working altogether and took half a step back.

The triangular-eyed overseer's whip immediately cracked through the air.

"Who told you to stop? Keep digging!"

The young slave shrank back and hurriedly swung his pickaxe again.

Then came the third sound: a crack so sharp it pierced the ears.

At the mortise-and-tenon joint in the crossbeam overhead, a crack suddenly spread from two fingers wide to the width of a fist.

Fine wood chips and dirt pattered down onto Lu Ping's shoulders.

Everyone stopped.

The triangular-eyed overseer stopped too, his whip half-raised.

Then the crossbeam snapped.

"Run—!!!"

No one knew who had shouted it.

The mine tunnel erupted into chaos.

The slaves threw down their pickaxes and ran for the exit, pushing and trampling one another.

The triangular-eyed overseer reacted fastest. With a crack of his whip, he sent a slave blocking his path flying, then bolted for the tunnel entrance.

Rocks began to rain down.

A fist-sized stone flew past Uncle Sun's shoulder and shattered into three pieces on the ground.

Uncle Sun was old now, and his reactions were slow.

In the simulator, the next rock had struck his leg.

Then an even bigger one had broken his neck.

Lu Ping moved.

He charged in the opposite direction from Uncle Sun—directly beneath the broken crossbeam.

The half-broken beam was falling, bearing the weight of the fractured rock above it.

It weighed at least six or seven hundred jin.

There was only one possible outcome if an ordinary person tried to catch it: being crushed into a meat patty.

But Lu Ping was no ordinary person anymore.

He was a Body Tempering Realm martial artist, and holding up a thousand jin was no great problem for him.

What was more, decades spent as a scapegoat had given Lu Ping a stronger physique than most Body Tempering Realm cultivators.

A crisis was an opportunity.

This was his chance to complete the KPI task.

Lu Ping raised both arms and dug his fingers into cracks in the wood grain beneath the beam. He lowered his center of gravity as far as he could, his waist and legs braced in a straight line.

Body Tempering Realm Spiritual Qi surged from his Dantian and poured into his limbs.

The instant the crossbeam crashed down, Lu Ping's feet sank half an inch into the rocky floor.

His knees bent, and his spine gave a series of faint cracks as it took the weight. Every vertebra seemed to protest, but every one of them held.

He held it up. He even had some strength to spare.

Someone in the Body Tempering Realm was no longer an ordinary person.

And Lu Ping, with his traits, was even less like an ordinary Body Tempering Realm cultivator.

Lu Ping clenched his teeth, the veins standing out one by one on his neck.

"Go...!"

He roared.

Uncle Sun froze for a breath, his cloudy eyes suddenly widening.

He braced himself and hurried toward the tunnel entrance.

The other slaves who had yet to escape also came to their senses.

One, two, three of them bent low and slipped beneath the beam Lu Ping was holding up, scrambling for the exit with all their might.

Rocks were still falling.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

The last slave rolled out from beneath the beam.

Seeing that no living person remained in the tunnel, Lu Ping thrust upward with both arms and shoved the beam half a foot to the side. Then he hurled himself toward the entrance.

The crossbeam collapsed completely, bringing half the rock wall crashing down with it.

Dust billowed out of the tunnel entrance, choking the people outside and stinging their eyes shut.

Lu Ping lay on the pile of rubble at the entrance, looking almost completely drained.

He rolled over to face the sky.

It was good to be alive.

It was good to have strength.

"That... that kid..."

The triangular-eyed overseer stood ten paces away, clutching the dirty rag he used to wipe his whip so tightly that it had wrinkled.

He stared in Lu Ping's direction, his mouth opening but never closing again.

A mine slave had held up the crossbeam during a cave-in with his bare hands?

A deadweight of a timber that three burly men together couldn't lift.

The kid had held it up with his two arms for a quarter of an hour?

The triangular-eyed overseer had lived for more than thirty years, and if a hundred people hadn't died under his whip, then eighty had.

He had never seen anything like it.

The commotion at the mine was too great.

Half an hour later, people from the Black Tiger Gang arrived.

The man who came was a middle-aged, bushy-bearded confidant of the second-in-command.

A ring-pommel saber hung at his waist, and his steps were light and steady as he walked.

Bushy Beard glanced at the collapsed tunnel entrance, then at Lu Ping lying on the ground, before finally turning to the triangular-eyed overseer.

"What the hell happened here?"

The triangular-eyed overseer told him what had happened.

When he came to the part about Lu Ping holding up the crossbeam, his voice unconsciously dropped, carrying an awe he didn't even notice himself.

Bushy Beard said nothing.

He walked over to Lu Ping and looked down at him for two seconds.

"Kid, get up."

Lu Ping climbed to his feet, moving neither quickly nor slowly, his back slightly bent and his head lowered.

Bushy Beard looked him up and down.

"What's your name?"

"My lord, this one is called Lu Ping."

It was a perfectly ordinary sentence.

But the moment the words left his mouth, the Sycophancy trait quietly went to work.

His tone, his cadence, the curve of his bow, the angle at which he raised his head.

The trait adjusted every detail until it was just right.

Neither servile nor overbearing, yet with just the right touch of respect.

Bushy Beard's right eyelid twitched.

The way this kid spoke didn't feel like a mine slave.

But he couldn't say exactly what was different.

"You're pretty strong, kid."

"My lord, I did hard labor when I was little. I'm used to it, with my thick skin and tough flesh."

Bushy Beard grunted.

He asked no more questions, leaving a few words behind as he turned to go.

"I'm taking this one."

The triangular-eyed overseer's face twitched, but he didn't dare say another word. He bowed and answered, "Yes."

Lu Ping followed Bushy Beard to the Black Tiger Gang's main hall.

A burly man in his early fifties sat in a grand armchair, his left hand resting on the armrest and his right holding a bowl of tea.

When Lu Ping entered, the man was looking down and blowing the foam off his tea. He didn't so much as raise an eyelid.

"I hear a strong fellow turned up in the mine. That you?"

"Yes, Gang Leader, it was me."

The Sycophancy trait activated again.

The gang leader raised his head and narrowed his eyes, studying Lu Ping for a few seconds.

Then he set down his tea bowl and asked slowly,

"I also hear you held up the mine tunnel's crossbeam by yourself and saved seven or eight people?"

"Gang Leader, I was just hard to kill. I don't deserve to say I 'saved' anyone."

"Everyone in the mine tunnel was one of the gang's people. I couldn't just stand by and watch the gang leader's assets be lost in there."

Even Lu Ping felt sick as the words came out of his mouth.

But the corners of the gang leader's mouth twitched, and his expression softened a little.

"You do have a way with words."

The gang leader picked up his tea bowl and took another sip.

"What did you do before this?"

"I farmed. After my village was destroyed, I was brought here."

The gang leader gave Lu Ping another couple of looks.

"Starting today, you don't have to go down the mine anymore."

Lu Ping bowed.

"Thank you for the livelihood, Gang Leader."

The gang leader waved a hand.

"Go register with Steward Liu and join the gang. Do well, and you'll be rewarded. Do badly..."

The gang leader stopped halfway through and said no more.

When Lu Ping left the main hall, the sunlight in the courtyard made him squint.

Then a blue panel appeared.

[KPI task completed: probation passed. You have obtained official status in the Black Tiger Gang and left the rank of slave behind.]

[Task reward: second simulation attempt unlocked.]

[Begin the second life simulation now?]

[Yes]/[No]