He Should Learn to Go with the Flow

"one, two, three..."

"Good heavens, fifteen are dead!"

He Ergou smacked his lips as he counted, looking thoroughly frightened.

"There should be more than that..."

Chu Mu fell silent for a moment before finally uttering a few words.

"I didn't count wrong. It really was fifteen..."

He Ergou broke off halfway through his sentence as well.

At that moment, both their gazes froze on the same spot.

At the mine exit, another group of Patrol Inspectors emerged from the Mine, carrying corpses wrapped in straw mats.

After his initial shock, He Ergou seemed to recover. He could not help muttering to himself, "Where did something happen? How come I didn't hear a thing?"

As he spoke, He Ergou stopped paying attention to Chu Mu and strode toward the group of Patrol Inspectors, clearly intending to ask around for news.

Chu Mu remained where he was, with no intention of following. Instead, he turned and headed toward the Dining Hall.

This naturally did not mean Chu Mu lacked curiosity about what lay before him. He simply felt that with He Ergou's big-broadcasting mouth, if he managed to find out anything, the news would probably spread throughout the entire Patrol Inspectorate by the time Chu Mu finished a meal.

Since that was the case, why bother going to the trouble himself? He might as well eat his meal in peace.

And as it turned out, things went exactly as Chu Mu had expected. The moment he finished getting his food, He Ergou's boastful voice rang out through the Dining Hall.

Chu Mu glanced at He Ergou, who was arm in arm with a Patrol Inspector at the Dining Hall entrance. Looking farther out, he could also vaguely see Patrol Inspectors carrying corpses down the mountain.

The boastful voice rang clearly in his ears, sketching out a complete picture in Chu Mu's mind.

"A mining disaster? Mine Cave B-6 collapsed?"

Chu Mu could not help looking again at the procession carrying the corpses down the mountain.

Dozens of lives had vanished without a sound in the space of a single morning...

"If this had happened in my previous life, it probably would have reached the Son of Heaven's ears..."

Chu Mu pressed his lips together and swept his gaze around the Dining Hall. It was not especially large, with square wooden tables arranged neatly throughout. Around a hundred Patrol Inspectors sat together in groups of two or three.

Dozens of lives had clearly caused no stir at all among them. It seemed to be nothing more than one more matter to chat and brag about... and nothing else.

Chu Mu shoveled down mouthfuls of food. He did not think about it anymore, nor was he willing to. The values and worldview of his previous life seemed somewhat at odds with this era.

Since he was living in this world, he felt that he ought to learn to go with the flow.

A reasonably sumptuous meal cost only Three Copper Coins. It was extraordinarily cheap. At least in Nanshan Town, aside from the Patrol Inspectorate's Dining Hall, there was nowhere else to find food that was so inexpensive yet still tasted good and offered such decent dishes.

There was no free time after the meal, either. The system of one radish to one hole meant that even if one wanted to slack off, one had to do it in one's own hole.

Day after day, one radish to one hole. Over time, it might become terribly dull, even unbearable.

But for Chu Mu at present, it still felt quite good.

After all, compared with the miserable wage-slave life of his previous existence, this position as a Patrol Inspector was practically heaven.

Supervising and being supervised, guarding and being guarded—there was unquestionably a difference between heaven and earth.

Besides, the people being watched and supervised were all quite self-disciplined.

After swallowing a few cheap steamed corn buns, the Forced Laborers conscientiously picked up their own tools and began bustling about the Mine like worker ants in an ant colony.

Those dozens of lives had caused no ripple among the Patrol Inspectors. Among the Forced Laborers, it seemed to be the same.

Chu Mu still leaned beneath that large, bare tree. However, what he held in his hand was no longer the long saber hanging at his waist, but a primer.

The book had originally been brand-new, but after several days of reading, it already looked somewhat worn. Its corners had curled up as well.

He had been attending the Private School for several days. Although he only made time to study and learn characters there after finishing his shift, after several days Chu Mu had barely managed to recognize a hundred or so characters.

Of course, among those hundred or so characters, at least sixty or seventy were still limited to mere recognition—or rather, the stage of rote memorization.

The written characters of this world were entirely different from the Chinese characters of his previous life. Yet after coming into contact with them and studying them, Chu Mu discovered that in many respects, the characters of this world were quite similar to those of his previous life.

The similarity did not lie in the shapes of the characters, but in the structure of how they were formed. For example, homophones and characters with the same meaning existed here as well.

This similarity unquestionably sent the difficulty of Chu Mu's studies soaring.

The many homophones and synonyms tormented Chu Mu terribly.

Chu Mu even felt that without the aid of the Spirit Radiance Blessing, he would probably have to pay another six months' worth of Tuition Fee after half a year.

Holding the book in his hands, Chu Mu read very slowly and with considerable difficulty. He merely compared the characters in the book with those he had memorized, again and again, committing them to memory and reviewing the old to learn the new.

If he had initially started reading merely to cast off the hat of illiteracy, then after witnessing his Squad Leader's Real Skill, Chu Mu had gained another source of motivation for reading.

Although he was still uncertain about the connection between literacy and martial arts practice, Chu Mu understood the principle that having more skills never weighed one down.

Chu Mu leisurely flipped through the book. His original standing position beneath the tree slowly changed with the passage of time, until he was sitting and leaning against its trunk.

At that moment, the advantages of the Patrol Inspectorate's one-radish-to-one-hole duty system became apparent.

Unless something out of the ordinary happened, no one would come disturb Chu Mu.

The other Patrol Inspectors would not, and the laboring Forced Laborers... even less so.

As for the noisy racket of work in the Mine, Chu Mu simply treated it as training for his concentration.

By the time he finished the thin primer, more than half an hour had passed. Holding the book, Chu Mu closed his eyes and carefully recalled things for a while before finally closing the book.

He swept his gaze around the Mine before him, then habitually murmured in his heart, "Light Screen Panel."

The Light Screen Panel appeared at once.

Sure enough, after more than half an hour of concentration, his "Spirit Radiance Value" had increased considerably. He had taken another step toward the one-hundred-percent threshold.

"Reading can be taken slowly. At worst, I'll just pay a little more money. I can't let my saber technique fall behind. The bulk of my Spirit Radiance Value needs to go into Martial Arts..."

Looking at the "Spirit Radiance Value" displayed on the Light Screen Panel, Chu Mu silently pondered.

Perhaps it was because he had not fully adapted to this era yet. Or perhaps it was because he had witnessed how cheap human lives were, no better than weeds. Either way, it always left him with an inexplicable sense of danger.

Especially since he was wearing this Patrol Inspector's skin.

As he pondered, Chu Mu could not help looking toward the patch of open ground in the distance where his Squad Leader practiced Martial Arts.

After a moment, Chu Mu still shook his head inwardly. If the Original Owner's father were still alive, perhaps he could have made some arrangements.

As someone who had only just arrived and had not even figured out the Patrol Inspectorate, finding a way to come into contact with Real Skill in the short term truly seemed impossible...