Crack—
"Move it!"
Not far away, an overseer swung his long whip, driving several newly arrived mine slaves forward. Each of them wore a silver band around their necks.
These were restraints meant to seal their true qi. Clearly, they all had some cultivation.
Most of the overseers here were actually natives of Yaoyun Star. Seeing how powerful the Zheng family was, they had simply thrown in their lot with them and become their vassals. There were quite a few people like that.
"You ungrateful wretches, forgetting your ancestors! You'd actually debase yourselves as the Zheng family's lackeys!"
One of the young men being driven forward couldn't hold back. He turned and spat the insult, his expression full of contempt.
As expected, it earned him a vicious beating. The overseer's face was cold as his whip fell, each strike leaving a deep, bloody welt.
If the people beside him hadn't shielded him, the young man would have been beaten to death on the spot.
The disturbance quickly died down. The miners around them all wore numb expressions as they turned back to their work.
Shi Lan silently shook her head. There was nothing wrong with being swept up in righteous anger, but acting without regard for the consequences and snapping back for the sake of a moment's satisfaction was too impulsive. He had even dragged his companions into it.
Seeing the numb expressions all around her, Shi Lan couldn't help but sigh. The Zheng family's methods were somewhat extreme. This approach was simple and brutal, but it went against the natural order.
When the day's mining was over, Shi Lan followed the crowd of miners back to a chaotic residential area.
Calling them homes was generous. They were only crude stone chambers dug out of the mine. To avoid drawing