A Close Call

"Mining proficiency +4"

"Mining proficiency +3"

"Mining..."

Half an hour later.

Qin Yao had helped Little Liuzi finish his quota of ore transport for the day, while also gaining several hundred Mining proficiency points.

When Qin Yao emptied the last cart of ore, Little Liuzi dropped to his knees with a thump and kowtowed to him. "Thank you, big brother! Thank you, big brother!"

Every one of those kowtows came from the bottom of his heart.

Little Liuzi knew full well that if Qin Yao had not lent him a hand at the crucial moment, he would sooner or later have been whipped to death by the overseer!

"No need for that. We merely took what each of us needed."

With a flick of his sleeve, Qin Yao decisively headed for his next target.

While there was still time, he wanted to help a few more people and earn a few more meals.

Qin Yao walked up to the mine slave whose legs were faintly trembling and said, "Brother, looking at you, you can't keep going, can you?"

The man nodded with a miserable expression. "Yeah. I caught a chill, and my whole body is aching and weak. On top of that, I didn't get lunch. Sigh!"

Qin Yao remembered him. This man was the unlucky fellow the overseer had dragged out of the line first when lunch was handed out.

"How much work do you have left?"

Qin Yao asked again.

"This much, and this much. All of it has to be dug out."

The man gestured with his hand, his brows shrouded in gloom.

"I'll do the work for you. Afterward, give me half your dinner. Deal?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Forget half—even if I give you most of it, little brother, that's fine!"

The man nodded like a pecking chicken.

He could not work anymore anyway. If he failed to finish his quota, not only would he get whipped, he would not get dinner either.

Without dinner at night, he would have even less strength to work the next day!

If that vicious cycle continued, he would be finished within two or three days.

"Fine, then it's settled!"

Qin Yao swung his iron pick and got to work.

Clang! Clang!

"Mining proficiency +14"

"Mining proficiency +15"

"Mining..."

Not long afterward, amid the man's profuse thanks, Qin Yao headed toward another mine slave who had not eaten lunch.

"Old man, can't keep going?"

"Alas, my old back ailment has flared up again. The pain is unbearable..."

A moment later: "What? As long as I share my food with you, you'll help me finish today's quota? Of course that's no problem!"

"Brother, brother, help me too! I definitely won't finish my quota by quitting time!"

"Me too, me too!"

Naturally, Qin Yao's activity did not escape Overseer Li Gang's notice.

But he was happy to see it happen.

In Li Gang's eyes, Qin Yao was merely doing extra work to earn extra food. It did not break any rules.

For mine slaves like Qin Yao—ones who could work, did not cause trouble, and even provided an extra layer of insurance for the work quotas under his charge—Li Gang wished he had a hundred more!

Thus, with Foreman Li turning a blind eye, more and more mine slaves who had missed lunch voluntarily offered up portions of their dinner and asked Qin Yao for help.

Since there were too many of them, these desperate mine slaves even started a "price war," promising Qin Yao increasingly larger portions of their food...

At one point.

A sharp-faced young man blocked Qin Yao's path and demanded, "Wait!

Yao Heizi promised you seventy percent of his dinner. I'm offering you eighty percent. Why did you help him but not me?"

Qin Yao gave him a bland glance. "Because when I was getting whipped earlier, you said, 'I've hated the sight of this pretty boy for a long time.'"

"Ah? This..."

The young man's expression—three parts ingratiating, seven parts resentful—instantly froze on his face.

"Now I don't like the sight of you either, so I won't help you.

"Is that reason sufficient enough?"

Qin Yao said coldly.

The sharp-faced young man immediately flushed red. He craned his neck and said, "Damn it, so what if you won't help? What's so great about that?!"

Smack!

"Ow!"

To his surprise, the moment he finished shouting, the overseer's whip lashed viciously across his thigh!

"Second Dog, you've been trailing this guy around for half the day. Now that he rejected you, why the hell aren't you getting back to work?!"

"Yes, yes, yes..."

Second Dog hunched his neck, clutched his leg, and limped back toward his work area.

Li Gang then turned to Qin Yao, wearing a smile that was not a smile. "You're something else, kid. You've got some strength.

"If it were anyone else, a newcomer working at your pace would have dropped dead from exhaustion long ago!

"Did I misjudge you before?"

Qin Yao's heart skipped a beat.

He had clearly pretended to be utterly exhausted. Had he still drawn too much attention?

It was all because he had been too eager to earn more food and had failed to keep his cool.

Qin Yao forced a helpless smile. "Foreman, you flatter me.

"The reason I'm working this hard is simply that, compared to being worked to death, I'd rather not starve to death!"

Li Gang gave a noncommittal grunt.

Then he began circling Qin Yao, step by measured step.

The cold gleam in his eyes, sharp as knives and swords, constantly scrutinized the youth before him.

Qin Yao looked like a startled, honest man. He lowered his head, held his hands together, and wore a slightly uneasy expression.

When Li Gang completed his third circle, he suddenly stopped. His shoulder sank, his palm shot forward, and he fiercely struck Qin Yao's lower abdomen!

Bang!

"Ugh!"

Qin Yao let out a muffled groan, his back slamming hard into the rock wall three steps away. Then he collapsed onto the ground on his backside.

He immediately clutched his stomach and rolled back and forth across the ground.

He put on an act of being "in too much pain to speak."

But in truth, Li Gang's palm strike was at most like getting hit in the stomach by a basketball a teammate had passed over—a slight pain that would soon pass...

Li Gang looked at the hand he had just used to strike Qin Yao's abdomen and muttered to himself, "There was no rebounding sensation of surging qi from my hand.

"That means he isn't a martial artist who has cultivated inner force."

Even after reaching that conclusion, Li Gang was still uneasy.

He grabbed Qin Yao's arm and pressed his thumb from the pulse at Qin Yao's wrist all the way to his armpit.

Seeing this, Qin Yao immediately understood. He's checking whether my martial veins are robust?

Back when he was in the Qin Family of Red River County, the clan martial instructors examining his talent for the martial path had also felt his pulse this way.

But this instead put Qin Yao at ease.

Because he had been born with crippled veins. He did not have any "martial veins" at all, so how could they possibly be robust?

A moment later.

"You're actually someone born with crippled veins?

"Even an utterly severed-vein crippled body, something that might not appear once in a hundred people, landed on you? You're truly useless, kid! Hahahaha..."

Li Gang withdrew his hand and sneered without restraint.

He had initially worried that, given the strength and endurance Qin Yao had displayed, he might be playing the pig to eat the tiger.

What if he had been hiding his abilities, only to suddenly strike at him one day?

Now that he had tested him personally, he could rest a hundred times over.

Someone born with crippled veins could be given divine martial manuals and train day and night, yet would still have no possibility of ever setting foot on the martial path in this lifetime!

And so long as Qin Yao could not set foot on the martial path, then no matter how much brute strength and endurance he had, Li Gang, with his first-layer Body Tempering Realm cultivation, could handle him without the slightest pressure.

"All right, get back to work!"

Li Gang swaggered away.

Having escaped danger without incident, Qin Yao secretly warned himself: in this place where vicious wolves lurked on every side, if he wanted to keep a low profile and grow stronger step by step, he had to be even more cautious...