[Mountain Opening House, Zone C.]
[Work chants rang through the morning mist as a line of men filed into the mine. The men who had been bleary-eyed moments ago were now wide awake.]
[Li Biao walked at the front and shouted in his rough voice, "Keep your eyes peeled! We're heading into the seaside mining area. The volcanoes are small, and their eruptions aren't powerful."]
[He paused, his voice turning grave. "But the ground is soft and liable to collapse. Watch yourselves, brothers!"]
[The twenty-odd men were under Li Biao's charge. As dormitory head, he had the ear of several stewards and earned considerably more each month than an ordinary miner. But the position came at a price: if anything went wrong underground, he could never be the first to flee. Otherwise, no one would follow him again.]
[Li Biao had a hot temper. A few words the wrong way, and his fists would fly; he had beaten plenty of men black and blue. Yet whenever trouble struck underground, he stayed until the end and had never abandoned a brother. For that alone, the men followed him willingly.]
[He looked at the dazed boy on the bed and asked Steward Qian for a favor: let you rest one more day.]
[But the whip-carrying steward sneered. "What's this? Is he your wife or your brother-in-law?"]
["Even if your wife came, gave us lads a tumble, and climbed into a warm bed, it still wouldn't do."]
[Li Biao frowned. Steward Qian was not the sort to haggle over every little thing and cling blindly to the rules.]
[Steward Qian said sternly, "The rules of Mountain Opening House can't be broken. Wake him. He's going down with you!"]
[Steward Qian stepped closer to Li Biao and lowered his voice. "There was trouble in