“Please………give the card back to me.” I said once again.

“Huh? What!? Hey Rene, I have more earwax than you! Now I am hearing a cricket chirping in my ears, it’s really getting annoying!” Leo complained fakely.

“I hear crickets too! Um oh, this is contagious!” Rene said.

These boys must be having lots of fun bullying me. I slowly got back to my feet, and lowered my head.

“Can you please give me back my card? I haven’t eaten for days, I couldn’t go any further. If you give it back, I promise I will turn in thirty pounds of coins everyday.” I should become an actress, and was almost proud of my acting skills. I hated these boys so much, but had to beg them to give the card back so that I could survive this place.

Leo smirked, “It’s none of my business whether you are alive or dead.”

“But if I live, then at least there are thirty pounds more coins for you guys. If I die, then there is nothing. Your boss will be happier that you gathered more coins, right?”

“Don’t be so arrogant and make it sound like we couldn’t live without your coins, okay? Everyday there are more slaves coming into the Underground. The dying was always less than the coming. You think those thirty pounds were made of gold?”

Rene giggled at Leo’s words.

“Guys, let’s go get some nice bread!”

Those three boys walked toward the food station with my wooden card. Yep, with my own wooden card that I worked for two whole days, both day and night.

If I could cry bloody tears, I sure would, except I didn’t even have the energy to cry.

All that was left was plain helplessness.

I fell back to my feet and sat on the ground like a deflated balloon.

The line was gathering, and soon there was a super long line. Everybody had a wooden card in their hands, and was staring at the warm steamy buns with watering mouths. I had this urge to just go over there to ask for half a bun. I would cry my guts out and my throat crack to see if the guards would be so benevolent to give the bun to me.

LiNa, do you really think the guards fit the word “benevolent”?

Everyone here was so used to seeing death, that they already became numb. Nobody would help, nobody care, just get over the thought of throwing a tantrum in front of those merciless guards!

I really thought deeply about my situation.

Now I had nothing in my hands except for the hammer and the chisel. If I was going to start all over, that meant I would need to pay the “fee” everyday. That was thirty pounds of coins! I didn’t have much energy left to even get to this amount, even if I was so lucky to get thirty five pounds, I only was able to make five pounds per day. It would take me at least twenty days to accomplish a hundred pounds, disregarding the fact that I would be weaker and weaker as time went on, until there was no more strength to lift that huge hammer one day.

Based on the conditions I was in right now, I would be surprised to even survive another week.

I took a deep breath, and let it out completely.

Finally grabbed onto my basket and tools and headed to the spring to drink a full stomach of water, and then went back into the cave.

I would rather die fighting until the end than sitting here to rot. There was no hope I would be able to gather enough coins to survive, but at least I tried. That way there was no regret, and Grandpa Jin and Grandma Sha won’t be disappointed in me. My whole body ached, for I had not slept for two days. My eyelids were falling down, but there was really no time to lose.

I kept on cracking geodes when most demons were outside resting. I worked until I couldn’t hold my eyelids anymore, and fell asleep in the piles of rocks. I was too tired to even dream.

The night slipped away in a blink of an eye.

I was woken up by a ton of clanging sounds, other than that, there was also a loud scream across the space.

“It has COLLAPSED! The other side just collapsed so many people are buried underneath!”

Many slaves dropped down their baskets and headed to the other side. I thought demons were mostly cold natured, that they didn’t care about one’s life or death, but now they were actually cohesive to help out the sufferers. When it came to a real disaster, they didn’t lose their integrity despite all the hardship.

I hurried to follow the crowd to see if there was anything I could help.

When we arrived at the scene, it was worse than expected. There were groans and screams everywhere. The collapse was severe, it seemed a whole wall had crashed down. Rocks buried like a little hill over the bodies.

“Help! Help me………..”

“Please, help………”

Everyone started to lift the rocks away, to free some of the people beneath. They helped to carry the injured out of the cave. I went over to give a helping hand. Countless corpses were laying outside under the sunlight, and being carried away to an unknown place. I bet they were taken to make some more blankets and then thrown into the corpse hole to rot.

We bandaged up some of the injured people. For those who had broken bones, we found sticks to support the bones. As I walked around to help out, there was a familiar face laying in the crowd.

Rene…….?

His pretty little face and silver hair was all covered with dirt, and he seemed to have fallen into a coma. There were spots of blood staining his clothes.

Most of all, he was MISSING A FOOT, everything was gone right below the left knee!

Blood was seeping out the wound like a faucet. I could even see the shattered bones, muscles, and veins next to the knee.

Someone was stopping the blood from coming out by putting a lot of pressure on the wound. After some time, the blood finally stopped. I was actually relieved. I thought I would feel avenge because of what those boys did to me, but Rene was only a kid, looked no more than a ten year old. No matter how much I hated this brat, I didn’t want to watch him die like this.

This world was cruel, a kid like his age should enjoy a good life with his family, and obviously he was not. He was not lucky to be born here, and it wasn’t his choice either. I tried not to look for more excuses for those brats, because their behaviors and cold-heartedness shouldn’t be easily forgiven.

I went to bandage up another person. After a long day’s hassle, the site was finally cleaned up, and the injured were taken care of.

But afterwards………

No one ever came over at all, as if that initial kindness was all used up. The injured were left there to either survive, or to die.

Before I was not able to completely understand their coldness, but as my body weakened, I finally understood why no one cared to share food with the injured. It was not like they didn’t want to do so, it was more like they couldn’t. If they shared the food to save someone, then they might die of starvation or malnutrition.

No matter how much I wanted to help, all I could do was feed them some water, for I was starving too. Demons’ healing power was no joke. Most of them managed to pull it through, although a little crippled, they were able to crack rocks.

Except for……….

Rene………

He was in a deep coma for two entire days.

Maybe he has some kind of concussion or lost too much blood due to the missing foot?

I tried feeding him a little water to at least keep him hydrated during this time. I had no obligation to care for this little brat, but there was no way to ignore the whole situation either. Oh well, this was probably one last good thing to do before I die.

Weird enough, the other boys including Leo had never appeared at all. Wasn’t Rene part of the gang? Leo acted like Rene’s older brother, why didn’t he come and help him out in this critical moment?

What kind of gang was this? No one was there to help you when you needed it, then what was the point of joining the gang in the first place?

As I was dripping droplets of water into his mouth using a large leaf, his eyes moved a little and finally opened slowly.

“You…….!?” Rene’s voice cracked a little.