Ten Thousand Tragedies

During the course of the long, boring, and silent carriage ride to the mines, Wu Hao had attempted to distract himself from the relentless itch to get up and move in a few ways. He'd tried to make plans to escape, but kept running into the issue of Old Qin still being there and apparently unwilling to leave. He'd tried to reason out what made someone go from a third-grade martial artist to a second-grade, but all he had were vague theories that rested on nothing but guesswork.

And his theories about how he could get to use Heaven-tier techniques hadn't progressed a bit, either.

He was grasping at straws - maybe it was the qi itself that was the problem? Maybe it was that he needed a weapon made of a specific material? Was there something else that he was missing, a secret chant or way of thinking?

The eventual arrival of rain pattering down on the carriage's roof and the soft pull of the carriage might have lulled him to sleep, if not for the fact that Wang Hangsheng was sitting across from him. The man's eyes were closed and his breath was deep, but Wu Hao didn't believe that the guard was actually sleeping.

Ou Ziye was, having leant against the side of the carriage and fallen promptly asleep. Occasionally his hands twitched or his eyes crinkled into a frown, and Wu Hao imagined that he must have been dreaming.

Another luxury he'd been denied. He couldn't remember ever even having had a dream, let alone remembering what it had been about. Nightmares, perhaps, he could imagine he'd had those.

Even looking at the smith's prosthetic had become boring. Wu Hao imagined what it might be like to try and live with one, studied the mechanisms from a distance, wondered how it connected to the bone or how heavy it was. He imagined it was made from heavy iron, but he wasn't actually sure.

With everything even vaguely interesting in the carriage exhausted, Wu Hao imagined what the outside might look like. Were they racing along mountain roads, a throughway, a forest road? Probably a throughway, he decided: there were only very occasionally moments where they slowed and the constant pull he felt shifted directions even slightly.

In a fit of boredom, Wu Hao'd even tried to imagine what the mines were like. He'd known little about them except that men went in with tools and steel went out, and presumably other things as well. Jade, maybe, or noble stones like diamonds or sapphires or the like.

As such, he'd thought that it would be a building of sorts, set against the side of the mountain. He imagined an enormous camp where the workers ate and slept, imagined a constant stream of steel back out of the mines as new men went in, grim-faced.

The reality was disappointing, as it often was. The rain hadn't let up even as they'd arrived, with the result being that the coachman had opened the door, explained that they'd arrived, and had then been sent to go fetch the foreman.

Wang Hangsheng had sat back, crossed his arms again, and closed his eyes to wait.

Wu Hao would have rather braved the rain, frankly, but he wasn't to be let out of the man's sight, so he remained sitting, studying the mines through the glimpse that he'd gotten out of the door before it'd been closed against the rain. He wished there'd been windows.

There was a camp but it wasn't enormous, even though it looked as squalid as he'd imagined. There was a main building in the center, built of solid if weathered stone, and surrounding it in concentric circles like water after a stone had been dropped into a pond, there were more tents than Wu Hao could count, smaller and rougher the further away one went.

There might have been hundreds of men here, but they were presumably huddled together under shelter, if so. Wu Hao couldn't feel much qi signatures at all, and the ones he could feel were extremely faint. Judging by the fact that he occasionally felt them touch back in at the edge of his senses, they were faint and indistinct because they belonged to men who weren't even third-grade martial artists.

But the smell of the mud just outside and the general, distant sound of the camp tents being struck down with every droplet the clouds had in them made it hard to be sure. His senses had seemed oddly constrained and distorted, making it hard to pick up a good sense of where everything was. His image of the inside of the carriage was as clear as it'd ever been, but outside his accuracy trailed off quickly.

He hadn't know that rain could do that. It was good to know, but at the same time he had a sinking feeling it might turn out to be a great pain in the ass in the future. Was it just rain, was it all weather, or was it water in general? He'd heard about the sea, a body of water so massive it beggared belief, but he'd never seen it, so he couldn't be sure.

The sound of hurried footsteps broke through the rain, not just a few but a group, all at once, occasionally splashing through a puddle or cursing under their breath at the sucking mud. Wang Hangsheng's eyes flew open, and he stared so hard at Wu Hao that he must have been asking a silent question.

Wu Hao pretended not to notice. It was petty, sure, but what did he have left as a weapon right now if not pettiness, beyond the knives he wasn't going to use just yet? He did notice that Ou Ziye had put his leg back on, though.

Wang Hangsheng spoke quietly but quickly. "Martial artists, boy?"

Wu Hao said nothing, until Wang Hangsheng glared, put a hand to his saber threateningly, and only then did he speak.

"No," he said. "Not really. Two at the edge of third-grade."

Wang Hangsheng's eyes burned into Wu Hao's, trying to see if he was lying. Wu Hao wished he was. It might make things more interesting, at least. But if they couldn't trust what he said, well, who was to blame for that, really?

The sound of footsteps stopped. Wang Hangsheng gave Wu Hao another look, then bounded up to his feet, moving languidly towards the door.

He waited until footsteps resounded against the wet-wood stairs and then pulled the door open before the first knock could be made. The man who would have knocked stumbled, recovering before stumbling back again as he took in the thick shape of Wang Hangsheng. His feet slipped but he caught himself on the stair just one step lower.

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Beyond the door, a group of men stood. One, the most luxuriously clothed of the bunch, stood near the man who'd knocked.

"Sir?" he asked. "I'm Lu Shibao, the mine overseer. These are several of our mine technicians. Prefect Shi informed us that we might expect a visit from you soon."

"Wang Hangsheng," the guard spoke. "Division leader of the Red Saber Battallion of the Jin Clan. Here to inspect the mines."

Both men studied each other, but if it came to a fight Wu Hao was pretty sure that Wang Hangsheng could take the entire camp without breaking a single sweat. He would, too, Wu Hao thought vindictively. Asshole.

This Lu Shibao didn't look like much, either. Wu Hao could sense no qi from him, and he didn't seem like much of a warrior. His gait was awkward and imbalanced, his belly girthy, and glasses were perched at the end of his bulbous nose. Wu Hao forgot his name a few minutes after speaking to him, and he doubted that Wang Hangsheng bothered ever thinking about the man as someone with a name at all.

"Yes," the mine overseer said, rubbing his hands. The guard who'd been keeping the umbrella up had to brace against the side of the carriage to resist a sudden blast of wind. "But, er, you should probably come inside. It's infernal weather to have a conversation."

Wang Hangsheng gave an unimpressed look, then folded his arms and nodded.

"Show us to the rooms," Wang Hangsheng ordered. The mine overseer gave a quick nod, barked a few orders to his men, and then had one of them stay near with an umbrella so that Wang Hangsheng didn't get drenched by the rain.

Another came hurrying forward with another umbrella, but after hesitating between Wu Hao and the smith, Wang Hangsheng addressed him.

"Help the smith," he ordered. "The boy'll make do."

Without further comment he walked off, the man who'd been assigned to hold the umbrella for him hurrying along in a mocking repetition of when Wu Hao had had to chase after Wang Hangsheng just hours ago.

The inside of the main building wasn't any more impressive than the rest of the camp had been. Its entrance was tracked with mud and a servant was hard at work with a bucket and a few long pieces of cloth, trying to clean it up.

Wang Hangsheng's feet didn't track any mud inside, but Wu Hao's did, and that got him a half-angry, half-resigned stare from the servant. The smith too, but then Ou Ziye put some extra emphasis on his next step to make the metal click clear, and the servant looked away again.

They were shown to a conference room, of sorts - it couldn't be compared to that of the Jin Clan, but then again that was only natural. There was nothing inside except a large table and papers scattered at one end, indicating it also provided all the services of a desk.

The overseer let them in, then called another servant to send out a summoning to all the mine technicians. These, Wu Hao figured, were the men who decided where to dig, how far, and how long. Ou Ziye had wandered off to the latrine and had said not to wait for him. No one had seemed to mind this.

"Anything I can offer you in the meantime?" the overseer asked. "Tea, refreshments?"

"No," Wang Hangsheng said curtly, though Wu Hao would've appreciated something to eat or drink. "How long until the men are here?"

The overseer gave a pained little smile. "Hard to say. You came at a bit of an awkward time. Perhaps half an hour?"

"Hm," Wang Hangsheng said, his arms falling to his sides. "We'll start the inspection, then."

Pausing, the overseer looked outside. Fat raindrops smashed themselves flat against his windowpanes. He looked back at Wang Hangsheng.

"If you're sure," he said slowly. "Would you like someone to accompany you?"

"No," Wang Hangsheng said. He flexed his hand.

The overseer looked a little confused.

"I'll send someone to cancel the earlier message, then," he said, and reached for a bell sitting at the edge of his desk. It was that same bell with which he'd called the servant over, earlier.

"No need. I'll stay here. He'll go."

Wu Hao's head swung around from where he'd been blankly staring out the window, finding a finger pointed squarely at him. The overseer, too, was looking at him, and from the look on his face clearly had no idea what to make of him.

That was fair, Wu Hao thought, because he had no idea what to make of himself at this point either.

"And the young master is?" the overseer asked. "Your son, perhaps? A young hero of the Jin Clan?"

"No one," Wang Hangsheng said, daring Wu Hao to refute that. "Pretend he doesn't exist."

"I... see," the overseer said. "Is it wise, to let a young boy alone? Our miners are sometimes rough men, and -"

"He's a third-grade martial artist," Wang Hangsheng said bluntly. "If he can't even survive a few miners he has no future with the Jin clan and he deserves whatever happens to him."

"Oh," the overseer said, eyes wide. The look he gave Wu Hao was tinged with respect, fear, confusion.

It made Wu Hao uncomfortable like little else that he'd felt before. It was, he decided, the awe in that gaze that set his stomach on edge. It made a certain logical sense, with even third-grade martial artists being rare enough that at most even the guards here were maybe halfway there at best, but still, Wu Hao didn't like it.

"And - he's no one?" the overseer asked, in a careful tone.

Wang Hangsheng didn't even bother responding.

"Boy," he said.

Wu Hao scowled, already dreading what he figured would come next.

Wang Hangsheng's rough hands pulled at Wu Hao's shoulder, turning him around and pointing him at the door.

"Go," he commanded. "I'll stay here. Come back with whatever you've found, or else."

Wu Hao gave a final, longing look at the inside of the building, which might have been muddy and boring but was at least blessedly dry, and then trudged into the hallway to face the rain before he gave Wang Hangsheng a chance to draw steel.

Though frankly, staring out at the endless expanse of rain blasting down at him, he might have taken the steel instead.