Chapter 176: Not Having It… Having It!
The faces of everyone present were filled with the joy of surviving a disaster. But very soon, they discovered that an even luckier form of joy had descended.
The fire had been lit, but with no long-burning fuel, Wang Sheng felt somewhat anxious. “What should we do? This bit of cloth and wood splinters will be burned to ashes in a short while!”
Shang Yue unearthed a roll of hemp rope. “I have fuel.”
“What is this? Hemp rope?”
“It’s straw rope,” Shang Yue said.
“Straw rope won’t do much good either; it’s not even as long-burning as bamboo!”
“This is no ordinary straw rope.” Shang Yue had already picked up a small blade and cut off a section.
The blade was also something Jian Xingxia had prepared for him. She said it was a replacement blade for a “utility knife,” that ten blades could be bought for one yuan, and they could even be snapped into several pieces to use. Shang Yue had been utterly confused by words like “one yuan” and “several pieces,” and pressed for time, he hadn’t managed to ask either. At any rate, judging by the Owner’s meaning, it simply meant this fine-iron blade was exceptionally cheap.
But then the Owner had muttered something like, “It’s still too expensive. I have to ruin it and break it down a bit more so it’s easier to pay out the wages.” Shang Yue truly couldn’t understand those words.
He only saw the Owner carefully turn her body around, placing her back to him and that giant black fellow, as she grunted and snapped that “both expensive and cheap” blade into tiny sections one by one. The shortest section was only the size of a fingernail, while the longer ones were about the length of a little finger.
Shang Yue didn’t understand the purpose of this operation, but magically, after the Owner performed it, the bloody vision before his eyes stopped flashing at that exact moment. This meant he could carry away those snapped blades.
Right now, Shang Yue used a section of the blade to cut off a length of the straw rope and rapidly wrapped it around a bamboo pole. Wang Sheng could see that Shang Yue intended to make a torch, but—
Wang Sheng said in despair, “This won’t work either. Straw rope doesn’t burn long; we need oil.”
“I have it.”
“Huh?”
Lu Bo and Wang Sheng could no longer keep track of how many times they and Ke Wen had blurted out “huh” in this brief window. At any rate, whenever they said they lacked something, Shang Yue would invariably follow up with, “I have it.”
In short—
Lu Bo, Wang Sheng, Ke Wen: “We don’t have rigid objects to splint the leg.” Shang Yue: “I have it.” Then he unearthed a bundle of bamboo poles.
Lu Bo, Wang Sheng, Ke Wen: “We don’t have a tool to split the bamboo.” Shang Yue: “I have it.” Then he unearthed a machete.
Lu Bo, Wang Sheng, Ke Wen: “We don’t have a source of fire.” Shang Yue: “I have it.” Then he unearthed a box of matches.
And now—
Wang Sheng: “We don’t have fuel.” Shang Yue: “I have it.” Then he unearthed a section of hemp rope.
It was hemp rope soaked in oil. Once wrapped around the bamboo pole, it burned exceptionally slowly—the torch was complete!
Lu Bo was profoundly astonished. “This straw rope of yours… is soaked in oil?”
Shang Yue nodded. During the latter half of his time at the manor, the Owner had been leading him and the giant black fellow to make all kinds of preparations. One of them was soaking the straw rope in oil. The Owner said the oil she brought wasn’t lamp oil or black kerosene, but… gutter oil. How could Shang Yue possibly understand what that meant?
But there were far too many things he didn’t understand. The Owner said to set to work first; once they kept their lives and survived, there would be an abundance of time to explain slowly.
Thus, Shang Yue buried his head into soaking the straw rope in oil. He didn’t know if it was his imagination, but that oil smelled incredibly fragrant, holding a scent of meat, vegetables, and a whole abundance of rich spices, Sichuan peppercorns, chili peppers, star anise, and the like… all mixed together. Shang Yue didn’t dare mention it, but as his hands soaked the straw rope, he had quietly swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
Fortunately, the Owner had him and the giant black fellow eat something every short while, so he hadn’t starved.
Speaking of starving—
Seeing Shang Yue pull out so many items like a magical treasure chest, the gaze Wang Sheng directed at Shang Yue was no longer just ordinary admiration. He looked at Shang Yue and spoke probing politeness: “Old Shang, Shang Yue, Brother Shang… we don’t have anything to eat…”
Wang Sheng’s eyes were completely filled with expectation. What if Shang Yue blurted out the word “having” again! No, no, no, it wasn’t a what-if; Shang Yue would definitely say “I have it”! Wang Sheng rubbed his hands together in pure excitement.
However, he was disappointed.
Shang Yue braced himself and said, “I don’t have it.” He truly didn’t have this.
When he was about to depart, the Owner had actually instructed the giant black fellow to give him a mountain of food, even saying something like, “Making you eat slowly and at intervals just now was to give your stomach a buffer. Now that you’re leaving, eat as much as you can, and hurry! Everything you eat down will be your physical strength in a bit!”
Shang Yue had indeed eaten a vast amount and was still stuffed at this moment. Aside from his leg injury, his physical strength was exceptionally abundant. He felt a bit self-conscious, but the food had already been eaten down; it was standardly impossible to throw it back up. He could only express his regret to Wang Sheng: “I’m sorry…”
However, another voice suddenly cut in.
“I have it.”
Huh? Shang Yue and Wang Sheng looked over in unison.
The one speaking was Lu Bo. Looking a bit awkward, he fished out a few wild vegetable cornbread cakes from his tunic. “I’m just like Shang Yue; previously when I went down into the mine shaft, I would quietly bring a few things in to hide every time, just in case.”
Lu Bo said with pure guilt, “But I’m not as incredible as Brother Shang. I only hid a little… I just found these cornbread cakes beneath the timbers.”
The cornbread cakes were bone-dry and hard to swallow, but precisely because they were dried out, they didn’t spoil easily. Lu Bo gave one each to Wang Sheng and Shang Yue. Wang Sheng took it and sniffed it, saying with a trace of pleasant surprise, “It’s alright, it only smells a tiny bit sour.”
Shang Yue didn’t take the cake. “I’m not hungry. Give it to Ke Wen to eat.”
Only then did the three remember that from the moment the fire flared up until now, Ke Wen hadn’t spoken a single word.
Wang Sheng seemed to realize something. The joy on his face vanished instantly, and he scrambled and crawled toward the spot where the support beam had snapped. “Ke Wen! Ke Wen, hang in there!”
However, Ke Wen lay motionless on the dirt.
Aided by the light of the torch, everyone saw it clearly—a massive shard of the broken timber had pierced deeply into Ke Wen’s abdomen.
Previously, with zero light, Ke Wen had merely said he was pinned by the timber. Everyone had been unable to see, and hearing him sob the entire time, they assumed the issue wasn’t grand; at least Ke Wen had been speaking and crying out continuously. But now, Ke Wen lay on the dirt with his eyes closed, devoid of any sign of life.
On the other side, Old Ou, who had lost his mind, had also crawled over to the timbers in the center at some point. Looking at Ke Wen, he suddenly burst into roaring laughter: “It was better when the lamp wasn’t lit! When you couldn’t see, you could still live. Now that the lamp is lit—haha! Seeing your belly pierced through, you’re scared to death!”
“Scared to death! Scared to death! All dead! All dead!” Laughing crazily, Old Ou ran far away once more.
The three men couldn’t care less about Old Ou, hurriedly crawling over and reaching out to pinch Ke Wen’s philtrum.
“He’s still breathing!” Wang Sheng shouted.
Ke Wen slowly woke up, his face as pale as gold foil, his breath as faint as a strand of silk. He stared blankly with vacant eyes at the collapsed upper wall of the mine shaft, tears trickling down the corners of his eyes.
“Brother Wang Sheng… am I about to die?”
Wang Sheng felt a sharp sting in his nose. Ke Wen was only seventeen, the absolute youngest among them. He had even been educated and passed examinations—it was precisely because he, who had always topped the ranks, refused to participate in stealing exam questions and cheating that he was framed by the son of a high official who had bribed someone for the leaks. During the examination, crib sheets were planted and searched out from his booth. He was judged guilty of fraud and thrown into the grand prison.
What was even more infuriating was that the very exam paper he had already written down the majority of ended up bearing the name of the high official’s son instead. The high official’s son topped the list, secured an appointment, and even visited the grand prison to mock him before taking office.
“Ke Wen, ah, Ke Wen, if you had only cooperated with us earlier and crafted the essays for me in advance, you would at least be a provincial graduate by now, and you wouldn’t fail to score a tiny, sesame-sized official post to flag about. How did you end up bound in shackles, a mere prisoner of war!”
The high official’s son had even toyed with him: “But then again, for old classmate’s sake, if you kneel down right now, kowtow to me, bark like a dog a few times, and swear to be my slave from now on… I can still get you out to serve as a strategist.”
“Mind you, to prevent you from speaking out, your face must be ruined, your throat must be muted, and your legs must be broken. Haha, leaving you a pair of hands and a pair of eyes to write out case files and strategies for me will be just fine.”
How could Ke Wen endure this? He resolutely refused.
The high official’s son turned his face on the spot: “Don’t refuse a polite offer when it’s given! Do you think that if you don’t serve as my strategist, you won’t face broken legs and a ruined face? You will only die a far more miserable death!”
The high official’s son ordered the jailers to “settle” Ke Wen. Standardly, his face was to be ruined and his limbs broken, leaving him to die a tragic death in prison. But it coincided with the dog Emperor running away and demanding massive construction to build another traveling palace, requiring a vast number of conscripted laborers and craftsmen. The jailers also carried a “supply” quota, so holding a trace of luck, they sent Ke Wen to the stone quarry deep in the mountains.
People died every day at the stone quarry—either worked to death, beaten to death, starved to death, or killed by collapses. Once Ke Wen entered this place, he could forget about leaving alive.
And now, Ke Wen had fallen right into the collapse.
Wang Sheng and Lu Bo looked at this youngest brother, their hearts heavy with profound sorrow. Shang Yue, however, suddenly stood up. He measured the slanted and tilting angle of the timber with his hands, using his fingers to record the dimensions and sketch out the pattern in the dust on the ground.
As a craftsman, he was highly proficient in the arts of mathematical construction. At this moment, the food he had eaten down was continuously supplying him with energy, allowing him to rapidly calculate the force borne by Ke Wen.
“It is not time to die yet! There is still a way to save him!”
