Chapter 181: Choked to Death! Don’t Die!
Inside the mine shaft of the Great Yan Dynasty, a strange and frantic desperation filled the air.
Lu Bo, Wang Sheng, and the others were clawing through the collapsed earth and stone like madmen. Ke Wen held the wound on his abdomen, unable to stop himself from weeping loudly.
“Brother Shang! Brother Shang, where are you! You must not let anything happen to you!”
“You just saved me, you can’t die…”
Ke Wen wailed in agony. Shang Yue had only just pulled him out from beneath the timber and granted him a pill comparable to a divine miracle medicine, halting his bleeding. Yet just moments ago, while Wang Sheng and Lu Bo had paused to rest due to pure physical exhaustion, Shang Yue had instead redoubled his digging efforts, appearing to search for something in a frantic rush.
Right at that exact second, a secondary cave-in occurred at the top of the shaft. Brother Shang had been completely buried beneath the debris!
Wang Sheng and Lu Bo had practically crawled over, using every ounce of their remaining might to dig through the dirt and rock. Shang Yue had already been buried once by the initial collapse, and one of his legs was broken. Being buried all over again—there was no telling what the outcome would be.
Wang Sheng’s vision blurred with waves of darkness; his physical stamina was almost completely spent. Yet even after shifting a dozen heavy stones weighing dozens of catties each to the side, the mound of dirt didn’t appear to shrink in the slightest. There was no sign of Shang Yue anywhere.
Lu Bo’s heart sank to the absolute bottom.
He was originally the son of a feudal prince, possessing immense prestige throughout the Lunan region. Consequently, when foreign invaders struck, his father, the Prince of Lunan, was the very first to lead his generals and soldiers to resist the enemy. The feudal prince’s military forces were few, but the common folk of Lunan trusted the Prince of Lunan so deeply that they spontaneously organized a militia to fight alongside them. Lunan had been one of the few places in recent years to successfully repel the foreign invaders and hold onto its territory.
However, precisely because of this, the corrupt and incompetent dog of an Emperor grew deeply envious of the Prince of Lunan. The court ministers and generals also felt that since everyone else had suffered defeats and ceded cities, the Prince of Lunan’s singular victory—along with capturing a vast number of enemy troops and warhorses—truly caused them to completely lose face…
Thus, the dog Emperor and the treacherous ministers colluded in utter villainy. Under the pretext that the Prince of Lunan was secretly hoarding troops to stage a rebellion, they issued an imperial decree to exterminate the entire lineage of the Prince of Lunan.
The Prince of Lunan’s retainers and strategists had racked their brains and exhausted every means just to keep Lu Bo alive. Yet across the entire territory of Great Yan, there was no longer a single peaceful haven. Any commoner who had ever interacted with the lineage of the Prince of Lunan or assisted them in fleeing and hiding was collectively implicated.
Left with no choice, Lu Bo could only refuse the assistance of the Lunan citizens, avoiding dragging them into ruin. With nowhere left to hide, he mulled it over and realized that the most dangerous place was standardly the safest place. Thus, Lu Bo, along with his few remaining retainers and soldiers, was sent straight into the mines.
Here, although they faced sub-human abuse and a complete lack of dignity, at the very least, they wouldn’t be captured and beheaded by the treacherous ministers for a bounty. Lu Bo had been enduring humiliation and bearing heavy burdens inside the mines solely for the sake of one day reviving the lineage of the Prince of Lunan and sheltering its common folk.
Prior to this mining disaster, Lu Bo and his retainers had already located suitable individuals across various mining veins, preparing to develop their forces and stage a rebellion!
Precisely because of this, the squad led by Lu Bo—which included Shang Yue, Wang Sheng, Ke Wen, Xiao Si, Old Five, and Old Ou—thought with one mind and pulled their strength in one direction. Not only were their casualties low, but they would also unite to resist the abuse and bullying of the guards and soldiers.
This time during the mining disaster, it was exactly their squad that had descended into the shaft. Lu Bo felt a wave of profound sorrow and torment in his heart, and he couldn’t help but fall into self-doubt—if he hadn’t gathered Wang Sheng and the others, causing the guards to keep a close eye on them, would Xiao Si, Old Five, and the rest have avoided dying this time?
Lu Bo clawed frantically at the dirt and stones beneath him with his bare hands, as if engaging in a form of self-punishment.
“No! A life like this, worse than pigs and dogs, is exactly what must be rebelled against! We absolutely must not bow our heads because of this and leave ourselves at the mercy of others!”
“Shang Yue! Get out here for me! The grand plan is not yet accomplished, you cannot die!”
Wang Sheng lunged over, wielding the machete to dig alongside him. The crazed Old Ou had also shifted over at some point, thrusting his hands into the dirt and clawing wildly back and forth. His mouth kept muttering incoherent words like “dead alive not dead not here” that no one could understand.
Ke Wen was injured and found it highly difficult to move, so he leaned against the side wall, using his good leg to exert strength and push the rocks near him far away, trying to free up space for Lu Bo and the others. Perhaps because the effect of the pill had faded, every single movement left Ke Wen dazed with a cold sweat from the sheer pain. Yet he stubbornly persisted, utilizing his injured body to contribute a tiny bit more strength.
As they dug on, Wang Sheng suddenly couldn’t resist bursting into a loud wail: “It has already been almost a quarter of an hour! What should we do! If we don’t dig him out soon, Shang Yue will definitely be dead!”
Being buried under earth and stone for a quarter of an hour—no one could survive that! He would be completely choked to death from a lack of air!
Lu Bo snatched the machete and continued digging, stating in a deep, grim voice, “If he is alive, I want to see his person! If he is dead, I want to see his corpse!”
Right at that moment, the crazed Old Ou appeared to suddenly feel something. His arms, which had plunged entirely into the dirt pile almost up to his shoulders, were currently exerting frantic effort to pull something outward.
“Alive! Coming! Right here!”
Wang Sheng snapped awake in pure shock. “Are you saying he’s alive? Shang Yue is still alive?”
Lu Bo also hurriedly used the spine of the machete as a makeshift shovel, scooping away the dirt along the direction of Old Ou’s gripping arms. “You felt Shang Yue?”
Simultaneously, a distinct movement occurred within the pile of dirt—how could there not be movement? The moment Shang Yue fell through the hole back from the manor, he had plunged right into this pile of dirt.
The good news: this time there was dirt beneath his buttocks, so the fall didn’t hurt.
The bad news: his head, body, surroundings, and face were entirely filled with dirt as well. Every breath he drew or exhaled was packed with dirt; he was about to be choked to death, and he began struggling frantically out of sheer instinct.
Right at this exact moment, someone grabbed his arms. Following that, several more hands joined in to help claw away the earth and stone pressing down on his body. Within moments, Shang Yue was hauled out.
The moment he emerged, Shang Yue spat out the dirt packing his mouth, drawing in massive, ragged drafts of air. He could hear Wang Sheng, Ke Wen, and even Old Ou speaking continuously right by his ears, but he carried absolutely no way to answer—his ears were completely filled with dirt too!
He tilted his head to let a good deal of it spill out before he finally caught Lu Bo’s voice.
“Alright, let’s not rush to question him. Shang Yue was buried for so long and has only just come out, let him catch his breath!”
Shang Yue felt immensely grateful, but he currently carried no way to even force his eyes open. Sand had entered his eyes, causing his tears to stream down in torrents. It took a good while, with the assistance of Wang Sheng and the others, before Shang Yue managed to clear his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears completely.
Drawing in ragged breaths, he asked Lu Bo, “Brother Lu, how long was I buried?”
Lu Bo shook his head; he had been solely focused on digging the earth. Ke Wen had kept track of the time: “Roughly about the time it takes a stick of incense to burn.”
That was about the same. Shang Yue felt he had only stayed at the manor for that length of time.
(Note: The duration of a stick of incense carries different definitions across various dynasties; the Great Yan Dynasty uses the standard fifteen minutes.)
Wang Sheng couldn’t resist pulling Lu Bo into a frantic embrace, patting his back with heavy thuds. “Good brother! It’s simply wonderful that you didn’t die!”
Ke Wen wept and sobbed, “Brother Shang, if you had died, I wouldn’t have the face to live on. You gave the only medicine to me…”
Now that Shang Yue had spat out the dirt, his mind and body felt thoroughly comfortable, and his speech grew slightly more relaxed, leaving him in the mood to crack a joke.
“That medicine is for stopping bleeding and relieving pain. If I were to die just now, it would have been from being choked to death, suffocating to death. Having that medicine wouldn’t do me much good anyway… Ow!”
Shang Yue suddenly froze in sheer shock, frantically lunging onto the dirt to grope around.
Wang Sheng blinked in total bewilderment. “Old Shang, what are you looking for?”
“Looking for the medicine! The medicine!”
Shang Yue was dying of anxiety—he had brought a mouth full of pills over. He had heard from his benefactor that it was the entire stock at the manor, totaling six pills in all! He had kept them in his mouth without swallowing just now, but the moment he arrived, he had taken a whole mouth full of dirt and spat frantically. He didn’t even know where he had spat them out!
Upon hearing those words, Wang Sheng and the others were instantly dumbfounded. “There is more medicine?”
Lu Bo’s heart was also struck with profound shock, but his reactions were faster. “Never mind that, quick, bring the torch over, let’s look together!”
Ke Wen hurriedly handed the torch over. Thus, Shang Yue, Lu Bo, Ke Wen, and even Old Ou were seen prostrating themselves on the ground, looking, sniffing, and groping all over…
The one sniffing was Old Ou. In his crazed state, Old Ou sniffed the ground for a bit, then sniffed Shang Yue’s body for a bit.
He knit his brows and muttered, “So fragrant! So fragrant! There is wine! There is meat!”
