Chapter 177: Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves
Shang Yue excelled in architectural construction, and he quickly calculated that the broken support beam standardly shouldn’t have reached the absolute bottom.
It had indeed plunged into Ke Wen’s abdomen and pierced the skin and flesh, but it hadn’t impaled him entirely. Moreover, judging by Ke Wen’s state, it likely hadn’t struck any vital organs. Otherwise, Ke Wen wouldn’t have managed to hold out for this long.
Ke Wen suddenly forced his eyes open. “Brother Shang, I can still live?”
“You can!” Shang Yue answered with absolute certainty.
The heavens had opened their eyes. Since he could survive, Ke Wen surely could too!
The few men inside the mine shaft regained their confidence. Shang Yue distributed the utility blades. “The timber is exceptionally hard. The reason it didn’t plunge all the way down is entirely because it’s braced by the other beams. We can’t use brute force. Slice it away carefully.”
Aided by the weak light, the men held the tiny blades, carving away with frantic, snorting effort.
After an unknown length of time, a section of the sturdy timber about a finger’s length was finally whittled away piece by piece. The three men worked with one heart and mind, and Ke Wen endured the excruciating pain to pull his abdomen tight.
“One! Two! Three!”
Finally! Ke Wen was pulled out from beneath the timber!
Blood gushed out, looking highly terrifying. Yet Ke Wen couldn’t resist letting out a laugh. “I… I’m out! I’m still alive!”
On the other side, Old Ou poked his head over and began laughing crazily along with them. “Alive! Haha! Alive!”
Lu Bo tossed a cornbread cake over to Old Ou. Old Ou scooped it up, sprinted away immediately, and hid in a corner to gnaw on it.
Shang Yue and Wang Sheng inspected Ke Wen’s injury. Although it hadn’t struck his vital organs, his abdomen had after all been ripped open and was bleeding uncontrollably. If they couldn’t stop the bleeding in time, Ke Wen wouldn’t be able to hold out for long either.
Wang Sheng looked at Shang Yue. “Old Shang, we don’t have medicine…”
When Wang Sheng uttered these words, he actually didn’t harbor any confidence. After all, Shang Yue was merely a mortal. He had already racked his brains to cache supplies like bamboo, a machete, hemp rope, blades, and matches; it was standardly impossible for him to conjure medicine out of thin air, right? If he truly could conjure it, he wouldn’t be human…
“I have it.”
“Huh???”
Wang Sheng delivered a hard slap to his own face, suspecting he had heard wrong. “You even have medicine?”
Shang Yue nodded his head. He spat out a tiny red pill from his mouth. The pill had already dissolved by half, leaving only the size of a red adzuki bean.
“This is all that’s left. My benefactor said this can save a life.”
His benefactor had informed him that this was originally meant for emergency situations, capable of rapidly stopping bleeding, healing wounds, reducing swelling, and alleviating pain. However, this pill was the most valuable part of some kind of white medicine, and since Shang Yue couldn’t carry it away, his benefactor had him swallow it just in case. But his benefactor had shoved it into Shang Yue’s mouth at the absolute final second, and before Shang Yue could manage to swallow it down, he had plummeted back into the mine shaft.
Realizing the pill was still in his mouth, Shang Yue had kept it wedged behind his teeth the entire time without swallowing it. At this moment, he couldn’t care about anything else, spitting it out and cramming it straight into Ke Wen’s mouth.
“Don’t find it distasteful. This medicine should be effective. The bleeding on my injured leg has already stopped.” During all that frantic scrambling just now—hacking the timber and saving the man—his own wounds hadn’t leaked a single drop of blood.
Ke Wen hurriedly swallowed it down. “Brother Shang, I don’t find it distasteful.” This was a life-saving pill; how could he possibly find it distasteful?
For the remaining time, Shang Yue, Lu Bo, and Wang Sheng searched all over for an exit. But their search yielded zero results.
Wang Sheng knit his brows. “Could we really be buried completely solid, with no way out?”
Shang Yue shook his head. “No. The torch can still burn.”
An open flame was the absolute best method to check the air inside a mine shaft or cavern. Since the fire hadn’t gone out after all this time inside the shaft, there must be a vent leading to the outside. If they could locate the vent, they might be able to dig their way out. Shang Yue mentioned this was a method commonly used by miners—before descending into a shaft, they would first light a torch and toss it down to see if it could continue burning.
Upon hearing this, Wang Sheng cursed fiercely, “So there actually was a way to save lives! Those beasts, back then they directly threw Little Liu and his group down, almost suffocating them to death!”
Shang Yue let out a sigh in his heart. The soldiers overseeing the mine certainly knew, and he along with a few experienced craftsmen had also spoken of this matter before. A pity that in the eyes of the soldiers, their crowd of convict slaves and laborers was no different from livestock. No, it should be said, they were worse than livestock.
Testing with a torch? That was far too troublesome, requiring them to walk a section, pause for a bit, and test all over again. Using forced laborers was much more convenient; as long as they weren’t dead, they could continue advancing. If they died… then so be it. If they could be hauled up, they were thrown far away; if they couldn’t be hauled up, they were directly buried inside the mine cavern. Consequently, over these years, people died every single day at the mine, but the soldiers didn’t care in the slightest.
The three men took turns holding the torch, repeatedly testing the direction of the wind. But the vent was likely exceptionally small and the airflow was highly weak, so the three could only hold their breath and test it slowly.
Meanwhile, after waiting for a brief moment, Ke Wen provided a pleasantly surprised update.
“Brother Shang! Brother Lu, Brother Wang, I don’t seem to feel that much pain anymore! The bleeding has stopped too; it’s no longer seeping outward.”
Wang Sheng held the torch over to inspect it. Indeed, the wound that had just been bound with rags was no longer seeping blood.
Right at this moment, Shang Yue located the vent as well. It unexpectedly came from above!
It was exceptionally minute, invisible to the naked eye. It was only when the torch neared this vicinity that the flame and smoke would tilt slightly toward that imperceptible vent. The vent was located not far from the spot where Shang Yue had plummeted; it appeared the dirt here was somewhat loose.
However, they carried no way to begin excavating. Possessing only a single machete and a few stalks of bamboo, they standardly couldn’t exert much force. Attempting to dig just now had instead caused even more earth and stone to cascade down, burying the already narrow cavern even more thoroughly. It was highly difficult to dig.
But they absolutely had to dig.
Wang Sheng bound Old Ou and hauled him over as well. Aside from Ke Wen who lay injured to the side, the remaining four men acted like ants, moving stones and loose earth whose quantity and volume they carried no way to estimate.
Heaven helps those who help themselves. The heavens had opened their eyes, but they couldn’t simply lie down and wait for the heavens to rescue them. They had to redouble their own frantic efforts.
Time slipped away minute by minute. The far end of the shaft where Old Ou had originally stayed was already packed with over half the earth and stone. Yet the debris cascading down from near the vent remained vast.
Wang Sheng used his garments to cradle the earth and stone to transport them. His limbs grew entirely powerless, and he crashed heavily onto the ground.
Lu Bo lifted him up, hesitantly pulling out the final half of the wild vegetable cornbread cake. “Wang Sheng, you eat…”
Wang Sheng shook his head. “No. If anyone is to eat, it should be you and Shang Yue. One of you possesses strength, and the other possesses brains. You two will definitely manage to get out…” As the seven-foot man spoke, his tears couldn’t stop rushing down.
Things were clearly already a whole abundance better than their initial estimates, yet they still seemed entirely powerless. They didn’t want to give up, but what other method could there possibly be!
Lu Bo held Wang Sheng without speaking, because gold stars were also flashing wildly before his own eyes, blurring bright and dark as if he might lose consciousness in the very next instant. They had never eaten their fill at the mine; especially him, who had scraped these few wild vegetable cornbread cakes right out from between his teeth.
Lu Bo and Wang Sheng looked toward Shang Yue with pure envy—this fellow had a broken leg, yet he still possessed this much stamina, digging continuously without taking a single break.
Right at this moment, Shang Yue suddenly whipped his head around, asking them, “What watch is it currently?”
Was it almost the fifth watch before dawn?
Before he returned, his benefactor had informed him that she would recruit him over again at five o’clock. He didn’t know what watch this “five o’clock” was, but his benefactor said to let him hold out for a night and she would call him early in the morning… by a rough estimate, it should be about the same as the fifth watch! He had eaten his fill at his benefactor’s place, so he didn’t feel faint and hadn’t rested, digging the entire time. He was keeping count; right now he estimated it was already the fifth watch.
Wang Sheng, Lu Bo: “…”
Reading the watch inside a pitch-black underground mine shaft—you ask us, who do we ask?
