"One, two, three…"
"Mother of heaven, fifteen dead!"
He Ergou smacked his lips as he counted, looking thoroughly startled.
"It's probably more than that…"
Chu Mu remained silent for a moment before spitting out a few words.
"I didn't count wrong, it's exactly fifteen…"
He Ergou's words were cut off halfway, stopping abruptly.
At that moment, both of their gazes fixed on the same spot.
At the mine's exit, another group of patrol inspectors was carrying bodies wrapped in straw mats, walking out from the mine.
After the initial shock, He Ergou seemed to come to his senses, muttering to himself: "What happened there? How come I didn't hear any commotion?"
Saying this, He Ergou paid no further attention to Chu Mu and strode toward the group of patrol inspectors, clearly intending to gather some information.
Chu Mu stayed where he was, with no intention of following. Instead, he turned and headed toward the dining hall.
It wasn't that Chu Mu lacked curiosity about the scene before him; he simply felt that with He Ergou's big mouth, if he did manage to get any news, it would probably spread throughout the entire patrol station by the time they finished a meal.
In that case, why should he bother exerting himself? He might as well eat a quiet meal.
And as expected, just as Chu Mu had thought, no sooner had he gotten his food than He Ergou's boastful voice rang out in the dining hall.
Chu Mu glanced at He Ergou, who was at the dining hall's entrance with his arm slung around another patrol inspector's shoulder. Looking further, he could faintly see patrol inspectors transporting bodies down the mountain.
The boastful voice came clearly to his ears, piecing together a complete picture in Chu Mu's mind.
"A mining accident? The Number Six Yi Mine collapsed?"
Chu Mu couldn't help but look again at the team transporting bodies down the mountain.
In just one morning, dozens of lives were silently gone…
"If this were in my previous life, it'd probably go straight to the emperor's ears…"
Chu Mu pursed his lips, scanning the patrol inspectors in the dining hall. The hall wasn't large, with square wooden tables neatly arranged, and roughly a hundred or so patrol inspectors sitting in twos and threes.
Dozens of lives clearly hadn't caused much of a stir; it seemed to be nothing more than an extra topic for idle chatter… nothing more.
Chu Mu shoveled food into his mouth, not thinking too much about it, nor wanting to. The values and worldview of his previous life seemed somewhat out of place in this era.
Living in this world, he felt he should learn to go with the flow.
A fairly hearty meal cost just three coppers, which could be considered extremely cheap. At least in Nanshan Town, outside of the patrol station's dining hall, you couldn't find food this affordable with such decent taste and variety.
There was no leisure time after the meal. The "one person, one post" system ensured that if you wanted to slack off, you had to do it at your own post.
Day after day of "one person, one post" might, over time, become tedious or even unbearable.
But for Chu Mu, at least for now, it felt pretty good.
After all, compared to the grueling life of a wage-slave in his previous world, this patrol inspector job was practically too comfortable.
Supervising versus being supervised, managing versus being managed—this was undoubtedly the difference between heaven and earth.
And those being managed and supervised were quite obedient.
A few cheap cornbread buns in their stomachs, and the corvée laborers would consciously pick up their tools, working like ants in a colony, each busy in their own part of the mine.
Dozens of lives didn't cause any ripples among the patrol inspectors, and it seemed the same among the corvée laborers.
Chu Mu leaned against the same bare tree as before, but what he held in his hand was no longer the long saber hanging at his waist, but an introductory book.
The once-pristine book, after several days of flipping through, already looked somewhat worn, with curled edges.
He had been attending the private school for several days now. Though he only studied and learned characters in his spare time after his shift, in those few days, Chu Mu had managed to recognize around a hundred characters.
Of course, of those hundred or so characters, at least sixty or seventy were still at the stage of mere recognition, or rather, rote memorization.
The characters of this world, though completely different from the Chinese characters of his previous life, shared surprising similarities in many aspects, as Chu Mu discovered after starting to learn them.
This similarity wasn't in the shape of the characters but in their structural composition. For example, homophones and synonyms existed in this world's writing system as well.
This similarity undoubtedly made learning exponentially more difficult for Chu Mu.
The homophones and synonyms tormented him endlessly.
Chu Mu even felt that without the aid of "Spirit Brilliance Enhancement," he'd probably have to pay another half-year's tuition after six months.
Holding the book, Chu Mu read slowly and with difficulty, repeatedly comparing the characters on the page with those memorized in his mind, reviewing and reinforcing.
If his initial motivation for reading was merely to shed the label of illiteracy, after witnessing the true skills of his team captain, studying had taken on a new purpose for Chu Mu.
Though he wasn't yet sure of the connection between literacy and martial arts, he understood the principle that more skills never weigh you down.
Chu Mu leisurely flipped through the book. His initial standing posture, leaning against the tree, gradually shifted to sitting against it as time passed.
At times like this, the benefits of the "one person, one post" patrol system became evident.
Unless something extraordinary happened, no one would come to disturb Chu Mu.
Other patrol inspectors wouldn't, and the laboring corvée workers… even less so.
As for the noisy clamor of the mine's work, Chu Mu simply treated it as a way to train his focus.
After finishing the thin introductory book, nearly an hour had passed. Chu Mu held the book, closed his eyes, and carefully recalled for a while before finally closing it.
Surveying the mine before him, Chu Mu habitually muttered in his mind, and a light-panel interface appeared.
Without a doubt, nearly an hour of focused effort had increased his "Spirit Brilliance Value" significantly, bringing him closer to the hundred-percent threshold.
"Reading can be taken slowly; worst case, I'll just pay more tuition. But I can't fall behind on saber techniques. The bulk of the Spirit Brilliance Value should go toward martial arts…"
Staring at the "Spirit Brilliance Value" on the light panel, Chu Mu silently pondered.
Perhaps because he hadn't fully adapted to this era, or perhaps because he had seen how cheap life was here, like mere weeds, he always felt an inexplicable sense of crisis.
Especially since he was still wearing the skin of a patrol inspector.
In the midst of his thoughts, Chu Mu couldn't help but glance at the open area not far away where his team captain was practicing martial arts.
After a moment, Chu Mu shook his head to himself. If the original owner's father were still alive, perhaps he could have made some plans.
But as a newcomer who hadn't even figured out the patrol station yet, finding a way to access real martial arts in the short term was proving difficult…
…
*(End of Chapter)*