Shi Ting quietly took her hand. His palm was warm and dry, and the moment she felt it, her heart was at ease.

“I’ll go up the mountain in Uncle Li’s place. You stay here and take good care of them.” Shi Ting’s voice was calm.

Yan Qing shook her head. “You just woke up — your body hasn’t fully recovered yet.”

“I’m fine.” Shi Ting smiled. “I’ve been lying here for so many days. I could do with some exercise — otherwise I’ll start to rust.”

“But the mountain is dangerous…”

“Let’s deal with these people first today, then we’ll figure out the rest when I’m back.”

Right now they were on the other side’s territory. Even if he and Yan Qing could slip away on their own, what about Old Man Li and Xiao Yue? And getting out of this remote village was no easy task to begin with — one needed transport, and the Li household had nothing of the sort, not even a flat cart.

“All right.” Yan Qing nodded. “But I’m going with you.”

He had only just woken up, his body still weakened, and she was not at ease letting him take risks alone. There was no telling what awaited them on Qiong Shan.

Shi Ting was reluctant at first, but gave in after Yan Qing’s repeated urging.

“Xiao Yue, go open the gate.”

When Xiao Yue opened the gate, a crowd of six or seven men surged in. These men were all village ruffians — thugs who had long since terrorized the village without anyone daring to cross them.

The moment Mister Niu, who led the group, caught sight of Xiao Yue, his eyes narrowed into slits.

Xiao Yue saw his expression and immediately feigned a cough, using it to conceal the disgust in her eyes.

Seeing Xiao Yue coughing again, Mister Niu truly did not dare approach — but he thought little of it. A cold always ran its course. And didn’t her family sell medicine? Once she got better, he could always drag her away then.

“Old Li, come out!” Mister Niu called into the room. “If you don’t come out and go up the mountain, don’t blame us for dragging your granddaughter away.”

But it was not Old Man Li who emerged. Instead, two men came walking out of the room — one tall and fine-featured, the other slight, with black ash still smudged on their face.

Mister Niu frowned. These two were not from the village. Strangers.

“Who are you two? What are you doing here?” The men behind him tensed with wariness.

Yan Qing looked at Mister Niu and smiled pleasantly. “Mister Niu, we are Uncle Li’s relatives. Our home was flooded, so we came to seek shelter with him.”

“Ah — so you’re Old Li’s kin.” Mister Niu had a toothpick hanging from his mouth. “In that case, you’ll go up the mountain in his place. Jiuyang Village doesn’t feed idle mouths.”

“Digging graves?” Yan Qing put on an expression of feigned ignorance. “Are there many treasures in the tomb?”

Seeing her eyes gleam with interest, Mister Niu grinned. “Naturally. If you dig up the right spot, that’s your good fortune — you’ll eat and drink well for the rest of your life.”

“Brother, can you hear this? There’s such a good opportunity!” Yan Qing looked at Shi Ting beside her. “Shall we go?”

“Then let’s go.” Shi Ting gave a brief answer.

Mister Niu was inwardly delighted, thinking he had snagged two more fools.

He truly had been running short of manpower lately. The villagers were either injured or dead — and the ones at home were all playing dead.

“You two, get ready quickly. We’re setting out now.”

Xiao Yue, seeing them about to leave, was still very worried.

Yan Qing reassured her. “Don’t worry — we’ll be back soon.”

Xiao Yue nodded, then suddenly seemed to think of something and turned to run into the kitchen. Moments later she came back out and pressed something into Yan Qing’s hand.

Yan Qing looked down — two warm hard-boiled eggs.

These eggs were what the grandfather and granddaughter relied on to sell for money. But ever since they had arrived, the eggs had all gone toward them — Xiao Yue had been mashing the yolk into the porridge every day to ensure Shi Ting received enough nutrition even while unconscious.

Yan Qing felt a wave of warmth in her heart and tucked the eggs away.

The two followed Mister Niu out of the gate and trudged up along a mountain path.

The village was indeed impoverished and backward. The houses were built of yellow mud brick, their rooftops thick with overgrown weeds.

Since her arrival, this was also Yan Qing’s first time venturing outside. She tilted her head and glanced sideways at Shi Ting — and he was looking at her too.

She placed one of the eggs in his hand and said quietly: “Eat it quickly.”

“One is enough for me.”

“I’m not hungry.” Yan Qing smiled. “You eat.”

During his days of unconsciousness Shi Ting had not had a proper meal. Now that he was awake, his first sensation was hunger. With the egg, some of his strength was restored — but he did not finish the second one. He put it in his pocket instead.

“Hurry up, hurry up — stop dawdling!” someone up ahead barked irritably. “Anyone who falls behind, I’ll break your legs and throw you to the wolves on this mountain.”

For this expedition up the mountain, Mister Niu had brought twenty-three men in total.

Shi Ting looked them over. Aside from a few men of fighting age, many were men past fifty, and among them were even three or four children who looked no older than eleven or twelve. They shouldered hoes and shovels far too large and heavy for their small frames, trudging along with great difficulty at the back of the procession, only to be berated and struck for falling behind.

Shi Ting stepped forward and took a hoe from one of the children. The child blinked in surprise, then quickly said “thank you” with gratitude.

“What’s your name?” Shi Ting asked.

“I’m Xiao Jin.” The child looked at him openly, finding him handsome. “Where are you from, mister? I’ve never seen you in the village before.”

“I’m from another village — I came to stay with my uncle.”

A flicker of worry crossed Xiao Jin’s eyes. He glanced over at Mister Niu, still a distance away, then lowered his voice. “Mister, you should leave while you can. This village is no good place. Many people have already died on that mountain because of all this grave-digging.”

“Is there really an ancient tomb on the mountain?”

“I don’t know. Mister Niu says there is, so there is. He’s the village chief’s son, and all his men are thugs — no one dares cross him. My father broke his leg digging graves up there, and that’s why I was brought in to take his place.”

“With so many villagers here, has no one ever thought to resist?”

“They don’t dare.” Xiao Jin let out a little sigh. “They’re all afraid to die.”

Shi Ting and Yan Qing exchanged a glance.

These villagers were truly shortsighted. True, open resistance might bring death upon them — but to submit and wait was equally a dead end. Rather than wait to die, they would be better off uniting to fight back with all their strength. At least then there might be a slim chance of survival.

But what Shi Ting and Yan Qing were thinking of — these villagers clearly had never even dared to imagine.

“You lot, what are you dragging your feet for?!” someone shouted ahead. “If you’re not at the top of the mountain before daybreak, I’ll throw the lot of you into the forest to feed the wolves.”

Before daybreak, the whole group finally reached the summit.

Qiong Shan was formed of several dozen peaks strung together and stretching far into the distance. The mountain was blanketed in dense forest, the rocky cliffs jagged and uneven. Placed in the modern era, it would have made a remarkable scenic destination.

“Shi Ting, do you think there really is an ancient tomb here?”

Shi Ting shook his head. “The ancients were very particular about the feng shui of a burial site. ‘Wind scatters the vital energy — water stops its wandering.’ A good burial chamber must gather and hold that energy. But look at these mountain slopes — all running downward in every direction, mostly facing north, which is yin and inauspicious. There is no living water nearby, no tall trees. It cannot gather energy. Unless the feng shui masters of the ancient world had rusted brains entirely, none of them would have chosen a place like this for a major tomb.”

Yan Qing was taken aback by this. “So there truly could not be a tomb here at all.”

“Not every mountain has a tomb.”

“But I heard Uncle Li say that people sometimes dig up old coins and things like that here.”

“Those are the graves of ordinary folk. What gets buried in them is just common copper coins and pottery — nothing worth much. As for a great tomb, the tomb of a general or minister — that’s complete nonsense.”

Yan Qing looked at Mister Niu walking ahead and felt a wave of revulsion. He had declared, based on nothing but his own guesswork, that there was a tomb on this mountain. The result had been the deaths of many lives. What was the difference between that and killing them outright?

“All right, here we are — dig, dig, dig!”

At Mister Niu’s side was an elderly man dressed in a gray Taoist robe, carrying a feng shui compass. The old man had styled himself with the bearing of an immortal sage, but his eyes darted about like a rat’s. If the founders of the Taoist faith could see what a disciple he made, they would probably claw their way out of whatever tomb they lay in to strangle him.

“Do as the Master says — dig right here.” Mister Niu directed the crowd. “Before dark today, I want something dug up. Otherwise I’ll kick every last one of you off this mountain.”

Under his threats, everyone had no choice but to pick up their tools and start digging.

Yan Qing could not swing a tool that heavy, and Shi Ting would not allow her to exert herself like that. So he kept his body positioned to block Mister Niu’s line of sight.

“Shi Ting, what do we do from here?” Yan Qing glanced not far away, where Mister Niu had just kicked Xiao Jin hard in the backside.

“We need to incite the villagers to revolt.” Shi Ting’s voice was low and measured. “Even if this Mister Niu disappears, there will always be another one to take his place. If the villagers don’t learn to stand up for themselves and simply endure oppression, they’ll fall into an endless cycle.”

“But look at these people — they’re cowards through and through. Years of abuse from Mister Niu and the village chief have beaten any thought of resistance right out of them.”

“They don’t resist because no one has taken the lead.” Shi Ting said. “Once someone steps forward, the rest becomes easier.”

The villagers’ resentment had been building for years. All that was needed was a spark.

“We found something!” A voice suddenly rang out — no one was sure who had called it.

Mister Niu immediately rushed over with his men. “What did you find?”

“I don’t know — it feels solid and hard down there. Like there might be something.”

“Then what are you waiting for — dig, dig!”

The false Taoist also put on a theatrical performance, crying out: “My calculations are never wrong — this is the spot. There is a burial chamber below this — there is treasure down here. Everyone is going to be rich!”

Mister Niu directed his men to drive the others into digging furiously at that spot.

Yan Qing was quite curious. “Is there really something there?”

Shi Ting said: “Still not sure what it is yet. Let’s wait and see.”