The cold light of dawn leaked through the bamboo slits, illuminating the room that still held the thick heat and the sweet scent of sweat from the early hours.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, Zhì Yuǎn observed his own forearm in the dimness, feeling the muscle fibers throb with a dense weight as the gold ground during the night consolidated his flesh far beyond the common limit. Beside him, sprawled face-down on the damp sheets, Yù Qíng breathed slowly, her pale back marked by bites and by the purplish fingerprints of his grip, passed out against the pillow by the mental effort of turning the Mill the entire night.
Zhì Yuǎn raised his calloused hand in the air with a short smile at the corner of his lips and brought the open palm down with force.
Slap!
The crack cut through the stifling room when the slap sank his wife's bare buttock against the straw of the mattress.
"Nnnngh…" a hoarse moan escaped Yù Qíng's throat.
She jolted awake on the bed and turned her sleep-creased face, blinking against the brightness to face her husband with swollen lips pursed in stubbornness. Her hand descended by instinct to rub the burning skin, but the heat of the slap soon rose in a shiver along her spine, drawing a second short and breathless moan from her mouth.
Zhì Yuǎn's smile widened slightly as he picked up the gray tunic from the floor and slipped his arms into it.
"You can keep sleeping, Qíng," he said, voice grave and calm. "We need to rest today."
"You tell me to sleep right after waking me," she complained, voice low and sulky, trying to rise to pull him back before the fatigue weighed heavier and made her head sink again into the pillow. "And on top of that you provoke me, marking my skin…"
Zhì Yuǎn finished tying the leather belt, but instead of going straight to the door, he crouched beside the bed and closed his broad hand exactly over the warm, red skin he had just struck. Yù Qíng held her breath at once, feeling the sting of the grip mix with the heat rising through her belly.
"I need to go down and deal with that problem at the mine," he murmured directly into her ear. "This mark stays there so you don't lose your mind again if I take too long."
A shiver ran down Yù Qíng's back, silencing any reply in her throat. Satisfied with his wife's silence, Zhì Yuǎn released the soft skin, stood, and walked to the exit.
"I'm going to look at the northern slope and mark the veins I can find so your father can meet the quota in peace."
The thud of the bamboo lock closed the cabin from the outside, leaving her alone in the dimness of the room.
------
At the base of the northern slope, the smell of sour sweat and stone dust dominated the entrance of the main mine, where the crawling mist mixed with the heavy breathing of the workers. Near the wooden carts that remained empty, Yù Chéng rubbed his soot-stained eyelids, while beside him old Lao Gui spat dark saliva onto the earth, supporting his tired body on a worn pickaxe.
The sound of firm steps crushing the gravel of the trail made the murmurs cease when Zhì Yuǎn emerged from the mist, leather boots sinking into the mud under the weight of his broad body.
"The coal ran out in the middle galleries," said Yù Chéng, pointing at the rock face with a trembling arm and a hoarse voice. "The veins thinned too much and the pickaxe already hits hard stone before filling half a sack. The empire wants the two thousand sacks by the end of the week, but we have nowhere to pull that from in time."
Zhì Yuǎn observed the exhausted men for a moment before turning his gaze to the entrance of the southern gallery, blocked for years by thick oak boards, and walked toward the barricade.
Yù Chéng stepped forward at once, alarmed.
"That hole is rotten, Zhì Yuǎn! In the first week of the decree you nearly had your shoulder torn off by a slab just from touching the entrance beam! Rock falls from the ceiling with the weight of a boot and the wood inside has already rotted completely. Anyone who goes deep in there doesn't come out alive."
Zhì Yuǎn ran his palm over the central board, feeling the damp and soft wood under his fingers.
"We have four days to deliver double the quota," he answered calmly. "If we keep digging in the old galleries, we won't even mine half. This one is already nearly giving way on its own, so if I go in and mark where the vein is still thick, we can solve this in time."
Yù Chéng closed his fist hard.
"You're talking about entering a tunnel that can collapse at any moment. That's not a plan, it's madness, and I won't let you kill yourself over coal."
Zhì Yuǎn looked at his father-in-law for a moment before returning his attention to the nailed logs.
"If I don't do this, the regiment comes down here and cuts your head off in the square. I'd rather risk my neck now than wait for them to come for yours later."
Before Yù Chéng could retort, Zhì Yuǎn planted his boots in the mud and felt the central board where the rot loosened the oak fibers. Without using tools or levers and without even bending his back, he simply closed his fingers on the thick wood and pulled.
Crack.
The dry crack tore through the yard along with the screech of the thick iron nails being ripped by force from the massive rock. The oak log split in half and flew backward, followed in the next instant by a second jerk of Zhì Yuǎn's wrists that tore the lower board free and threw open the mouth of the tunnel.
The pickaxe slipped from Lao Gui's hands and struck the ground, while the soot-stained miners stood paralyzed, watching mutely as the chief's son-in-law tore beams fixed into the stone with only the strength of his arms without altering the rhythm of his breathing.
Zhì Yuǎn stepped over the broken wood and entered the damp darkness that reeked of mold and old dust.
The darkness did not hinder his steps. His eyes soon adjusted to the dimness and his perception swept the structure of the tunnel ahead, piercing the surface layer of raw stone to map where the thick veins of black coal ran hidden in the side walls.
When his boot stepped deeper on the earthen floor, the weight of the step broke the silence of more than a decade in the gallery.
A dry crack echoed just above and the central support beam turned to dust. In the same instant, an immense slab of several thousand jīn detached from the ceiling and plunged in the dark straight toward his head.
Zhì Yuǎn did not retreat.
Clenching his jaw, he drew the golden energy from his chest and pushed it at once through the millions of open pores in his shoulders and arms.
The dense wave of Qi poured into the empty air and struck head-on against the falling rock in a dull roar that shook the dust of the entire gallery, stopping the slab suspended less than a chi from his face.
The weight took its toll on his flesh, making the tendons of Zhì Yuǎn's neck jump tense and sweat run down his temple, but his boots did not sink even a fraction of a cun. Keeping the stone locked high until he wedged it into a lateral crack in the wall, he lowered his gaze and picked up a rusted pickaxe abandoned on the damp floor.
Walking through the tunnel with heavy breathing, he struck the side walls with the iron repeatedly, opening deep grooves at the exact points where the rock was firm and pure coal accumulated, until he returned to the brightness of the exit some time later.
With the gray tunic covered in white dust, Zhì Yuǎn tossed the tool at Yù Chéng's feet with a dull thud—the oak handle was cracked in half and the massive iron tip had returned completely blunt and bent.
"The path is clear," said Zhì Yuǎn, breath already steady. "You can enter."
Yù Chéng swallowed hard, lit a torch, and entered the gallery followed closely by Lao Gui, smelling the strong scent of burned stone and crushed dust in the first steps. When the flame illuminated the colossal slab driven sideways into the upper wall and the deep gashes opened in the hard rock as if they had been cut into soft clay to expose the black coal within, neither of them could say anything for a long moment. A chill ran up Yù Chéng's spine as he saw with his own eyes the distance that now separated his son-in-law from any common man of that village.
When the sun began to descend in the west, tinting the slope an orange tone, the first cart left the tunnel with its wooden wheels creaking under the overflowing pile of pure coal. The army's quota would be paid with surplus.
Leaving the frightened silence of the miners behind, Zhì Yuǎn took the trail back toward the shadows of the bamboo thicket.
------
The cold wind of the woods cleaned the smell of sweat from the slope, but the dark dust of the mine still covered Zhì Yuǎn's shoulders when he stepped into the cabin's yard.
Yù Qíng was already waiting for him on the veranda, barefoot and with arms crossed, beside a tub of clean water and folded cloths. As soon as she saw the state of his clothes, she wrinkled her nose with visible disgust, descending the steps to untie her husband's belt without waiting for a reply and pull the dirty tunic away from his skin.
Zhì Yuǎn raised his arms to make it easier.
"The quota is settled," he said. "Your father now has coal to spare for the delivery and the empire will stop bothering us for a good while."
Yù Qíng dipped the cloth in the cold water and began scrubbing his chest in silence for a few moments, removing the layer of soot before raising her face.
"And the cart for Qīngshí?" she asked. "We'll need you to be certain before we touch my sister's structure."
Zhì Yuǎn arched a brow at the haste in the question, but answered calmly:
"Not yet. Your aura is still leaking, and if we enter the city like this any cultivator with a bit of perception will notice. I don't want to draw attention prematurely."
Yù Qíng stopped her hand with the cloth in the middle of his chest.
"We'll stay locked here for a few more weeks until you stabilize this energy inside and stop leaking," he finished. "Only after that do we take the road to Qīngshí."
The wet cloth slipped from Yù Qíng's fingers and fell back into the tub with a dull sound. After spending the entire day alone in the cabin feeling the lack of his heat, hearing that they would continue isolated there just for the two of them made her belly clench with anticipation.
She stared at him for an instant before lowering her hands and seizing Zhì Yuǎn's arm with force, pulling him into the cabin without a word until she pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed.
Walking quickly to the entrance, she lowered the heavy wooden log into the door's support and returned in the same haste, dropping to her knees between her husband's legs to untie the knot of his trousers. With darker and hungrier eyes, she lowered the linen cloth, held the warm member with both hands, and leaned forward, passing her tongue slowly over the tip with half-closed eyes to taste him again.