Chapter 37 Jinmei Interlude Part 1

Jinmei’s family died in a spirit-beast horde before she ever knew them.

The Feng dynasty was not so cruel as to leave orphans to die. But it was not a kind place.

When Jinmei was old enough to carry a pickaxe, she started working. And she was among the best, today, at only fourteen. So even the adults came to her with their problems.

She pushed frizzy orange hair out of her face, squinting to look at the broken wheelbarrow Old Lao had brought her. The man sat on the dusty earth next to her.

“You drop it off a cliff?” Jinmei asked as she checked the metal fastener securing the wheel. Sure enough, it was loose. She pulled a pair of pliers from her overalls and screwed it tight.

“Ah, thank you Jinmei! You know, you really ought to become a supervisor or find a job elsewhere.”

Jinmei huffed out a laugh. Old Lao frowned. He wore old, ratty clothes, deep brown and coarsely threaded to beat by the harsh heat of the Gold Water river valley. The entire province was riddled with rivers from the Stormwall.

“No one hiring around here, Old Lao. If they were, you wouldn’t be joining us.”

The organizational body that oversaw the mines offered room and board on behalf of the city. If you fulfilled a daily quota, they also offered you three square meals.

“C’mon. We gotta work today.”

Jinmei pushed his wheelbarrow back over and pushed it to him with a smile. He was still frowning. Then she took her own wheelbarrow and headed down into the valley. The dirt path was stomped flat from the mining operation around it. They moved in a massive flux of tents to whatever valley they were extracting spiritstones from.

Ledges crisscrossed the valley she descended into. She distantly heard the rush of water below her. Insects filled the valley in the lush vegetation that survived on the sides.

Most of the easy spirit-stone was already picked clean, leaving gaping wounds that scarred the orange-red stone of the small canyon carved by one of the Gold Rivers. Over the edge and below, she could see harvesters panning the water for spirit-dust. She made a disappointed noise.

They wouldn’t even earn a days pay for that.

Down the path, the mouth of a carved mineshaft opened to reveal a tunnel lit by oil lamps. It was the same tunnel Jinmei had been prospecting. She headed inside, then took a turn through a smaller tunnel none of the adults could fit through.

This was a secret place for the child laborers. She found a few of them inside. Bao leaned against the wall, smoking casually. He was the oldest of the bunch at 15. Jinmei nodded with warm familiarity to him.

“Jinmei! Have you heard?” Bao said, smiling wildly.

Jinmei paused. She wasn’t very social. Most of these kids had grown up with families before coming here. They didn’t have much in common.

“Heard what?” Jinmei asked. Then she paused to think about it. “Are we moving to a new location already?”

The inside of the smaller tunnel was less professional than the outside. The wooden struts were irregular, and the lamps lighting the place often sat on the ground or a chunk of stone instead of hanging. Dust choked the air. Bao’s smoke didn’t help either. Jinmei pulled her bandana up around her mouth, tying it up.

Bao smiled with manic intensity.

“I can sense qi!”

Jinmei froze.

“You’re going to be a cultivator?” She asked.

“Yup!” He said. “Today’s my last day! We’re celebrating tonight!”

The Feng mines produced two products. One was the spirit stones they extracted. The constant exposure to spirit-ore embedded in cave walls and searching for it enabled so many to obtain qi-sensing.

The second product was a steady flow of cultivators who could reach into the lower realms. Some would become guards and retainers of the subfamilies in the Feng Dynasty, and others would join the meagre martial schools that dotted the territory. A select few may have the chance to join a Feng subfamily.

Most of them would die before thirty. Jinmei knew that part. The other kids said its what happened to her parents. Not in a bad way. They said it meant she could become a cultivator too.

For the others here, this place was a prison. But Jinmei didn’t need anything else.

Jinmei had been able to sense qi for years. She hadn’t told anyone. She didn’t want to die like her parents did. She was happy in the mine. So when Bao revealed that he could, now, too, it didn’t surprise her.

“Congrats, big brother Bao.” She said.

Bao offered that dorky smile.

Jinmei smiled back awkwardly before continuing on into the mine, her pickaxe bouncing in her cart. She chipped away at the smaller, cracked spirit veins in the tiny tunnels until her cart was full.

The pillars holding up the ceiling held.

When lunch came, she brought her wheelbarrow back, completely full.

There was a station set up to bring your daily quota. Approaching it always gave her an odd shivering sensation, like the qi in the air around it was… wrong. An old guard marked off her name in a sheet. She took her lunch; a sandwich, wrapped in waxy paper; and headed out.

Jinmei had a favorite spot at this camp. They had been here for months now, more than half way to a year by her count, and she had cleared out a small spot in the grass and shrubs, but as she approached it this time, she noticed something… wrong. There was a disturbance in the air. She sensed a qi she hadn’t sensed before.

It felt like blood and meat, like anger and pain.

Jinmei frowned. She had showed this spot to a few of the other kids, but… none of them had ever felt like this.

“Bao?” She asked as she stepped into the clearing. Something shook in the brush.

She reached for the sharpened chisel she kept in a pocket, pulling it out and holding it. Her chest tightened as she stepped forward.

“Your pranks aren’t funny! I told you! I will stab you!”

An injured animal stumbled forward. It was a water deer. It whimpered over its tusks. It had a terrible gash on its side, and it let out a sad cry. But there was more to it. Its fur had a blue sheen. Among the qi of blood and pain, she sensed something refreshing.

Jinmei kept the knife in hand as it took two steps forward. Then it fell on the ground. It looked up at her with piteous eyes.

She stared in shock.

“A spirit-beast.” She said, realizing what it was. It was an animal that had eaten enough qi to begin a progression through cultivation.

Like the ones that killed her family.

Her hands shook.

This one wasn’t the monsters who killed her family. It was a tiny animal in pain. Jinmei knelt down over it. She kept the knife in her hand, wondering what to do.

Should she kill it? She heard that adults did that to end an animals pain, sometimes. It stared up at her.

No, she wouldn’t do that. Instead, she pulled an almost clean rag from her overalls.

“We need to clean that.” Jinmei said. She stared into the deers eyes. She pulled a canteen of water with her other hand and poured it over the wound. The water deer twitched. She wiped it with the rag. It stretched its head for the canteen.

She gave it water. It drank greedily.

Then she split her sandwich in half, giving the spirit-beast half.

Jinmei giggled as she watched the spirit-beast eat messily, spilling food.

“I’ll take care of you.” She said.