I Outworked the Entire Cultivation World

Chapter 63: Chapter 53: Survival Against All Odds

Pop!

The severed arm was thrown at Jiang Yuebai’s feet, splattering her with blood. She feigned terror, trembling all over as she stepped back half a step.

Yeh Lianyi chuckled, ”This is the consequence of messing with my stuff!”

”Peng Sanyang, what’s going on with this little girl?” Fann Mazi asked.

Peng Sanyang, bowing and scraping, explained, ”She said she’s a disciple favored by a Golden Core Master from the sect. Involved in some matter and was punished. She’ll be picked up in a couple of years. It’s said that the Foundation Establishment Manager from the Inner Affairs Hall personally brought her here, Manager Cui also mentioned, telling you...”

Peng Sanyang dared not continue, but Fann Mazi sneered with disdain.

Yeh Lianyi walked up to Jiang Yuebai, grabbed her jaw, and tilted her face up.

”Quite a background for such a young age. Qi Cultivation Fourth Layer, an Inner Sect Disciple?”

Jiang Yuebai forced herself to endure the discomfort, trying her best to appear frightened.

”Senior sister, I didn’t know this was your mine, really...”

Fann Mazi snorted coldly, ”Whatever her background, once she’s in the mine, it’s my territory, and I do whatever I want! If Cui Sheng dares, he’d better come down here himself to ask for her!”

Fann Mazi approached aggressively, causing Jiang Yuebai’s heart to tighten.

Yeh Lianyi raised a hand, ”Just a little girl, besides, we’ll be returning to the sect eventually. The less trouble, the better.”

After speaking, Yeh Lianyi reached towards Jiang Yuebai, ”Hand over the storage bag on you.”

Jiang Yuebai hurriedly clutched her waist, retreating, ”I... I really don’t have... anything...”

”Courting death!”

Bam!

Fann Mazi kicked out, Jiang Yuebai endured the impact without resistance, getting firmly kicked in the abdomen, sent flying into a mountain wall before collapsing to the ground, her internal organs writhing together, groaning in pain.

Yeh Lianyi mocked with a laugh, crouching beside Jiang Yuebai, pinching her face.

While rubbing, her nails slowly scratched Jiang Yuebai’s face, causing blood to seep out. The pain made Jiang Yuebai frown, her eyes filling with tears instantly.

”Little girl, there’s a rule in the mines here; outside backing can’t be relied upon. Do you know how many people die here every day?”

Yeh Lianyi quickly snatched Jiang Yuebai’s storage bag from her waist and searched her all over again, finding nothing more than a single robe and a Body Refining Technique manual. Only then did she wipe away Jiang Yuebai’s faint Divine Sense mark and swept through the storage bag, raising an eyebrow.

”So many Fasting Pills, you are well-prepared. Don’t say your sister didn’t leave you a way out. I’ll leave one bottle of Fasting Pills for you. Don’t go where you shouldn’t and don’t touch what you shouldn’t. Avoid trouble. Understand? If you can endure long enough to return, it’s your skill. If not and you die here, it’s your fate.”

Jiang Yuebai bit her lip, squeezing out tears, while Yeh Lianyi stood up and instructed Peng Sanyang, ”Take her to that mining tunnel to fend for herself.”

”Alas! I was planning to take her to that tunnel anyway.”

Peng Sanyang nodded, bowing and scraping, urging Jiang Yuebai to follow him.

Holding onto the Fasting Pill Bottle, pressing the Body Refining Technique in her clothes, Jiang Yuebai struggled to stand, gazing reluctantly at the storage bag in Yeh Lianyi’s hand, leaving in tears.

As she delved deeper, Jiang Yuebai was pushed by Peng Sanyang into a dark mining tunnel, ”Stay put here. If you want to go out, fine, but if you dare to steal from other tunnels, I’ll break your legs and feed you to the beasts.”

Peng Sanyang took a hard look at Jiang Yuebai’s frightened, helpless expression, feeling satisfied, then left with a torch, leaving her alone in the dark.

Once Peng Sanyang left, tears remained in Jiang Yuebai’s eyes, but the fright in their depths vanished instantly, replaced by calm tranquility.

The storage bag was originally prepared for someone to rob. If she truly had nothing on her, it would arouse suspicion.

Now, those people must believe she is easily bullied, easing their guard against her, which would facilitate her next move.

Wiping away the blood on the corners of her mouth and face, Jiang Yuebai clenched the Fasting Pill Bottle, lighting the Fire Stick to head towards the depths of the mine.

Chirp chirp!

The stench of decay accompanied by rat squeaks came over. Jiang Yuebai pinched her nose to hold her breath. With the Fire Stick’s light, she saw dozens of black rats scurrying deeper, leaving a corpse bitten to shreds behind.

Her stomach churned, but Jiang Yuebai resisted the urge and continued forward, encountering more and more corpses.

Whole, fragmented, decayed, turned to skeletons, they piled up everywhere, with black rats the size of kittens.

Turning a corner, Jiang Yuebai saw a collapsed boulder blocking the way ahead, with more bodies beneath it, the rats scurrying through the bones, disappearing from sight.

Jiang Yuebai carefully observed the surroundings. Although there were no Spiritual Stone Mines, there were many signs of excavation, especially on both sides of the collapsed area, where many stones they had cut down piled up.

These bodies probably weren’t discarded here after death but were, like her, injured and forced into this place to fend for themselves.

Clearly, Fann Mazi was the tyrant of this area, and perhaps other areas had their own overlords. People in the mines must have their ways to survive.

If she wanted to survive, she would have to rely on them or become a new overlord.

Unfortunately, neither path suited her. She was too young for anyone to take her in and didn’t have the strength to become an overlord, so she had to look for another way.

Jiang Yuebai sat down and ate a Fasting Pill to ease the pain in her abdomen, surveying her surroundings, a thought arising in her mind.

Why were there more bodies at the collapse, and where had those rats fled?

Jiang Yuebai stepped over the bones and rotten flesh to approach the collapse, when suddenly, the flame on her Fire Stick flickered.

”Wind?”

Jiang Yuebai’s eyes lit up, and she quickly held up the fire stick to find the source of the wind.

Finally, she parted the corpses and lay on the ground, holding the fire stick in front of a mouse hole, the flame flickering outward.

Jiang Yuebai ran outside to take a look again.

After confirming no one was passing by, Jiang Yuebai returned inside, took off her shoes, retrieved the jade ring, and laid out the protective array flags she had gathered from her grandfather’s courtyard, isolating any detection and sound.

”Little Green, carefully pass through and let me see how deep the mouse hole is.”

The green lantern flew out from the Sea of Consciousness, its emerald light illuminating a large area.

Little Green was a Ghost Lamp, able to pass through walls, and it followed Jiang Yuebai’s instructions, gradually passing through the mouse hole.

”It’s rather deep, but there should be a big space beyond. It might lead to another mine passage. No, the wind suggests it’s leading outside, but we’re underground.”

Jiang Yuebai pondered carefully, muttering to herself.

”The location of Yin Mountain Mine is already high up, and the ancient Thunder Marsh is an abyss...”

Jiang Yuebai decided to dig it open.

She wasn’t in a hurry to act but instead stayed in the mine passage for a few days, meditating daily, thoroughly reading the ’Fierce Thunder Body Refining Technique.’

This body refining technique combined mental method and fist technique. After each internal energy and qi circulation, when the Thunder Elemental Power in her body accumulated to a bearable limit, she needed to practice this fist technique to dissipate the Thunder Elemental Power into her muscles, bones, and skin, then continue cultivating.

Jiang Yuebai tried several times, but the effect was weak, not as good as the refinement from the ’Five Elements Returning to Truth Skill.’ However, the latter couldn’t consume Thunder Elemental Power, so this body refining technique had to be learned.

Peng Sanyang would come by each day to check on her, but after about half a month, the frequency of his visits decreased, and Jiang Yuebai’s fasting pills were running out.

On the twenty-third day, Peng Sanyang appeared again, and Jiang Yuebai tearfully begged him to take her out.

Peng Sanyang, annoyed, tossed a crude sheepskin map to Jiang Yuebai, telling her to find her own way out.

Jiang Yuebai explored along the path, deliberately leaving traces of her departure.

Reaching a hidden spot, she took out a stealth talisman she’d prepared in advance, slipped back into the mine passage, set up the protective array, and took out Tao Fengnian’s Spirit-Shocking Hoe.

The mine’s issued pickaxes were merely ordinary refined iron ore pickaxes, needing several swings with spiritual energy to break a piece of rock, time-consuming and laborious.

Tao Fengnian’s Spirit-Shocking Hoe was a Nine-Grade Magical Artifact he personally refined. With one swing, Jiang Yuebai could shatter large rocks into even small pieces.

Little Green floated beside, illuminating the way, while Jiang Yuebai rolled up her sleeves, tirelessly swinging the hoe. When her spiritual energy was exhausted, she would sit by the corpses using Spirit Stones to recover.

Day after day, she tirelessly dug for several days. With one swing, the mountain rocks collapsed, and a fierce wind hit her face.

The long-lost scent of trees and soil, and the sound of thunder not heard for ages.

Jiang Yuebai bent down, squeezed through the opening; lightning flashed, suddenly illuminating before her, revealing a valley in the mountains.

The world was dim and lightless, with yin winds whistling, biting cold.

Little Green drifted ahead, clearing the path, with wild grass growing in abundance and rocks scattered about.

The bamboo forest was chaotic and dense, swaying in the gusts of yin wind, dry yellow bamboo leaves falling like rain, covering a thick layer.

Fallen leaves rustled, desolate and lonely.

Jiang Yuebai parted the wild grass, walking on fallen leaves, seemingly entering a fairyland in the Underworld under the faint green light.

Looking up, Jiang Yuebai saw the heavy night sky and Great Array Barrier, indicating this place was still within the Great Array of Yin Mountain Mine, though how such a peculiar place formed was unclear.

She quickly surveyed her surroundings; the valley wasn’t large, surrounded on three sides by mountains and on one side by a cliff, located on a hillside somewhere on the periphery of Yin Mountain.

Aside from some wild fruits and small beasts, nothing of value was found, the entrance showed signs of burning, likely blown up and sealed off after being deemed a dead end by someone.

Perhaps Yeh Lianyi and the others also knew of this place, thus unafraid of her stirring up trouble inside.

Jiang Yuebai walked to the cliff, the barrier’s radiance shone halfway into the air, revealing the vast abyssal Thunder Marsh below.

A vast sea of black clouds stretched endlessly, level with her sight, with countless Silver Dragons roaring and tearing across the sky, the force immense and unyielding.

The sea of clouds surged, overwhelmingly majestic.

Jiang Yuebai’s heart trembled, never had she seen such a display of nature’s might, as something seemed to churn within her.

If one day, she could summon tens of thousands of thunders with a wave of her hand, what fear would people like Jia Xiuchun and Lin Xiangtian hold for her?

This was a desperate place, with the Great Array below making it impossible to control the sky; to leave, she could only walk back through the mine tunnel.

She scanned her surroundings, and as she looked, she smiled, as if finding life amid death.

Jiang Yuebai crouched down, brushed aside the decaying leaves, and grabbed a handful of mud.

She was the granddaughter of a Spiritual Cultivation Master and descendant of three generations of carpenters. This ground full of decay and a valley of bamboo and trees was her source of vitality.

”Little Green, from today, let’s settle here, bide our time and conceal our presence!”