A cart screeched down the rails, brake pads protesting as someone descended way too fast for safety regulations. The vehicle lurched to a stop at Tòumíng's level and a man practically exploded out of it, his face red with anger and what looked like genuine fear.
He was maybe thirty-nine, wearing the standard mining coveralls that hung loose on his frame. What little hair he had left clung desperately to the sides of his head in a horseshoe pattern stage three male pattern baldness, the kind that screamed stress and poor genetics in equal measure. His hairline had retreated so far back it was practically at his neck.
"OI!" The man's voice bounced off the tunnel walls, making Tòumíng jump and nearly drop his pickaxe. "THE FUCK'S THAT NOISE? YOU TRYING TO KILL US!?!? The whole first floor felt that shaking! Thought the whole goddamn mine was coming down!"
Tòumíng's hand instinctively went to his fanny pack, feeling the shape of the crystal inside, then forced himself to drop it back to his side casually. "What noise?"
"Don't play stupid with me! The ground shook for like five minutes straight! What the hell were you doing down here?"
Think fast. Bullshit faster.
"Oh, that!" Tòumíng pointed toward the indent in the wall where the geode had been. "I found a cave. Tiny one, but the entrance was blocked by unstable rock. When I cleared it, the whole section shifted. Probably been under pressure for years."
The balding man's expression shifted from anger to suspicion. He shoved past Tòumíng, his shoulder hitting hard enough to make Tòumíng stumble, and approached the opening. His headlamp beam swept across the small cavity, examining the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
Tòumíng held his breath. The space was only about a meter deep now, just a small depression in the rock face. Nothing obviously valuable. No purple crystals glinting in the light. Just empty stone and some scattered dust from the compression process.
The man squinted, leaning in closer, his nose practically touching the rock. He ran his hand along the surface, checking for structural weakness, for cracks, for anything that would explain the violent shaking.
Several long seconds passed.
Finally, he sighed, a sound of deep disappointment mixed with relief. "Looks stable enough now. Next time you find something like this, radio up first before you go playing cave explorer and giving everyone topside a heart attack."
"Sorry. I'm new to this level. Still learning procedures."
"Yeah, well, learn faster." The man backed out of the indent, brushed past Tòumíng again, and climbed back into his cart. "And if this cave starts showing signs of collapse, you get your ass out immediately. Last thing we need is a rescue operation this deep."
"Got it. Will do."
The cart's engine engaged with a whining sound and it began its ascent, the balding man muttering something about "kids these days" and "no respect for safety regulations." The sound faded into the distance, metal wheels on rails becoming quieter and quieter until silence returned.
Tòumíng waited until he was absolutely certain the man was gone, then spun around and flipped off the empty shaft with both hands.
"Asshole," he muttered. "Shoving me like he owns the place. Hope his remaining hair falls out."
"Mature," Cupid observed dryly.
"I don't care. He was rude."
Now came the question go up and clock out, or stay down here and kill time? He'd only been working for about five hours, which was way less than a normal shift. Leaving early might raise questions, might make people wonder what he'd found that made him so eager to leave.
Better to stay. Make it look normal. Like just another day of boring, unprofitable mining.
Tòumíng ducked back into the indent the "cave" as it was now officially designated and settled into a squat in the corner where he couldn't be seen from the main tunnel. He pulled out his phone, the screen lighting up his face in the darkness.
Time to waste two hours playing his favorite game: "Cultivation Harem of the Heavens."
It was exactly what it sounded like. A gacha game where you collected female characters, each one representing different cultivation realms and martial arts styles, and built your harem while fighting demons and rival cultivators. The gameplay was mediocre at best, the story was nonsensical, and the monetization was predatory.
But the character designs. The jiggle physics. The way the girls' "assets" moved with absolutely zero regard for the laws of physics or human anatomy.
Chef's kiss.
"You're such a gooner," Cupid said with profound disappointment.
"I'm appreciating quality character animation," Tòumíng replied, not looking up from his screen where a busty sword cultivator was currently fighting a demon lord, her chest defying gravity with every sword swing.
"You're staring at animated tits in a mine shaft while sitting on a fortune."
"Multitasking."
"That's not what multitasking means."
Tòumíng ignored him, his thumbs dancing across the screen. He'd spent way too much money on this game already probably six hundred yuan in the past week alone, chasing limited edition characters that the algorithm dangled just out of reach. The gacha system was designed to exploit every weakness in human psychology, and Tòumíng, with his newly acquired disposable income and complete lack of financial discipline, was the perfect target.
A new character banner had dropped today. "Heavenly Jade Empress" or something equally ridiculous. She wore an outfit that could generously be described as "strategically placed ribbons" and had special attack animations that made absolutely sure you noticed the physics engine's attention to detail.
"Just one more pull," Tòumíng muttered, navigating to the shop.
"You said that six pulls ago."
"This time I mean it."
He did not, in fact, mean it. Twenty minutes and three hundred yuan later, he'd done fifteen more pulls and acquired exactly zero five-star characters. Just a collection of duplicates and low-rarity items that would sit unused in his inventory forever.
But the gameplay was important too. Definitely. He wasn't just here for the jiggle physics. There was strategy involved. Team composition. Understanding elemental advantages. Timing special attacks correctly.
The fact that he was currently watching a character fight demons while her chest moved with the consistency of water balloons in zero gravity was purely coincidental.
"I can feel your judgment," Tòumíng said without looking away from the screen.
"I'm literally inside your heart. My judgment is being pumped through your bloodstream."
"Well, stop it. I'm enjoying quality entertainment."
"You're staring at cartoon boobs in a cave."
"The best cave. A cave I made. A cave worth two hundred thousand yuan."
"That doesn't make this less pathetic."
Two hours evaporated in a blur of gacha pulls, questionable physics, and combat sequences that were definitely designed with very specific audience demographics in mind. Tòumíng's phone battery dropped to thirty percent, a warning notification popping up that he immediately dismissed.
Finally, he checked the time. Seven hours total since he'd clocked in. Not a full shift, but respectable. Long enough that leaving wouldn't raise immediate suspicion.
He pocketed his phone, brushed coal dust off his designer pants—a futile gesture given they were already destroyed—and emerged from the "cave" like he'd been doing important geological surveys instead of goofing off with a gacha game.
The cart ride up was quick, the evening shift already in full swing on the upper levels. Workers passed him heading down, their faces tired, their movements automatic. No one looked at him twice. Just another miner finishing another day.
Tòumíng jumped off at the main level and headed toward the small prefab building that served as the administrative office. Inside, a bored clerk sat behind a desk, half-asleep over a logbook.
"Daily statement," Tòumíng said, grabbing a pen from the desk.
The clerk pushed the logbook toward him without looking up.
Tòumíng wrote quickly: "Found small cave system on Level 5, approximately 60 feet below active mining zone. Entrance cleared, area stable. No valuable deposits detected. Structural integrity appears sound."
He signed it, dated it, and pushed the logbook back. The clerk stamped it without reading, still not looking up.
Perfect.
Next stop: the change room. A cramped space with metal lockers and benches that had seen better decades. The air smelled like sweat, coal dust, and industrial cleaner fighting a losing battle against the former two.
Tòumíng sat on a bench and started removing his gear. Boots first—the steel-toed ones that had protected his feet from countless falling rocks and his own clumsy pickaxe swings. They were caked in coal dust and stone fragments, the laces stained black.
Hard hat next, the headlamp still attached. He flicked it off and set the whole assembly in his locker.
The pickaxe went in last, its handle worn smooth from his grip, its head chipped and scarred from three years of daily use.
His clothes were a disaster. The designer pants had multiple tears, coal embedded so deep into the fabric that no amount of washing would ever get it out. The band t-shirt was similarly destroyed, stretched out and stained beyond recognition. The fanny pack, miraculously, had survived mostly intact, still securely zipped with its two-hundred-thousand-yuan cargo safe inside.
Tòumíng didn't bother changing into different clothes. He'd just go home in his ruined designer outfit and add it to the growing pile of "expensive things I destroyed immediately." Maybe that would teach him not to wear nice clothes to a coal mine.
Probably not, though.
He closed his locker, the metal door clanging shut with a satisfying finality, and stood there for a moment, feeling the weight of the fanny pack against his hip.
Time to go home.
Time to figure out how to convert this crystal into cash.
Time to maybe, possibly, finally start making smart financial decisions.
Or time to blow it all on more gacha pulls and see if he could finally get that Heavenly Jade Empress character.
Definitely one of those options. (spiler it was the last one)