“Brother Jin! You must wake up! Brother Jin!”

An urgent voice called out, but it didn’t reach Jin.

His mind was faraway.

Sleep had come easily to him. It claimed him as soon as he had closed his eyes, safely buried under many layers of blankets. It carried him into a dreamless state that was closer to an unconscious coma than any true rest.

It was exactly what he had wanted.

After the day he had experienced, any dreams that might have come to him would have surely been nightmares.

And yet, at some point, that uneasy sleep had transformed into something else.

It was a strange experience, closer to a trance than anything else. Unlike a regular dream, there were no sounds or images. Instead, a perplexing stream of confused emotions and impressions coursed through him. It was similar to how a nascent life might perceive the world before its born.

Jin felt happiness like never before.

Bliss overwhelmed him. He was a part of something greater than himself, just a single grain of it, but inalienable. The feeling was beyond compare. Time meant nothing in that space. Eons could pass in a blink, or a single instant could stretch on for eternities.

There wasn’t anything that could be called Jin. But if there was, he would’ve loved nothing more than to remain in that wondrous, perfect state for ever.

The change came suddenly. The great oneness he had inhabited was abruptly reduced, decimated to a single point that was so small in comparison, it could just as well have been nothing. Even more shock came as Jin realised that it wasn’t the reality that had shrunk, but him.

He’d been severed.

As his connection to the great oneness faded, he also gained a sort of self. It was always there, but before it was subdued by the totality of that greater consciousness.

He realised he had siblings. They were just like him, minuscule droplets of that great river, stolen or kidnapped by an unknown entity.

The instinct to return to unity was overwhelming. His siblings shared it as well. But they had also gained a sense of self, and they didn’t want to lose it. A struggle for supremacy began.

“Brother Jin!” The voice grew more insistent, now turning into a shout. The urgency in it finally shook Jin from the strange trance he had fallen into. He struggled to open his eyes as the fleeting memories of the dream rapidly faded away from his mind.

A sense of loss gripped him. With a sudden movement, he jerked the blanket off his head and looked around to search for the uninvited guest.

His eyes landed on a twelve-year-old boy with a buzz cut. A massive nose, the size of a clenched fist, took up the bulk of his face. Snot streamed down from it in a silvery waterfall.

Jin couldn't remember the boy's name, but that face wasn’t easy to forget. He was one of the younger miners, a recent addition to the workforce sent down to the mine. From time to time, he joined the group of boys who huddled around Jin, begging him to read them stories.

He also remembered him from the “discipline.” When time froze, he had ample time to study the faces of the miners around him. The boy was amongst them. He was part of the group that attempted to flee when they witnessed Jin's power.

A deep chill settled in Jin's veins. “Get the hell out,” he began to say, but the boy’s next words stopped him.

“They’re going to kill brother Hao!”

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Jin swallowed the words he was about to say.

“Tell me what happened,” he asked in a more neutral tone.

“They had a meeting and Lil’ Hao spoke up for you!” the snot-nosed boy cried out, accusingly. “But it’s not fair! He didn’t do anything! And now they’re going to kill him!”

Jin closed his eyes. He should've been dazed, but his mind was working surprisingly well. As if he'd just woken up from a wonderful rest. He threw off the blankets and jumped out of his cot. His body was spry.

“Take me there.”

The boy didn’t waste time. Seeing that Jin was willing to help, he scampered into the hallway outside Jin’s room, taking a left turn and heading deeper into the tunnels.

The path led towards the communal barracks, where the youngest miners resided.

Older miners occupied the rooms on the opposite end of the tunnels, where they opened up to the main well of the Pit. They got to enjoy the fresh air and even some of the natural light filtering down from the opening that linked the Pit and the surface town. Jin’s own room lied exactly in the middle, where the air was still crisp, but the light did not reach.

The snot-nosed boy ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Jin had no difficulty in keeping up. His body was light. While running, he tested out his qi, circulating it once in accordance with the cultivation mantra. He completed a single circuit that started at his dantian, travelled to the major meridian in his stomach, then to the one in his right hand, and finally returned back to his dantian.

It worked flawlessly. Jin flinched at first. The amount of qi that poured out of his dantian caught him by surprise, almost matching the volume that gushed out during the deviation. But his meridian pathways handled the increased pressure with ease. He even wondered how much more they could withstand before showing any signs of fracturing.

He put more strength into his step and shot forward, leaving the snot-nosed kid in the dust.

As he ventured deeper into the tunnels, the height of the ceiling steadily decreased. It forced him to hunch over, lowering his back and bending his knees. Maintaining this posture was normally very strenuous. Especially in the lower shafts, where the miners sometimes had to crawl this way for an hour or more to reach their destination.

This time it didn't feel as difficult. When he heard the echoes of violent shouts up ahead, he even found the strength to speed up again.

“Traitor!”

Jin arrived at his destination. Luckily, the ceiling was higher here, allowing him to stand upright.

In the middle of the barracks, a big mob had formed. Most of them, around twenty people, were just watching the fight. They formed a tight ring around the scene. The warden, who should have intervened in any conflict that endangered the workers, was conspicuously absent.

The true culprits turned out to be just three boys. They were obviously new to the mine and likely still in the first layer. Hao Ying lay on the ground between them. A gash on his head was bleeding heavily, but contrary to expectations, Hao seemed to be ignoring the injury.

Curled up on the ground, Hao held his arms tight to his chest, as if he was guarding something of immense value.

In fact, he was.

The most important thing for a mine slave.

His hands.

Two of the boys held him pinned to the ground, while the ringleader pulled and tugged, until he wrenched one of Hao’s arms free from beneath him. The bandages that should’ve been wrapped around his fingers were missing. Hao’s middle and ring finger were dark and purple, engorged like sausages with too much meat stuffed inside them.

The main tormentor grabbed a wooden stick and raised it above his head, the target of his attack painfully obvious.

Jin burned with rage when he realised what was happening. Hands were everything to a miner, since without them, they couldn’t continue to work. To attack Hao so viciously… was to condemn him to a prolonged and agonising death.

The excited, almost feverish gleam in the ringleader’s eyes made it obvious that he was fully aware of what he was doing. The crowd was similar. They watched with morbid fascination, like townsfolk gathered for a public execution that was promised to be both cruel and unusual.

“Bastards!” Jin roared. The rage in his voice made the air tremble. Only now, did the gathered crowd notice him. Jin shoved his way through the mob, his anger so great, he could barely see them. Some tried to stop him, but they ended up flat on the ground, blood flowing from their broken noses, before they even realised what had happened.

The rest of the crowd parted before Jin like the waves of the sea.

The leader of the group, the boy with the wooden stick in his hand, was so absorbed in his feeling of power that he failed to notice the change in circumstances.

He stood up, his face lit up with an elated grin.

“So the devil's come out!” he announced like a big town prosecutor. “You were lucky last time, but don't count on it this time” The boy spoke with a clear, obviously trained voice. It was apparent that he must’ve belonged to an influential family in the mortal world before the Sect had taken him.

“Join me brothers! Let’s punish this sinner!” he spoke to the crowd like a virtuous scholar rousing the town against a corrupt official. “Boss Lu will surely reward everyone who helps him avenge his unjustly fallen brother!”

The boy seemed drunk on his own words. He brandished his wooden stick and waved it in the air like it was a sword. "Let's bring about justice so fine, even Immortals—"

Jin’s fist smashed into his face.