"Boss, the stones here are piled up pretty tightly." Another voice rang out, sounding a bit impatient. "Even a rat hole wouldn't be this big, would it? Besides, with the area below collapsed like that, how could anyone possibly crawl out alive? I think Master Wang is just overreacting."
"Shut the hell up!" the first fierce voice cursed. "Just search! Look carefully! See if there are any signs of recent tearing!"
The torchlight flickered again, this time lower, its rays sweeping inch by inch along the bottom of the cracks in the rubble.
The light spot moved over the rubble and cinders blocking the gaps, and several times it stopped at a particularly loose spot that Jiang Chan and the others had recently pried open!
Jiang Chan felt all the blood rush to her head! She could feel the heavy breathing of the pillar beside her, which was almost uncontrollable.
The torchlight eventually flickered away.
"Let's go! Let's go check ahead! It looks like the collapse is worse over there!"
Footsteps sounded, accompanied by cursing and the flickering light of torches, as they began to move away from the gap.
One step... two steps... the sound faded into the distance...
Within the crevice, a deathly silence persisted.
Everyone remained in that stiff posture, pressed against the wall like stone sculptures.
Until the footsteps and the light of the fire completely disappeared at the end of the abandoned alley, and darkness once again filled the gaps like ink, a full dozen breaths passed...
"Gone...gone?" Uncle He's voice was extremely low, filled with exhaustion from surviving a disaster.
"Phew..." Zhu Zi let out a long breath, feeling as if his bones had been removed, and slid down the cold rock wall, splashing up a cloud of muddy water. "Damn it... that scared the hell out of me..."
Jiang Chan's tense body suddenly relaxed, and the immense feeling of exhaustion made her legs go weak, almost causing her to fall over.
Jiang Chan's voice, muffled through the mask, carried an unprecedented urgency and gravity: "Wang Bapi's men are searching outside!"
"Pillar! Uncle Hammer! Everyone! Hurry!" Jiang Chan waved her hand, pointing to the narrow passage entrance. "Wang Bapi is scared to death! He's afraid we'll all run out and report him! What if he tries to seal the well entrance and block us out before we get there? We have to hurry! Open the opening wider! We have to get out ourselves!"
Zhu Zi's eyes instantly turned red, and he roared, "Fuck his ancestors! Brothers! Let's fight that bastard Wang Bapi! Dig!"
Like a thoroughly enraged bull, with bloodshot eyes, he lunged at the crevice, his rough hands gripping a large, sharp-edged rock, bracing it with his shoulders, his feet leaving deep imprints on the slippery ground.
"Hooray—!"
"rise--!"
Li Dachui and two other men roared and rushed forward to help.
The heavy stone was pushed aside inch by inch amidst a teeth-grinding scraping sound!
Jiang Chan knelt in the icy water, using a pickaxe to pry at the sharp pebbles stuck at the edge of the crevice.
"Crack!"
She pried open a stubborn rock, and Zhu Zi immediately reached out, pulled it out, and threw it away.
Dust and fine pebbles fell in a soft rustling sound.
No one stopped; everyone was like a wound-up machine, mechanically digging, shoveling, and prying.
Sweat mixed with coal sludge, carving furrows on their faces and dripping into the black water.
As Jiang Chan pried at the stone with a pickaxe, her mind raced.
Why did they have to kill everyone? Because they were terrified! Terrified to death! The remaining survivors crawled out, stood in front of the officials, and testified that he deliberately delayed the rescue, refused to help those in distress, and even tried to bury them alive to cover their tracks!
That crime is enough to get his head chopped off ten times over!
Only by turning this well into a grave filled with corpses, and making all the living witnesses unable to testify, can he escape his guilt!
As for the miners' families... the poor miners' families have no power or influence, and Wang Bapi has plenty of ways to shut them up with a pitiful amount of "compensation" or through threats and intimidation!
But the surviving miners themselves are irrefutable proof! They must all be killed!
"It's open! Look! There's wind!" Zhu Zi suddenly roared excitedly.
The gap was finally widened enough for a thin adult to bend over and squeeze in! A noticeably clearer stream of air, carrying the earthy smell of the deep, pungent soil, blew out from the dark depths of the gap!
Hope! Hope for life! It's right before our eyes!
"Zhu Zi! You're strong! You go in first! See what's ahead!" Jiang Chan made a quick decision.
Without saying a word, Zhu Zi ripped off his tattered clothes, revealing his lean, dark upper body. He took a deep breath and suddenly darted into the narrow hole.
His strong shoulder jerked, but with a growl, his muscles bulged, and he forced his way in!
Everyone's hearts were in their throats as they stared nervously at the dark opening.
A few breaths later, Zhu Zi's muffled voice, tinged with barely suppressed excitement, came from inside, "We can walk! It goes up! There's a path! It's just narrow! Hurry! Come on in!"
"One at a time! Quickly!" Jiang Chan immediately directed, "Uncle Li! You take Uncle Liu! He's coughing badly! Uncle Wang! You follow! Quickly!" As she spoke, she pulled out two compressed biscuits and stuffed them into Li Dachui's hands, "Break them open! Share some with the people digging the tunnel when you get inside! Hold on!"
Li Dachui nodded emphatically, carefully helped Uncle Liu, bent down, and struggled to squeeze into the gap.
One by one, people filed in, suppressing their excitement and panting.
Outside the gap, only Jiang Chan and Zhu remained to cover the rear.
Just then—
Rumble rumble rumble...
A faint, muffled tremor came from a very deep and distant place above my head.
It wasn't the terrifying roar of a landslide that's right up close.
The sound was heavier, more distant, carrying the sound of... a huge, heavy object moving and colliding amidst the shouts of many people!
Immediately afterwards, an indescribable, enormous roar pierced through the layers of rock and came down in a muffled manner!
That wasn't the screams of miners; it sounded more like... the shouts and chants of many people, and the thud of heavy objects being dragged across the ground... a dull thud...
Jiang Chan's face turned deathly pale in an instant!
The pillar next to him heard it too. He had just poked half his body out from the gap to pull Jiang Chan up when the excitement on his face instantly froze, turning into extreme terror. "What...what is that sound?"
A miner in his fifties, who had survived many mining accidents, had just struggled to crawl through the crack when he heard the sound and froze.
He turned around slowly, extremely slowly, as if struck by lightning, to look at Jiang Chan and Zhu Zi.
In those cloudy eyes, only utterly broken fear and despair remained.
His lips trembled violently, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth with the last of his life force, carrying a chilling coldness:
"The stuff for sealing... sealing the well... has arrived! They're moving... the stone sluice gate and... rammed earth to plug the well opening..."
He stared intently at Jiang Chan, his facial muscles contorted. "They're really going to...make their move!!!"
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