Li Huowang raised the medicine pestle in his hand and, bored out of his mind, smashed it into the medicine mortar again and again, slowly grinding the green stone laced with mud into powder.
Even though the cavern was damp and cold, and he only wore a coarse cloth shirt, his face showed complete indifference, as if none of this mattered in the least to him.
He wasn't alone in the cave; there were other men and women, their hair also bound, all dressed in the same rough linen ropes.
The only difference between them and Li Huowang was that they all bore obvious physical defects—some were albino, some had polio.
Every kind of congenital or acquired deformity could be found here—the cramped storeroom cave like a museum of freaks.
These people's jobs were the same as Li Huowang's—pounding things—but the things they pounded varied; some gold stone, some medicine. But it was obvious a few were not content with their work.
"Ah!" A woman's terrified shriek drew everyone's attention.
