"One, two, three…"
"Holy crap, fifteen dead!"
He Ergou counted, smacking his lips, looking thoroughly spooked.
"There should be more…"
Chu Mu fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"I didn't miscount, it's fifteen…"
He Ergou's words trailed off mid-sentence.
At that moment, both of their gazes were fixed on the same spot.
Another group of Inspectors emerged from the mine at the quarry's exit, carrying bodies wrapped in straw mats.
After the initial shock, He Ergou seemed to snap out of it, muttering to himself, "Where did this happen? How come I didn't hear anything?"
With that, He Ergou paid Chu Mu no more mind and strode toward the group of Inspectors, clearly intending to ask for information.
Chu Mu remained where he was with no intention of following. Instead, he turned and headed for the dining hall.
It wasn't that Chu Mu lacked curiosity about the scene. He simply figured that with He Ergou's big mouth, if he actually learned anything, the news would spread throughout the entire Inspection Office in the time it took to eat a meal.
That being the case, why should he bother? He might as well have a quiet meal.
And just as Chu Mu expected, he had barely gotten his food when He Ergou's bragging voice echoed through the dining hall.
Chu Mu glanced at He Ergou by the dining hall entrance, his arm slung around another Inspector's shoulder. Looking further out, he could faintly see more Inspectors carrying bodies down the mountain.
The boasting was clear enough for Chu Mu to piece together the whole story in his mind.
'A mine disaster? Tunnel B-6 collapsed?'
Chu Mu couldn't help but look again at the group carrying the bodies down the mountain.
Dozens of lives, gone in a single morning without a sound…
'In my past life, this would've been major news, reaching the highest levels of government…'
Chu Mu pursed his lips and scanned the Inspectors in the dining hall. The hall wasn't very large, with square wooden tables arranged neatly. About a hundred Inspectors sat in small groups.
The loss of dozens of lives clearly hadn't caused much of a stir. It seemed to be just one more thing to chat and boast about… and nothing more.
Chu Mu shoveled food into his mouth, not wanting to think about it any further. The values and outlook from his past life seemed completely out of place in this era.
'Now that I'm in this world,' he thought, 'I should probably learn to go with the flow.'
A fairly hearty meal cost only three copper coins, which was extremely cheap. At least, here in Nanshan Town, you couldn't find food this cheap, yet still decent in taste and variety, anywhere outside the Inspection Office's dining hall.
There was no free time after the meal. The system of "one turnip, one hole" meant that even if you wanted to slack off, you had to do it at your own post.
Day after day of this one-person-one-post duty could become tedious over time, perhaps even unbearable.
But for the current Chu Mu, it still felt pretty good.
After all, compared to his past life as a miserable corporate drone, this job as an Inspector was almost too comfortable.
To supervise versus being supervised, to guard versus being guarded—it was a world of difference.
Besides, the people being supervised were quite self-disciplined.
After eating a few cheap cornbread buns, the men on Forced Labor dutifully picked up their tools and, like worker ants in a colony, got busy around the quarry.
The loss of dozens of lives not only failed to cause a stir among the Inspectors, but it seemed to have little effect on the Forced Laborers either.
Chu Mu was still leaning against the same bare tree, but what he held in his hand was no longer the Long Saber hanging at his waist, but a primer.
The once-new book already looked a bit worn after several days of reading, its corners curled.
He had been attending a private school for several days now. Although he only went to study and learn characters after his shift, he had still managed to recognize about a hundred of them.
Of course, of the hundred or so characters he "recognized," at least sixty or seventy were still only at the stage of simple recognition, or rather, rote memorization.
Although the characters of this world were completely different from the Chinese characters of his previous life, after starting to learn them, Chu Mu discovered that in many ways, they were quite similar.
This similarity wasn't in the script itself, but in the structural composition of the language—for example, the existence of homophones and synonyms. The language of this era was the same in that regard.
This particular similarity undoubtedly made learning exponentially more difficult for Chu Mu.
The endless homophones and synonyms were giving Chu Mu a real headache.
Chu Mu even felt that without the help of the "Spiritual Radiance Blessing," he would probably have to pay another six months of tuition in half a year.
Holding the book, Chu Mu read slowly and with great effort, repeatedly comparing the characters on the page with the ones he had memorized, reviewing what he'd learned.
If, at first, he wanted to learn to read simply to shed the label of an illiterate, then after witnessing his team leader's True Martial Arts, Chu Mu undoubtedly had a new motivation.
Although he was still unsure of the connection between literacy and practicing Martial Arts, Chu Mu understood the principle that one can never have too many skills.
Chu Mu leisurely flipped through the book. As time passed, his standing posture against the tree slowly turned into a seated one, still leaning against the trunk.
At times like this, the benefit of the Inspectors' one-person-one-post Guardian system became apparent.
Unless something out of the ordinary happened, no one would come to disturb Chu Mu.
The other Inspectors wouldn't, and the working Forced Laborers… even less so.
As for the clamor of work in the quarry, Chu Mu just treated it as an exercise to train his focus.
It took nearly a full hour to finish reading through the thin primer. Chu Mu held the book, closed his eyes to carefully recall its contents for a while longer, and then finally shut it.
He glanced around the quarry, then habitually muttered inwardly. The Light Curtain Panel appeared before him.
Unsurprisingly, after nearly an hour of concentration, his "Spiritual Radiance Value" had increased quite a bit, bringing him one step closer to the one hundred percent mark.
'I can take my time with reading. Worst case, I just pay more money. But I can't let my Sword Technique fall behind. The bulk of my Spiritual Radiance Value has to be spent on Martial Arts…'
Gazing at the "Spiritual Radiance Value" on the Light Curtain Panel, Chu Mu pondered silently.
Perhaps it was because he hadn't fully adapted to this era, or perhaps it was from witnessing how cheap life was—as worthless as weeds—but he always felt a vague sense of crisis.
Especially since he was wearing the "skin" of an Inspector.
As he thought, Chu Mu couldn't help but look toward the empty space not far away where his team leader practiced his Martial Arts.
After a moment, Chu Mu shook his head to himself. If the original owner's father were still around, perhaps he could have made some plans.
But as a newcomer who hadn't even figured out the lay of the land at this Inspection Office, he really had no way to get access to True Martial Arts any time soon…
…