Three months passed as mine work often does—filled with quotas, bells, and a particular exhaustion that came from physical labor that occupied the body while leaving the mind free. Wei Liang's mind was busy with everything else while his hands worked.
By the end of the first month, he had made himself useful enough to be left alone.
This was his goal. He didn't seek value; value brought attention, and attention brought questions. Being useful was different. It meant Bao had a reason to keep him in the better sections and a reason not to scrutinize why his yields were consistently better than those of workers twice his age. Being useful meant the system accepted him like a river carries a stone—moving around his presence, taking the path of least resistance, never pausing to consider what the stone actually was.
The ore-reading had become routine. Each morning before the first bell, he reviewed the Ledger's notes from the previous shift—checking which bands had been partially extracted, which sections were nearing depletion, and where the vein's density might run based on the geological patterns he gathered shift by shift. He created a mental map that served only his interests.
He kept one medium-grade piece each week. Sometimes two, if the section was rich and the extraction didn't show a visible pattern. He hid them in three separate spots—a leg of his cot, a loose stone behind the eastern water basin at the dorm, and a small cavity he had carefully opened in the back wall of the tool storage alcove over four shifts using a thin pick fragment and the patience of someone with nowhere urgent to be.
He had twelve pieces now. He couldn't use them, but sometimes he held them, reading the Ledger's density notes like a man studying a language he was not allowed to speak.
---
The secondary passage waited.
He didn't approach it again for six weeks after his first observation. He walked past it daily. He noted the atmospheric pressure at its entrance—tracked by the Ledger as a margin note, updating the estimated source distance and concentration as its model refined. He observed that other workers never glanced at it. Their lack of curiosity was total and consistent.
On the forty-third day, he entered it.
He didn't go far—just eleven meters, where the descent steepened and the passage narrowed enough that two people couldn't pass each other without touching. He stood there for two minutes. The atmospheric pressure was stronger here—the Ledger noted it in real time, tracking the qi-corrosive compound's concentration rising from trace to low.
His body felt nothing. No burning in the meridians that didn't yet function properly. No deterioration of the qi he wasn't yet cycling. He was, quite literally, empty—the compound that corroded qi found nothing in him to corrode.
He recorded the exact distance, the angle of the walls, and the sound quality—deeper resonance than the main tunnels, suggesting a larger space below. He noted that the stone here was a completely different composition from the iron-ore-bearing rock of the main mountain. It was darker, almost black in the lamplight, and glassy at the edges where old fractures had sealed.
He left at the nine-minute mark, well within the interval before the shift supervisor's first check.
He returned to his section, met his quota, and said nothing to anyone.
That night, the Ledger recorded: *Secondary passage: confirmed artificial origin in upper section, natural formation below estimated 40-meter depth. Qi-corrosive compound source consistent with deep mineral reaction, not spiritual formation. Root interaction: null throughout exposure duration. Updated recommendation: incremental approach, minimum three-day intervals between entries.*
Incremental. He had already been doing that. He noted that the Ledger's recommendation matched his own thoughts and filed this as either confirmation of his judgment or evidence that the record-keeper's suggestions derived from the same observable data available to him. It could be both.
---
Bao called him into the shift office in the eighth week.
The shift office was a carved-out alcove near the main tunnel entrance. It contained a desk, a stool, and a record ledger that Bao tended to with the dedication of a man whose authority existed mainly on paper. Wei Liang sat on the stool and waited.
"Your yield numbers," Bao said, turning the record ledger toward him. "Three months. Every shift."
Wei Liang looked at the numbers. He had been careful—not dramatically above the section average, always within a range that could be attributed to positioning and effort rather than skill. The numbers were better than average, but not impossible.
"You're not a cultivator," Bao said. This was not a question.
"No."
"The density readings you do. The band identification." Bao's eyes were like those of a man searching for something he could feel but not see. "The other workers can't do it."
"It took time to learn," Wei Liang said. "The color differences are subtle."
The Ledger's passive function ran its check. *Bao: respiratory and micro-expression assessment. Conclusion: partially satisfied. Residual suspicion present but not prioritized. Motivation shift detected—moving from investigative to transactional.*
Bao leaned back. "I'm moving you to Section Seven."
Section Seven was the deepest assigned section. It had the highest base density in the mine's accessible range. It was also the most exhausting, as the depth meant longer carry distances for the extracted ore. Workers both requested and dreaded it.
"The quota adjustment?" Wei Liang asked.
"Standard adult rate. Full."
He had been at sixty percent for three months. This was the calculation Bao had reached—Wei Liang's yield quality justified a full quota assignment, meaning Bao's output reports would improve, which in turn would enhance Bao's own assessment reviews. It cost Bao nothing. It granted Wei Liang better ore access, longer legitimate time in the deeper sections, and a reason to be near the eastern branch without construction.
"Acceptable," Wei Liang said.
The Ledger recorded the exchange with its standard note and then added in the margin—noted in a way that felt different from the main text: *Bao, Overseer. Account status: neutral. Current relationship: mutually transactional. Monitor for reclassification.*
He walked back to the dormitory, sat on his cot, and looked at the twelve medium-grade ore pieces he had collected. He thought about Section Seven's proximity to the secondary passage and what lay deeper down, as well as the Ledger's notes about a time that might not be too far off.
---
On the eighty-first day, he reached the Forbidden Vein.
He had descended the secondary passage in seven incremental visits, each pushing three to four meters deeper, always staying within the no-qi-present safety margin his hollow root provided, and always within the time allowed by his shift schedule. On his sixth visit, he saw the glow—a faint, sourceless, blue-black light emanating from the passage's end where it opened into something larger.
On the eighty-first day, he stepped through the opening.
The space beyond wasn't large—perhaps eight meters across, irregular, with a ceiling sloping down on the far side. The walls were the same glassy dark stone as the passage, but here the fracture-sealed edges caught the blue-black light and scattered it in patterns that defied how light was supposed to behave. The floor was flat as if something had made it that way on purpose, long ago.At the center of the far wall, the stone had split along a vertical line about two meters tall. Light came from this split, and a qi-corrosive compound seeped in a concentration that the Ledger's notation marked as: *High. Lethal to cultivators at Foundation Establishment and below within approximately four hours of exposure. Lethal to Qi Condensation cultivators within forty minutes.*
Wei Liang stood in it and felt nothing.
He stared at the split in the stone for a long time. The Ledger was quiet, and its lack of any immediate notation was unusual enough that he noted the absence as information.
Then, after about a minute, a single entry appeared. It was not in the standard notation register. It was not in the margin register. It was in a third place he had not known existed, deeper and somehow older than either:
*Location confirmed. Designation: Void Vein Terminus. Sealed: 300 years, 4 months, 17 days prior. Seal condition: intact. Contents: dormant. This record predates current host.*
Wei Liang read it three times.
He looked at the split in the stone. He looked at the notation. He focused on the words *predates current host* and sat with them like you do when something changes how you understand a question.
He had thought the Ledger was something that had arrived with him, or in him, or because of him.
He left the chamber after eight minutes, ascended the passage, and returned to Section Seven with four minutes left before the interior check. He met his quota. He ate dinner. He did not speak to anyone.
That night, he lay on his cot, stared at the ceiling, and thought about records that existed before their current holders.
The mountain breathed. Something below it slept.
For now.