Chapter 48

Crumble, crumble.

“Aaaaargh!”

“What’s happening!”

Rumble, rumble—

People rushed toward the sudden screams and the sound of collapsing rocks, startled by the commotion.

Then they despaired.

Due to their weakened state, they hadn’t properly erected the support pillars, causing the ceiling to collapse.

The tunnel they had painstakingly dug had completely caved in.

Two people were buried.

But no one had the strength to save them.

“Ha, haha.”

Thud, thud.

People fell to their knees.

Despair descended upon the entire mine shaft.

Food and water had already run out. Digging the tunnel again had become virtually impossible.

Even the torches they had carefully rationed were down to just two or three.

“…”

Everyone gathered in one place in silence.

Their faces were grim.

Some were even bleeding from their noses.

This was because the poisonous fumes from the minerals being mined couldn’t escape through the blocked entrance and had filled the shaft. It was natural that those with less strength would succumb to the toxicity first.

After maintaining silence for a while, Yun-ik spoke with a cracked voice:

“We… have no strength left.”

“Ahhh…”

From the beginning, they had very little time to break through the collapsed entrance. They had started the task knowing they might die before completing it.

But even that effort had come to nothing.

It felt like receiving a death sentence. Now, without any choice, they could only wait to die.

People looked at Jin Ja-gang.

Half envy, half wonder.

Their gazes were mixed with complex emotions.

Jin Ja-gang was the most intact among them, but he was still just a child. He lacked the strength to dig the tunnel and erect supports.

Jin Ja-gang couldn’t help but lower his head.

“I’m… sorry.”

An elderly man approached Jin Ja-gang and took his hand. The old man spoke with a dry, gravelly voice:

“What are you saying? It’s not your fault.”

The old man looked around at the others.

“Among us, this child will probably live the longest.”

People looked at the old man. The old man swallowed his dry saliva and continued:

“I am Hwang Mo of the Sanghuang Valley faction. Shamefully, I was the valley master, but all my sect members are dead, and I alone survived—a wretched old man.”

His voice was mixed with tears, but they were too dry to flow.

“If Hundred Flower Valley permits, I would like to pass on the humble secret techniques of our Sanghuang Valley to this child.”

It was a very surprising, yet unsurprising request. In the worst situations, any sect would want to preserve its legacy.

After quietly listening, a middle-aged man from another medicinal sect added:

“I am Gwang Mo of the Silkworm Cultivation Sect. Hearing the elder’s words makes me greedy too. Our sect doesn’t have special martial arts, but we do have a secret method for raising silkworms that can be both medicine and poison. I don’t want that to be forgotten.”

Soon, one after another, they all wanted to pass their secret techniques to Jin Ja-gang.

Yun-ik understood their feelings and couldn’t refuse. No one would want their sect’s legacy to be lost, even if the sect itself couldn’t continue.

Another elder stepped forward to persuade:

“Our deaths are inevitable, but please let us choose how we die.”

Yun-ik opened his heavy mouth:

“I understand your feelings, but that… is not for me to decide.”

All eyes turned to Jin Ja-gang.

Jin Ja-gang was filled with complex emotions.

Why, why had things turned out this way!

He had only come to save the people of Hundred Flower Valley, but instead, he had to watch everyone die.

Jin Ja-gang was also tired.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to end his life at this point.

But he couldn’t ignore their desperate pleas as they faced their final moments.

Jin Ja-gang slowly nodded.

Yun-ik asked Jin Ja-gang.

“Do you understand what accepting their wishes means?”

He had heard the same words before from Yong-myeong of the Medicine King Sect.

Jin Ja-gang nodded again.

“I know that even if I want to die, I won’t be able to.”

He would have to carry the lives of others and the legacies of their sects. Even if everyone else died and he remained alone, he would have to continue—until circumstances finally drove him to death.

Unlike the others who could pass on their sect’s techniques and die with lighter hearts, Jin Ja-gang would die carrying the heavy burden of what they had entrusted to him.

Yun-ik worried about this. Could the young Jin Ja-gang bear such a mental burden?

But Jin Ja-gang wasn’t as weak as Yun-ik thought.

Once he made his decision, he had already cast aside his hesitation.

Jin Ja-gang spoke to the eyes that were watching him.

“I won’t die here. I will survive. And I will make those outside pay for their crimes.”

The survivors didn’t believe Jin Ja-gang’s words. But they desperately hoped that he would, that he could succeed.

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

“I will show them hell. I swear it!”

* * *

The people didn’t have much time left.

Most had been starving for quite a while.

Therefore, they couldn’t pass on as many secret techniques to Jin Ja-gang as they wanted.

They had to select only what was absolutely necessary.

Facing death, there was no reason to hide or conceal anything.

People revealed the most important techniques of their sects, one or two at a time, in front of everyone.

From these, they selected only what was truly necessary and passed them on to Jin Ja-gang in sequence.

The content of the transmission was diverse, including internal energy cultivation methods, sword techniques, hidden weapon techniques, and footwork. Since most were from medicinal sects, there were also many unique elixir formulations and combination methods.

Fortunately, Jin Ja-gang’s learning ability was remarkably impressive. He could remember almost everything after hearing it once, and after reciting it a few times, he had memorized all the content.

Of course, this wasn’t Jin Ja-gang’s innate ability.

It was the Intelligence Decoction that Mang-ryo had fed him continuously for months.

It was an acquired ability gained as a consequence of the Intelligence Decoction, which had multiplied his pain during experiments hundredfold.

Regardless, it was proving helpful in the current situation.

Jin Ja-gang tried not to miss any of the transmitted content.

He received explanations about the Hundred Flower Secret Scripture from Yun-ik and Gong Ga-bok of Hundred Flower Valley, and advice about the Herbal Cultivation Method from the Medicine King Sect. He was finally understanding what he had been blindly memorizing all this time.

Jin Ja-gang reduced his sleep and food intake. Even combining all the remaining time of the people here would be far less than the time Jin Ja-gang would live…

* * *

Mang-ryo had been unable to leave the collapsed mine for nearly half a month.

To an outside observer, it might have seemed as if a loved one had been buried in the collapsed mine.

Even the Stone Forest Gang leader Jia Hei had come to visit, but Mang-ryo ignored him.

He just kept muttering while staring at the collapsed mine entrance:

“You’re not dead. You can’t die. You’re not someone who can die before I kill you. Right?”

Jia Hei felt a chill.

“What an obsession. Did you hide a treasure in there?”

Jia Hei ordered the warriors guarding the mine:

“Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him do anything strange. It would be troublesome for us if he hired workers to dig it up. Especially after we’ve already received compensation.”

“I don’t think that will happen.”

“Oh? Why?”

“He never leaves his spot. We bring him food, and he even relieves himself right there.”

Jia Hei grumbled with a displeased expression:

“How long is he going to cling to another sect and waste our manpower, tsk.”

* * *

The first death was one of the children from Tuanshan Village.

The children had exhausted themselves more quickly than the elderly by constantly crying for their mothers. The child called for his mother with parched lips without stopping.

“Mo… mother… mo… ther…”

The child had been suffering for so long that Jin Ja-gang finally made a decision.

He decided to give the child a peaceful death.

He drew out some of the poisonous energy from his dantian and fed it to the child. He used more than usual to ensure the child wouldn’t suffer.

The child, thinking it was water, licked it with his tongue and died after a brief convulsion.

The child’s emaciated body couldn’t withstand Jin Ja-gang’s deadly poison for even a moment.

Jin Ja-gang etched the dying child’s death in his heart. The image of the child’s mother sending off her child remained vivid in his mind.

The second child from Tuanshan Village was in such pain from hunger that he tried to bite his own arm. When Jin Ja-gang held him, the child’s eyes were already glazed over.

When Jin Ja-gang fed him poison, the child died with dry tears.

In this way, Jin Ja-gang buried the two children from Tuanshan Village in his heart.

From that point on, the number of deaths gradually increased.

People would lose strength little by little, suffer in pain, and then enter a comatose state where they barely breathed, dying at some indeterminate moment. It was often difficult to determine the exact moment of death, as they died so quietly in their final moments.

Since they died of starvation, the corpses were very light. Jin Ja-gang could move an adult’s corpse by himself. Even that was heartbreaking.

Since these people had already been weakened by torture, once death began to visit, it became unstoppable, and the number of casualties increased rapidly.

Death by starvation was accompanied by continuous, extreme pain. People suffered greatly until they lost consciousness.

Therefore, those who had completed their transmission to Jin Ja-gang asked him for death.

Jin Ja-gang decided not to refuse their requests. If he could use his poisonous energy to help people die more peacefully, that was what he could do.

Jin Ja-gang guided the suffering people to die comfortably.

And every day, he slept among corpses and woke up among corpses.

Death had enveloped daily life.

In such a situation, the death Jin Ja-gang offered wasn’t so extraordinary. Rather, it was like a blessing to the people.

Those transmitting their secret techniques tried their best to pass on as much as possible to Jin Ja-gang, conserving every breath. When they finished their transmission and died by Jin Ja-gang’s poison, they died with surprisingly satisfied expressions.

This was partly because the pain from the poison was shorter than the agony of starvation, and partly because they felt relieved that they could at least pass on their sect’s legacy before dying.

But as a result, more and more debt accumulated in Jin Ja-gang’s heart.

Yun-ik was one of the few who chose death for himself.

Not long after the last torch went out, the aura of death visited him too.

“Ja-gang…”

“Shall I give you poison?”

“No. I don’t want to… burden you.”

Yun-ik caressed Jin Ja-gang’s cheek with his rough hand.

“You said you would survive, but… if it becomes too difficult alone… then…”

He probably wanted to say that it would be okay if Jin Ja-gang chose suicide.

But those were Yun-ik’s last words. Without finishing what he wanted to say, Yun-ik fell into a coma and became a cold, incredibly light corpse after two days.

With all the torches extinguished, the mine shaft was filled with pitch-black darkness.

Jin Ja-gang had no idea how much time had passed. He only repeated the cycle of receiving secret techniques from the survivors and giving them death in return.

The last person to transmit secret techniques to Jin Ja-gang was the hairy man from the Bosam Gate who had killed the guard with a rock.