Tunnel No. 3.
There was no road here anymore.
Only a pile of collapsed rocks.
Dust that had not yet settled hung in the air like a gray fog over everyone’s heads.
It was the powder of crushed stone mixed with shattered bones.
Dozens of surviving laborers knelt before the rubble.
They did not dare move.
They did not even dare breathe loudly.
Just moments ago, dull booming sounds had come from inside.
Then came a grinding, teeth-aching sound of compression.
And finally—silence.
One hundred people were gone.
“Step. Step. Step.”
Footsteps approached.
Light.
But in this deathly quiet mine, they sounded like they were stepping directly on everyone’s hearts.
Black iron armor.
Black boots.
Fusu had arrived.
He walked slowly.
Every step measured as if with a ruler.
Two Qin elite soldiers followed behind him, hands resting on their sword hilts.
The perimeter was cleared.
The commander in charge of Tunnel No. 3 stumbled forward, half running, half crawling.
“Thud.”
He fell to his knees in front of Fusu.
His knees struck sharp rubble, but he felt no pain.
His face was white as paper.
Sweat soaked his helmet and dripped down his cheeks.
“Y-Your Highness!”
His voice trembled.
Fusu stopped.
He did not look down at the man.
His gaze passed over the kneeling officer and landed on the blocked tunnel entrance.
A hand was still visible there.
It was clutching a pickaxe.
That hand no longer moved.
“What happened,” Fusu said.
His voice was calm.
No anger. No emotion.
The commander clung to this like a lifeline and desperately kowtowed.
“Your Highness… it is my failure! I deserve death!”
He spoke quickly, scrambling for explanation.
“Yesterday… yesterday some laborers said they heard noises in the rock wall.”
“Like… like stone cracking.”
Fusu said nothing.
He just listened quietly.
The commander swallowed and raised his voice, trying to justify himself.
“I thought… I thought those monkeys were trying to slack off!”
“These natives are cunning—they’ll lie about anything to avoid work!”
“So I… I whipped them and forced them to keep digging!”
As he spoke, he lifted his head with a faint flattering expression.
“Your Highness, I did it to maintain progress!”
“Who would have thought… who would have thought it would really collapse…”
“But rest assured, Your Highness! Only the natives and death-row prisoners died!”
“Not a single Qin soldier was harmed!”
He finished speaking and exhaled in relief.
He felt his explanation was perfect.
For Great Qin’s silver, a few slaves meant nothing.
The Crown Prince was now ruthless—he would surely understand his loyalty.
After all, he was Qin.
A meritorious soldier.
The surrounding soldiers also quietly relaxed.
Yes.
Just a few slaves.
In war, it didn’t even count as casualties.
Fusu finally withdrew his gaze.
He looked down at the kneeling commander.
That gaze—
was like looking at a piece of discarded scrap metal.
“Maintain progress?” Fusu asked.
“Yes! Yes! For Your Majesty! For Your Highness—”
“Clang.”
A clear metallic sound cut him off.
Fusu’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
The blade slid out three inches.
Cold light made the commander squint.
“You say you did it to maintain progress,” Fusu said calmly.
He raised a finger.
“One hundred laborers.”
“At current efficiency, they produce two thousand jin of ore per day.”
“After refining, that becomes five hundred jin of pure silver.”
The commander froze.
He did not expect this calculation.
Fusu continued.
“It takes three days to train a skilled miner.”
“One hundred men means three hundred man-days of training cost.”
“And that excludes one hundred pickaxes and one hundred baskets.”
Fusu paused.
He looked at the commander as if he were a massive accounting error.
“Because of your stupidity,” he said,
“today I lost five hundred jin of silver.”
“In the next three days, another one thousand five hundred jin.”
“Add the time needed to capture and retrain new labor.”
“One whip from you…”
“…cost Great Qin three thousand jin of silver.”
Silence.
Total silence.
The commander’s mouth hung open.
He could not understand this logic at all.
One hundred lives—
how did they become cold numbers of weight and tools?
“Y-Your Highness…” he stammered.
“I will compensate! I will atone! I will capture more natives to fill—”
Fusu shook his head.
A small motion.
“Too late.”
“Compensate?”
A faint, mocking curve appeared at his lips.
“What will you use to pay?”
“Your military salary?”
“Or your life?”
He drew his sword.
The blade reflected the sunset—red like blood.
“You think…”
“your life…”
“is worth three thousand jin of silver?”
The commander stiffened.
He finally understood.
There was no killing intent in those eyes.
Only calculation.
The same way one calculates the value of ore in a mine.
Fusu was calculating his worth.
The result was—
he was not worth it.
“No! Your Highness! I am Qin! I am an old Qin man!”
“I bled at Hangu Pass! I have contributed to Great Qin!”
“You can’t kill me! I am a meritorious officer!”
The commander screamed like a madman.
He tried to stand and run—
but his legs were as soft as noodles.
Fusu stepped forward.
“Merits are merits.”
“Faults are faults.”
“In the face of Qin’s interests…”
“There are no meritorious officers.”
“Only useful tools…”
“…and useless waste.”
As the words fell—
the sword flashed.
“Shhk.”
A head flew into the air.
Carrying a spray of boiling hot blood.
The blood arced high in the air,
drawing a red line across the sky,
then splattered heavily onto the pile of white ore beside it.
White stone.
Red blood.
Blinding.
Stark.
The head rolled far away.
Its face still frozen in disbelief.
The headless body swayed twice…
“Thud.”
It collapsed to the ground.
All the soldiers froze.
Their hands on their weapons were trembling.
That was their commander.
Their comrade.
Just… killed like that?
Just because of lost silver?
Fusu took out a white handkerchief from his sleeve.
Slowly wiped the blood off his sword.
His movements were elegant.
As if he had just sliced open a watermelon.
“Drag him away.”
He tossed the stained handkerchief onto the corpse.
“Strip his armor and send it back to the armory.”
“Sharpen his sword and give it to the next commander.”
“Don’t waste it.”
The soldiers shivered.
Two braver ones stepped forward and dragged the body away.
They didn’t dare look at it.
Fusu turned back.
He once again looked at the blocked tunnel entrance.
Faint sounds of knocking could still be heard inside.
Someone was still alive.
Someone was still begging for help.
“Your Highness…”
The newly appointed deputy officer forced himself forward.
His voice trembled uncontrollably.
“Should… should we rescue them?”
“It sounds like… they aren’t all dead yet…”
“If we dig now, we might still save dozens of laborers…”
Everyone looked at Fusu.
Waiting for his order.
Even the most cold-hearted person would save them at a time like this, right?
After all, they were labor force.
After all, the Crown Prince had just said that losing labor was a loss.
Fusu was silent.
He looked at the pile of rubble.
As if thinking.
After a few seconds—
he spoke.
“Dig it open?”
he repeated.
“Yes… yes! If we dig it open—”
“How many people are needed?”
Fusu interrupted.
“Five hundred? Or one thousand?”
“How much time will it take?”
“One day? Or two?”
He turned to the deputy officer.
His gaze sliced across the man’s face like a blade.
“For the sake of saving these one hundred pieces of waste…”
“…you want to pull a thousand men away from their work?”
“That means two days of halted production.”
“How much silver will be lost?”
“Can you do the math?”
The deputy officer froze.
His mouth opened—
but no sound came out.
What kind of math was this?
Human life accounting?
No—
this was the ledger of hell itself.
“Not saving them.”
Fusu said flatly.
Cold. Hard. Final.
“But…”
The deputy tried again.
“There are no buts.”
Fusu pointed at the tunnel.
“Order.”
“Seal the entrance.”
“Add another layer of soil.”
“Two days.”
He raised two fingers.
“Seal it for two days.”
“If there is no movement inside after two days…”
“…then dig it open.”
A chill ran from the deputy’s spine to his skull.
Seal it?
That was burial alive.
That was suffocating and starving them to death.
“W-why…?”
he blurted unconsciously.
Fusu adjusted his sleeve calmly.
“If we dig now, it is rescue.”
“If we dig after two days, it is clearing waste.”
“Rescue requires caution—slow work, to avoid injury.”
“Clearing waste allows explosives—fast work.”
Then he added casually, as if remembering something:
“Remember this.”
“When you dig it open, tell the cleanup crew…”
“…to pry open every corpse’s hands.”
“Check if they’re holding ore.”
“Even in death, they must hand over the silver.”
“Great Qin does not support idle men.”
“Nor does it support useless deaths.”
He turned and walked away.
Without looking back.
Leaving only the deputy officer and the soldiers—
standing frozen in the wind, minds in chaos.
They stared at his black silhouette.
As if watching a demon king crawling out of hell.
Is this really the Crown Prince?
Is this really the Fusu who once spoke of benevolence and righteousness?
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