Chen Ping had decided: he would keep the entire Wild Boar for himself.
With a shovel and the Jade Pendant’s space, he could do it!
He first tentatively poked the Wild Boar with the iron shovel, confirming it was thoroughly dead. Then, taking a deep breath and enduring the persistent dull ache in his left arm, he began attempting to dismember the behemoth.
This was far more difficult than he had imagined.
He retrieved the Sickle from the space. Although the Sickle was sharp, it wasn’t meant for cutting meat.
He could only search for the joints, using the Sickle to repeatedly cut through the tough tendons and hide.
Sweat mixed with blood and filth streamed into his eyes, stinging. He had no time to wipe it away, just mechanically repeating the motions: find a gap, cut the connection.
Every time he exerted force, his left arm sent sharp protests. He gritted his teeth, low, suppressed growls escaping his throat.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when finally, a thick hind leg was separated from its joint.
He was close to collapse, yet the sight of that great piece of meat only sharpened his urgency. He had completed just one small part of the work.
Dragging that heavy pig leg, he mentally communicated with the Jade Pendant.
HUM.
The pig leg vanished from its spot, appearing in a corner of the space, piled next to the white rice.
No blood seeped out; the ground of the space remained pitch black.
He withdrew from the space, once again facing the bloody slaughterhouse.
Cutting, separating, transporting… a cycle repeated over and over.
Each cut exhausted his barely recovered strength; each time he entered the space to swallow a few mouthfuls of raw rice was only to sustain him for the next, even more difficult cut.
The boar’s head was the hardest to handle. The hard skull and thick neck used up the last shred of his strength. It was almost by instinctive ferocity that he finally managed to separate it.
By the time most of the sun had sunk below the horizon, the entire massive body of the Wild Boar had disappeared.
Only a large patch of mud soaked through with blood and filth remained in the center of the Pigsty, along with an unbearably thick stench of blood in the air.
Chen Ping slumped in a corner, his whole body feeling like it had fallen apart. The pain in his left arm had grown somewhat numb from continuous exertion.
Clinging to the last of his alertness, he used the shovel to turn over dry manure and soil around him, trying to cover the dark bloodstain.
He also made the collapsed rubble and traces at the broken opening of the Pigsty even more chaotic, making it look as if a Wild Boar had violently broken in and then crashed its way out again.
After finishing all this, dragging his utterly exhausted, foul-smelling body, he stumbled step by step back to his own low Shack.
Back at the Shack, he didn’t even have the strength to fetch water to wash. He just roughly tore off the outermost layer of filthy rags and curled up on the cold straw bedding, falling into a dead faint.
“Chen Ping! Where have you crawled off to?! Is your work in the Pigsty done?!”
Chen Ping jolted awake violently, his heart pounding wildly. The intense pain in his left arm instantly became clear again.
The sky was already bright.
Manager Wang stood at the shack entrance, hands on his hips, his fat face gleaming with oil. Beside him was the Scarred Foreman who had fled the day before.
“Man… Manager Wang.”
Chen Ping’s voice was hoarse. He tried to stand up, but his body felt impossibly heavy, as if it wasn’t his own.
“Hmph! Look at you! Like a dead dog! You definitely haven’t finished your work!”
Manager Wang waved a hand in front of his nose in disgust.
“Worthless! I told you yesterday to clean that Pigsty. Dawdling until now? And you’re covered in shit and piss! Disgusting! Don’t even think about eating today!”
Chen Ping’s heart sank. Knowing he couldn’t avoid it, he steeled himself and spoke up as calmly as possible.
“Manager Wang… The work… isn’t done. Yesterday… yesterday a huge Wild Boar charged into the Pigsty. It almost killed me… I barely managed to escape…”
He pointed at his left arm wrapped in rags, clearly not in its natural position.
“My arm… got injured too.”
“Wild Boar?”
Manager Wang narrowed his beady eyes full of suspicion and glanced at the Scarred Foreman beside him. The Scarred Foreman’s eyes darted away as he stammered.
“There… there was some commotion. Pretty big… I… I was far away. Didn’t see clearly…”
“Bullshit!”
Manager Wang suddenly raised his voice sharply; flecks of spittle almost hit Chen Ping’s face.
“A Wild Boar? Where would a Wild Boar come from that could get into a Pigsty? I think you’re just lazy and slacking off! Making up lies to fool me! Or maybe you broke that Pigsty yourself and want to blame it on a Wild Boar! You lowly scum! Getting bold now!”
He gave Chen Ping no chance for further explanation, pointing a finger at his nose and cursing.
“Unfinished means unfinished! No excuses! Today—right now—get to the Back Mountain Stone Quarry and haul stones! You don’t come back until you’ve moved a hundred! Slack off and you’ll get the whip!”
He turned and roared at the Scarred Foreman.
“Watch him closely! If he’s one stone short, I’ll whip you both to death!”
The Scarred Foreman shuddered and hastily agreed, then turned a furious glare on Chen Ping.
Chen Ping’s heart sank completely as if falling into an icy pit.
Not because of doubled punishment or hard labor at the Stone Quarry but because of Manager Wang’s undisguised malice and suspicion.
In those eyes was not an ounce of concern for his encounter with a Wild Boar nor any care for his injury—only an excitement akin to a hound spotting something amiss with its prey mixed with greed! The source of this chapter is novelping(.)com.
He’s onto me.
This thought surfaced crystal clear in Chen Ping’s mind.
Not because of any wild boar or because I didn’t clean that pigsty properly. It’s because I’ve gotten stronger; my body has improved. He suspects I stole something or… encountered something.
A chill shot up from Chen Ping’s spine colder than any filth from that Pigsty.
From today onward, life would become even harder.
Back Mountain Stone Quarry was one of Servant Peak’s most grueling tasks.
Large blocks of blue stone had to be quarried halfway up the mountain and carried down to the stone yard below. Each weighed a hundred jin. An ordinary servant could barely manage one.
With his arm badly injured, Chen Ping began hauling stones under the cold, sometimes gleeful eyes of the Scarred Foreman and the other servants sent to watch him.
His left arm was useless. Every time he bent or strained, piercing pain shot through the break in it.
With only his right hand and the strength of his back, he struggled to pry the blocks free and lift them, then made his way downhill one painful step at a time.
Sweat instantly soaked through his ragged clothes, mixing with blood seeping from the wound, sticky and uncomfortable.
One hundred pieces? This task seemed nearly impossible.
But he couldn’t stop.
He knew Manager Wang intended precisely this method to crush him, force him to slip up, or… force him to die outright.
From this day onward, Chen Ping’s life plunged straight into the abyss.
Manager Wang found endless ways to torment him.
The dirtiest, hardest jobs always fell upon him: clearing clogged cesspools, dredging silt-filled irrigation ditches, gathering herbs within damp valleys teeming with poisonous insects…
Each task drained his Physical Strength and was fraught with danger.
The tasks he was given always exceeded what an ordinary person could manage. At the slightest delay or mistake, he would be whipped or have his already meager rations cut.
Worse still, wherever he went, at least one pair of eyes watched him from the shadows.
The Scarred Foreman and several servants bribed by Manager Wang clung to him like parasites, watching every move. Even a little too long in the latrine would bring questioning.
He was like a trapped animal in a transparent cage, without a moment to breathe.
Physical exhaustion coupled with persistent pain in his slowly healing left arm tormented him day and night alike.
The other servants in the shacks grew distant and afraid, terrified that the smallest connection to him would bring Manager Wang’s anger down on them.
Chen Ping clenched his jaw, burying the hatred deep within his heart.