Rene was very curious, and stared at me with his sparkly eyes.

“What is the second reason?”

“That most of us here have integrity. We don’t want to suppress our own kind. Yes, the slaves are cold-natured, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about everything. What they have deep inside is integrity, and not everybody can easily give it up.”

He thought for a brief moment. “I will take my words back that you have no brain.”

I didn’t know if I should feel insulted or happy about his statement.

“Kiddo, you really can’t find a way to talk nice?”

I gave him a few “harsh” rubs on his silver hair, as if petting on a naughty puppy.

“What are you doing!?”

Rene’s face was flushed with redness, but wasn’t angry at all.

“If you can’t talk nice, then I will rub your hair out until you are bald.” I grinned with evilness.

He grumbled like an old cow.

“Fine!”

“Good.” I nodded and stopped.

I sat back down to continue my work on the wooden stick, and tried to smooth the surface out as much as possible.

“So why are you nice to me?” Rene’s face was a bit confused.

“Is there a reason for everything we do?”

I stared into the beautiful night sky.

“I don’t know either. I just do what I want to do. Following your heart isn’t too hard, right?”

He finally took a bite on one of the steam buns. “Not in this world. Wait until you get strong enough to be one of the top cultivators before saying these kinds of words. No one can follow his heart unless he is strong enough.”

“At least we can try, that doesn’t hurt.”

Rene took another bite, and then asked.

“So which element do you possess?”

Now I really got stuck. As a human, what kind of magic element can I possibly possess? I didn’t even have a holy pearl inside. Of course, they couldn’t see through me. Otherwise I would surely become an outsider in this world.

“What is yours then?” I asked him back, trying to redirect his curiosity.

Rene held his dusty forefinger upward, and his pupils suddenly became focused, then in a blink of an eye —

His forefinger sparked with a blue current!

It was zipping around his finger like a little blue snake!

“Element of thunder.”

He retrieved his forefinger and held it in a fist, and sighed.

“Wait, show me again! That is so cool! How do you do that!”

I threw away the wooden stick and pocket knife and ran over to check it out, but he already stopped showing his magic arts.

“Come on, just show it one more time!”

Rene pretended to be very frustrated, and stuck out his forefinger one more time. A blue current was zipping around again.

“Stop being such a country girl. To possess thunder is rare, but it’s not that rare. Why make such a huge deal about it?”

I was mesmerized by the blue current, and out of stupidity, I reached out and touched the current.

“Ouch—!”

Rene pulled back his hand, and shook his head slightly. “You know I am really trying hard not to say that word.”

Yes, this little kid must have wanted to say I was dumb, but I would admit it this time. My finger felt as if it was being shocked by electricity. Now I had proved that indeed it was thunder, using myself as the object for the “experiment.”

“That was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Most demons possess the element of earth, but I have never seen thunder before!” I was still excited. “Since you possess such a powerful talent, why don’t you use it to crack rocks? We would be so much more productive!”

Rene stared at me as if I was a dumb pig.

“Performing magic arts needs a ton of mental energy. Everyone here is no more than walking skeletons, there is really not much left to do that.”

No wonder no one ever tried to grow food in the Underground, not that they didn’t want to, but because they could not. They were probably so physically and mentally drained out that not much energy was left to even sprout a seed.

Rene explained. “That’s all I can do right now. There is no way I can crack rocks with this kind of sparks. The geodes wouldn’t even budge a hair.”

“What about before? Were you able to do cool things with the thunder?”

“Not really.”

He bit into the steam bun with shame. “The most I can do is to fill my whole hand with thunder, but that wouldn’t do much damage before it extinguishes.”

Rene swallowed the bread down, and his voice was a bit sour.

“You know what they call us on this land?”

I shook my head.

“Scums.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“We are all born differently. Some people are meant to stand on top of the world from day one, but the rest of us struggle from day to day and never even get our foot on the first step of the staircase. There is not even a chance to go up there. For those who never awakened to the first pair of wings are all called scums.”

I didn’t understand why Rene was so determined that he would never be awakened. He was still so young, but why so pessimistic already?

“Why are you so sure that you can’t break it through?” I was mainly curious about the process of cultivation.

“You just know it deep inside whenever you meditate. It’s like an unbreakable glass wall, no matter how hard you hit it, it wouldn’t scratch a hair. I have tried so many times ever since I was very little.”

I patted his shoulders.

“Don’t give up yet, who knows if one day you will be strong enough to break it through?”

He snorted. “I had heard of someone gaining his first pair of wings when he was 289 years old, but he was probably the only miracle on this continent. If I wasn’t in the Underground, I would not give up, but living in such a place with a missing leg, do you really think it would work?”

Holy smoke, to gain the first pair of wings at 289 years old, I couldn’t imagine the patience and persistence this man had gone through!

I couldn’t imagine myself getting revenge for Grandpa Jin and Grandma Sha as an old lady, but if that was the way it needed to go, why not?

“Rene, I think you really should try.”

I tried to cheer him up.

“Just give it a try. Since you are still recovering from the injuries, use the time to meditate. We never know what will happen unless we try it out, right? Plus that will keep you busy instead of being bored all the time, if I am you, I would do it.”

“Yeah, right. You sure are optimistic enough to do something like that.”

He was right, being optimistic was the only thing I have.

“It’s getting quite late now, I need some rest for tomorrow.” I said.

“Hey.”

“What?”

Rene handed me half of that last bread, and turned his little back on me.

I was stunned and stared at the bread in my hand. After a few seconds, I grinned warmly. That brat finally knew how to share his food, and learned to care for others.

“Thanks, little man.”

He was too proud to reply and accept a thank you from someone. All of a sudden, I thought of someone, who was as proud as the little boy. I thought of the deep voice that night when I almost died. There was no way Iceberg was here, but why was this feeling so real, as if that person was really Iceberg?

I got rid of this thought, and went to sleep.

******************

Days in the Underground were getting better, at least Rene’s wounds were all healed up, and he even learned to use the wooden cane and did a few hops. The wooden cane wasn’t as helpful as a crutch though. There weren’t many resources or skills to create a nice crutch, but at least it aided his movement.

The extra cards last for several days, and I took advantage of the chance and made more cards. For the first time ever since arriving on the Underground, I felt more confident that there would be food at the end of each day.

Right now we were still splitting food. It would be so much nicer to have three big buns all for myself, but I knew spending two cards a day wouldn’t be wise, considering there was only one workforce here.

Rene has limited mobility. What if he got hurt while working on the geodes?

I couldn’t risk that.

I would rather have him spend the time meditating. That would be the best thing he could do for himself right now.

The weather during these past couple days was decent and manageable. The little sleeping corner was partially covered with a huge flat boulder at the top, that the ground around the mountain edges was a bit leveled up compared to the rest of the base, which helped us to stay dry under light rain.

Not tonight though.