Pretending To Be A Boss-Chapter 364 - 45: Song Que’s Last 7 Days_2

Her body was no longer able to swing the mining pick.

The grandmother also thought that she should find someone to inherit her medical skills.

That day, she watched as Lingyi’s neck was submerged in the filthy, smelly waters of the pond.

These waters had soaked many rotting corpses and the pond itself was also a receptacle for all sorts of trash. It was no surprise that prolonged immersion would lead to illness.

But in the faint light of the fire, the grandmother looked at the girl’s stubborn face and suddenly her heart softened, reminded of her younger self many years ago.

People rarely saved others because as the water level continued to rise, the effort to rescue someone was better spent on digging more tunnels.

Otherwise, perhaps both the rescuer and the rescued would die in these filthy, stinking waters.

Lingyi ultimately survived.

After a severe illness cured by the grandmother, she began to teach Lingyi medical skills.

She had always intended to choose the youngest girl to be her successor.

Because men could survive on their strong physical strength, but girls like Lingyi would face being assigned to the lowest tunnels for a very long time to come.

Lingyi learned quickly. After overcoming her illness, she didn’t stop mining just because she was to be the only doctor here in the future.

This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.

Occasionally, her face would show rage, and she would swing the mining pick nonstop, fierce as a boy.

Some children of her age started calling Lingyi "boss."

Those between fourteen and twenty years old were the ones who had the most say in the tunnels.

In just four years, Lingyi became the leader among these people.

The grandmother’s health deteriorated more and more until one day, during an unprecedented heavy rainstorm, Lingyi, on the level above the grandmother’s tunnel, watched as the grandmother was submerged by the rising water.

The grandmother’s expression held little pain but was filled with regret and unwillingness.

She had lived long enough. Before the waters completely drowned her, the foul stench eroded her aging body.

Looking up, the grandmother said to Lingyi on the level above:

"Thirty years, huh? Why is it that every time I look up, I still can’t see the sun?"

These were the grandmother’s last words.

With such regret, the deep pool’s bottom gained another discontented soul.

That day, Lingyi cried her heart out, more than she ever had, even at the moment her father abandoned her.

It was also that day that she finally became a person of the Abyss Nation, starting to adapt to the rhythm of this place.

The strong live, the weak die.

This was not about the opposition between the strong and the weak, but something from the outside. From that damned rainwater.

Life and death are hard to let go of.

Experience exclusive tales on novelbuddy

But if one witnesses too much of life and death, one ultimately becomes numb to it.

Every so often, whether it was the messenger crows or that dragon, they would bring newcomers, placing them at the very bottom of the tunnels.

The survival rate of newcomers was the lowest, because from a certain year, almost all the newcomers, like Lingyi, were twelve-year-old children.

In addition to mining, Lingyi would replace the grandmother to check on some sick people.

There were roughly three thousand people on the tunnels.

Originally there were over a hundred thousand. Most are buried in the depths of the pool.

Lingyi could not check on everyone’s health along the cliffside tunnels in one day; often, it would take nearly three months to examine all three thousand people.

Adults and the elderly were astonished by the vitality of this girl. Because year-round, Lingyi never stopped diagnosing.

And regardless of the heavy responsibilities of a doctor, Lingyi never mined any less each day.

She seemed like the hardest working person here and she often said to the other children:

"We are reptiles above the filth, but as long as we keep climbing up, perhaps one day we’ll reach a place bathed in sunlight, right?"

This was an unrealistic wish.

Some who had survived here for decades no longer believed they would see the day they could leave.

But there were also some who, looking into the unfathomable depth of the Abyss, believed that after decades of hard work, perhaps they had already dug the tunnels to a very high place.

If everyone worked a little harder, perhaps they would be able to carve a path in this deep pit that leads to the top.

People held this belief, hoping that in five, ten, or twenty years’ time, they would finally see the day they could leave this place.

...

...

When swinging the pick, Lingyi loved to sing songs, though she could no longer remember the lyrics.

So she hummed the tunes, and some of the children her age hummed along.

These songs were like bugles, helping their already sore arms to continue swinging the mining picks.

"Boss, it seems like someone was thrown down today. I saw they were still unconscious, not the usual twelve-year-old children like before," one of them said.

"Really? That’s quite unusual. Don’t slack off, I’ll go take a look," Lingyi replied.

Hearing the words of a child from the lower levels, Lingyi laid down her mining pick.

She had just finished checking the health of everyone on the tunnels a few days ago, and recently she could afford to devote all her time to tunneling.

Even though the survival rate of newcomers was extraordinarily low, Lingyi still went to care for them.

Many people had a hard time adjusting when they were exiled to Abyss Nation.

There was the visual discomfort, for it was very dark here, and sunlight was rarely seen year-round.

There was also the discomfort of smell, as beneath everyone’s feet was a pond that buried hundreds of thousands of rotting lives.

The more people there were, the faster the tunneling could proceed. With that in mind, Lingyi still gave some explanations to new arrivals, a sort of survival education.