Chapter 3

Before returning to her shop, Lu Min stopped by a roadside stall selling Ramen.

"Three bowls, please," she ordered.

"Coming right up!" Lu Min winced a little at the boss' loud noise.

She sat and used her phone a little. 

[Little Sister, you there?] 

She glanced at the message. It was sent by Zhang Xiaopang. 

[Yes]

[Do you have enough money? I found some good gigs.] 

Lu Min stopped by to think. She had more than enough to go by after her Energy Card sales. However, it would be a good idea to relax by doing some simple jobs.

[I'm in. What do you have?] 

Lu Min replied and started to eat the piping hot ramen noodle. She heard the familiar notification when she was at her second bowl under the shocked gaze of the boss and other customers.

[Zhang Xiaopang sent a link]

She entered the link and saw that it was recruitment for an Energy Stone mine. She studied the post carefully and found that it was not a bad deal. So, she readily signed up.

Three days later, 

"Here!" Lu Min walked toward a waving Zhang Xiaopang.

"Hello, brother Zhang," she greeted the person cordially. 

"It's good that you are here, I almost thought you weren't gonna come. Let's go inside. I will introduce you to the teacher," Zhang Xiaopang said and led her to a beautiful middle-aged woman.

"So, you're the recruit Zhang Xiaopang recommended. As you aren't a student, we won't be giving you performance value. However, for every Energy Stone you mined, we will be giving you a certain amount of credit," the teacher explained.

"Alright, thank you, miss," Lu Min replied.

The teacher nodded, "good, go to work". 

Lu Min nodded and walked inside the mine, where a bunch of students were already working. When she went in, a bunch of heads turned her way. It couldn't be helped, she was beautiful, after all. She could only say Mother Lu and Father Lu had good genes. Just look at Lu Yan, that passionate body, that beautiful face….she absentmindedly wiped the drool from her mouth. 

*Ahem* 

She fake coughed and reined in her strayed thoughts and decided to work seriously by raising her pickaxe and start mining Energy Stones. It was easy work, it was hard to miss the glowing stone brimming with energy after all, especially to someone with her senses which were very good at perceiving all forms of energy. Dig, pick up, drop into the bag, rinse, and repeat. Lu Min felt more relaxed than she would have thought from this sort of activity. She nodded in her heart, indeed, sometimes a person needs to just abandon their brain and be a mindless bot for a while.

Time passed and daylight turned to silvery moonlight. Lu Min worked non-stop and went deeper and deeper into the cave. There she heard some voices from a tent, curious, she opened the entrance. There, she saw Zhang Xiaopang, doing unspeakable things to a doll. She could have sworn she had seen the person that doll was made after somewhere before. Her look at Zhang Xiaopang took on a strange tint. 

"Wait! Little Sister, I can explain," He immediately tried to stand up, but Lu Min took three steps back and said, "it's okay, I understand. Matters of heart couldn't be controlled after all".

"Please don't say such words with that disgusted look on your face," Zhang Xiaopang cried without tears. 

"I didn't see anything here," Lu Min said, and used the Teleportation Card she just created to escape. 

"That Zhang Xiaopang, he seemed kinda normal in Xiao Lu Min's memory. Who knew he would be this depraved," she said to herself. 

She decidedly forgot about the past ten minutes and continued digging the Spirit Stones.

It's been two days. As she was observing, students who were quite energetic at the start had gone quiet. Of course, Lu Min had known about this scam from Lu Ming's memories since a long time ago. The college used this to scam these young and naive students to work for the mine with minimal wage and in return the mine would give "donate" to the school. Heh, this trick had the name of that sly old fox, Jiang Feng written all over it. She listened to the sorrowful sounds of hard-working young people while she was eating Cup Ramen. It was delicious. 

In the mine, a bunch of rumours were spreading.

"Have you heard? There is a tent monster that is vibrating day and night".

"Really?"

"Yes, I have seen it. And when I went to look for it again, there was nothing".

"Maybe these mines are haunted".

"Yes, I saw it. Just mining and mining. There is no other movement, not even a blink. There is no way it isn't a machine. Must be an android or something".

"That time when I woke up in the middle of the night, I saw it. Just mining. It doesn't need to rest?"

"Not good, if this keeps on going, we will have no Spirit Stones to mine".

"Fuck, have to hurry up!"

Like that, the productivity of the slave workers under the disguise of internship students soared. 

Like that, time passed. 

The students were cheering as today was the last day of internship. They could finally say this scam goodbye and leave. 

As Lu Min was digging, she heard some voices. Booming voices from afar could be heard. Curious, she went toward the voices.

"It's not dug out yet?"

"Not yet," a coarse voice replied. 

"Damn. Continue to dig deeper!"

"But…given the current depth, we have already reached the boundary of the exploration site. According to the rules, we can't continue to dig anymore. It's too dangerous…"

Bam! 

There was a deafening sound, and she could hear the worker giving out a miserable cry.

"What nonsense!"

The first voice heard earlier yelled angrily, "Remember, just do whatever I tell you to. Understand?"

"Y— yes."

"Continue to dig!"

"Yes."

"What rules?! Rest assured, even if this mine has become useless, you won't be blamed! However, if you can't dig it out. Haha, I will be the first to destroy all of you! Remember, you don't have much time left!"

"Yes."

Bang!

Bang!

The loud noises could be heard again. She could no longer hear any other sounds.

"Inside there… "

Lu Min frowned. From their conversation, it was clear that these people weren't just workers. Something troublesome aside from Zhang Xiaopang must be brewing here. She considered her options. And finally deflated and decided to do nothing for the time being. So, she just simply headed back and resumed her relaxing activities. 

The students woke up early.

They looked more energetic. This was because today was the last day of the internship. After today, they would be fully liberated!

"We finally got through this."

"The last day!"

"I will rather starve for one day than work."

Some people were as pessimistic as a corpse.

"I will be able to exchange enough for the cultivation meal."

"Me too."

"What the f**, you all actually did it?"

Someone exclaimed in amazement.

Everyone was aware of how fraudulent this internship was. Given such a situation, one could even exchange for advanced services… Just how crazy were these guys?!

"I mined for twenty hours everyday. This is what I have been waiting for."

Those people were full of expectations.

"None of you redeemed the virtual reality games?"

Someone asked.

"Not yet."

Those people shook their heads.

They were very interested, but eventually rationality came first.

Was the virtual reality game realistic?

Realistic!

However, all these were ultimately unreal.

This was different from cards such as Fruit Ninja that could improve one's capability. Ultimately, the virtual reality game place could only indulge your consciousness in the enjoyment of the illusion. It would not change anything.

On the other hand, one cultivation meal was enough to improve their capability marginally.

"My foundation is too poor. The cultivation meal can make up a little for it."

"Me too."

To each his own.

However, to everyone's surprise, the ground suddenly shook violently at noon.

Bang!

A deafening sound could be heard.

"What happened?"

"Be careful!"

The students shouted in shock.

The hills were shaking. Some gravels fell from the top of it.

The tunnels developed in the mine caves had all been reinforced. In addition, there were countless hard and sturdy Energy Stones inside the tunnel. It was extremely stable at this point in time.

Therefore, the students went to hide themselves in the mine caves.

At this moment, a huge black shadow appeared out of thin air and shrouded all the entrances of the mine cave.

Covering the sky and sun!

It was extremely scary!

Lu Min was watching everything unfolding, the hilltop had collapsed along with the factory and many staffs. Fortunately, she reacted fast and sent out the staffs to Qing Ming city to ask for help. However, this was extremely suspicious though. Lu Min looked back toward deeper into the cave.