The scorching sun pressed down like a molten iron branding the mining site at the edge of the Serenitea Pot. Thirty kilometers away, the smoke plumes from the blast furnaces in the core industrial zone were faintly visible, yet seemed as distant as another world. Several squads of Hilichurl laborers grunted as they pulled heavy flatbeds, the wheels rolling laboriously across the jagged, gravel-strewn wasteland, frequently sinking deep into the shifting, quicksand-like soil. Sweat mixed with dust, plowing deep grooves into their bronzed skin.
"Heave—ho!" shouted the lead Hilichurl, and several companions put their backs into it together, barely managing to yank yet another bogged-down wheel out of a sand pit. The carts, fully loaded with freshly mined Starsilver Ore and iron chunks from the new vein, clanked loudly. Nearby, three overturned flatbeds lay askew, ore scattered all over the ground, as several laborers scrambled frantically to reload. In the distance, the chimneys of the furnace area looked like a hungry giant's maw, waiting for its overdue "rations."
Limeng squatted on the scorching sand, his fingertips tracing a crooked route map pointing from the mine to the industrial zone. His brows knitted tightly together as he complained to the gloomy furnace-area foreman beside him: "The mine is here, the furnace is there, and in between lies this wheel-eating wasteland! From the moment the ore is dug out of the ground to when it becomes molten iron in your furnaces and …
Chapter 102