On a freezing winter day, deep within a skeletal forest, lay an open area that was the location of an iron mine. Humans and animals dotted the area. They left footprints behind in the deep layer of snow as they carried out their tasks. All of them shivered as the cold wind blew throughout the mining site.

“Aish. It’s so cold, Shanyang.” Yan Chen kept on shaking as he emerged from the dark mineshaft. He dragged a sack filled with iron ore with one hand and held a rusty pickaxe with the other. His face, flushed from the cold, contrasted with his pale complexion. The biting cold weather had penetrated his thin layer of patchwork clothes. Yan Chen felt as if his skin was being pricked by thousands of invisible needles.

Waiting outside was a goat trembling in the snow who bleated in agreement. Shanyang looked even more pitiful compared to Yan Chen. He had misshapen horns and a boney body covered in an uneven layer of dirty, matted fur. He wore a rope harness attached to a small wooden cart that looked like it would fall apart at any moment. The deformed wheels squeaked and the worn-out axle rattled as Shanyang moved forward. He rubbed his body against Yan Chen’s legs to receive body rubs from the teenager.

Yan Chen smiled and affectionately rubbed Shanyang’s body. He loaded the small wooden cart with several chunks of iron ore. The cart squeaked as the wood strained to support the added weight.

Shanyang nudged Yan Chen and bleated, signaling he was hungry.

“I know you’re hungry, but you have to wait till after we deliver the iron ore. Be patient, I heard from Lao Shu that we’ll be receiving something special today because it’s the Lunar New Year.”

Shanyang quieted down, filled with great anticipation for the upcoming meal.

The man and goat made their way to the iron ore depot. Guards surrounded the storage location. while civil servants weighed and recorded the iron ore deposited by the slaves. Yan Chen approached a lanky man who had a face that resembled a rat’s.

“Lao Shu, this amount should be enough for today.”

Lao Shu looked at Yan Chen and Shanyang with a piercing gaze. After a few moments of silence, he gestured for Yan Chen to place the ore onto a scale. He recorded the weight on a wooden slip and had a servant store the ore. After glancing around, Lao Shu approached Yan Chen with no one noticing. He placed something onto Yan Chen's palm that made clinking sounds as they dropped onto Yan Chen’s palm. The civil servant had given Yan Chen a string containing twenty copper coins.

Yan Chen stared at the money with a hint of surprise. “Lao Shu, this is…”

Lao Shu stopped him from speaking and spoke in a voice that was almost inaudible. “Be careful.”

He then shooed Yan Chen and Shanyang away to receive the next iron ore deposit.

Yan Chen stored the string of coins away without making a sound and returned his mining tools. The slaves could not keep their tools because they could dig an escape tunnel, so they always had to return their equipment at the end of the day. All the equipment was counted every single day with consequences that occurred if there were any missing tools. The most common and effective punishment was halving the slaves’ rations. It encouraged those who were innocent to find the suspect. No one wanted to face the wrath of dozens of hungry slaves, so few attempted to hide their tools.

Afterward, he walked towards the ration distribution table. He received double the usual amount of food as a gift for the Lunar New Year.

While the two walked towards a mud hut, Yan Chen was pondering about what Lao Shu said and his gift.

‘Be careful, be careful. So he knew about my plan to escape from this damned place. How much does he know? Does he also know about the crystals? No, he shouldn’t have known about those. I’ve hidden them too well for anyone to find.’

Yan Chen calmed himself and entered the small hut with Shanyang. After closing the makeshift door to his abode, Yan Chen began retching. He regurgitated a small, fingernail-sized crystal and spat it out of his mouth into his palm. Yan Chen stared at the pale blue crystal covered in saliva. Around five years ago, he discovered four crystals while mining for iron. Each of them was the size of a finger and they were the prettiest objects Yan Chen had ever laid his eyes on.

At first, he kept them because they were pretty and distracted him from his bleak life. But after a few months, he noticed he had become stronger and more energized. Yan Chen discovered the cause of his newfound strength was the blue crystals. They had been emitting a faint amount of energy into his body. Pleased with his discovery, he began keeping them on him at all times.

Over five years, he absorbed the energy from the crystals. After countless experiments, Yan Chen learned how to manipulate the special energy; from strengthening parts of the body to even creating mystical spells. Unfortunately for Yan Chen, he could not find more of the blue crystals.

Yan Chen snapped out of his thoughts as he felt a wet tongue dragging across his hand. He looked up and saw that Shanyang was licking him. Noticing that he had Yan Chen's attention, Shanyang bleated in annoyance. 

“Maaaa!”

Yan Chen chuckled and rubbed Shanyang's head to appease the upset goat.

“Alright, alright, we can have dinner now.” He grabbed a few armfuls of hay and formed a mound on the ground. 

Shanyang’s eyes lit up as he saw the brown vegetation. The goat threw himself towards the food and began chewing through the pile of hay.

While Shanyang munched on his hay, Yan Chen opened his package of rations. The package contained three fist-sized yellow disks and two dirt-covered yams. The sad-looking yellow disks were dense lumps of coarsely ground millet, water, and salt that were baked till no moisture was left. Yan Chen dunked one of them into a bucket of water for a few minutes to soften the lump. He gnawed on the bland disk of millet, taking a bite of yam from time to time for some flavor, and washed all of it down with some water. 

Yan Chen polished off the other two millet lumps and gave half of a yam to Shanyang. While watching Shanyang finish his food, Yan Chen began speaking to the goat.

“Shanyang, we’ve been together for seven years. Slaving away, in a forest for someone we’ve never even seen, mining and transporting ore every single day, eating the same meals. Just carrying out our monotonous lives for seven long years. Have you ever thought about leaving the iron mine and exploring the world?”

Shanyang stared at Yan Chen while chewing the last piece of yam. He could not understand the human’s words, but felt as if they were important.

Yan Chen smiled with a gaze filled with yearning and looked upward, toward the vast starry night sky that existed above the roof of his hut.

“Well, I have. I’ve dreamed of leaving this place behind and becoming a free man. I want to try all the food in the world. I want to travel and meet all kinds of people. I want to experience everything life has to offer and find out what it truly means to be alive! That’s why…” 

Yan Chen stomped hard on the floor with strength that did not seem to belong to someone of his stature, causing the soil to crumble away, exposing an underground tunnel. 

“We’ll be escaping tonight.”