Chapter 618: Chapter 285 Mingxi Waterman_3

Because there were too many people around, none of whom were disciples of the Fire God Cult, Zhou Xuan did not reveal himself and instead observed quietly from the side.

As he observed, he spotted a familiar face—Si Yuer.

“This Divine Thief’s daughter really has a kind heart.”

The last time Zhou Xuan saw Si Yuer, she was using the “Five Element Escape Skill” of a thief to rescue people in the floodwaters.

Now that the floodwaters had receded, Si Yuer had come to the Chenmu Sky Pit to retrieve corpses.

“That volatile Hall Master Si actually managed to raise such an enlightened daughter?”

Zhou Xuan shook his head at the thought, concluding that Si Yuer’s admirable qualities likely didn’t come from Si Ming but rather from her mother, Duan Qinglan.

He had met Duan Qinglan a few times before. She struck him as a smart, open-minded, and gentle woman as warm as jade.

“If you find a corpse, you don’t need to retrieve it. Just signal me from the shore,”

Si Yuer instructed the newly hired watermen for the day: “The water is murky. When I use the Five Element Escape Skill to dive, I can’t discern east from west, north from south. I’ll need you to give me the general direction so I can retrieve the bodies precisely.”

“Understood, understood.”

After securing the ropes, the watermen, who had grasped Si Yuer’s instructions, leaped into the muddy, amber-hued waters. Using their swimming abilities and the iron weights hanging from their waists, they sank into the depths of the pit.

By sheer luck and relying on their numbers, they dove haphazardly, reaching out with their hands to feel around for any bodies suspended in the deep water.

Apart from Si Yuer, Zhou Xuan also noticed Zhang Sheng.

Zhang Sheng was lanky and lean, with a striking burn scar the size of a palm on his back.

At present, Zhang Sheng bore fresh wounds atop old scars. Cuts marked his body everywhere, particularly his elbow, where a gash prevented him from bending his arm—any attempt to bend it caused a purplish bone joint to protrude.

As he worked to untie the rope around his waist, Si Yuer ran over and asked, “Ah Sheng, why don’t you let a doctor stitch it up?”

In waters as murky as these, it was almost inevitable to get scratched or wounded by debris floating beneath the surface,

especially with the complex underwater terrain. If a waterman swam into a narrow stony passage and couldn’t swim back out, the people onshore would have to forcibly pull them out by rope. With luck, they’d escape with torn skin but their lives intact.

Without luck, they’d lose their lives in the water.

Retrieving submerged bodies as a waterman was grueling and perilous work. Though the pay was high, anyone who had any other means of livelihood wouldn’t take on this job.

The money they earned came at the cost of their lives.

The task of recovering bodies was so arduous that the Bone Elder Association had also dispatched doctors from Shande Hospital to the site, ready to provide emergency aid. They offered free treatment wherever possible and treated injuries on the spot.

Faced with Si Yuer’s concern, Zhang Sheng pointed at his exposed bone joint and laughed earnestly, “No need, no need. It’s just a small wound. There are plenty of injured watermen here—treat them first.”

“Your joint is sticking out!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m lucky just to be alive.”

For every corpse a waterman retrieved, the local authorities paid them 188 coins—a sum that was extraordinarily tempting for the impoverished.

But with high rewards came high risks. Drowning deaths among the watermen were not uncommon.

Zhang Sheng was already considered one of the luckier watermen.

He grinned awkwardly at Si Yuer, speaking in a tone meant to curry favor: “Miss Si, I’ve been keeping track. Over the past few days, I’ve retrieved thirty-four bodies. According to the agreement with the authorities, that comes to 6,392 coins.”

“You’re here to collect your payment, huh?”

“Yes, yes. With this 6,000-plus coins, I can pay off my debts, still set aside some money, buy a full set of gold jewelry for my wife, and even rent the storefront next to my cloth shoe shop.”

“Not planning to keep earning more?” Si Yuer teased lightly as she saw him off, pleased whenever a waterman decided to leave voluntarily.

“Making a waterman’s living means trading your life for money. My life still has value—my wife is three months pregnant, so I can’t die here.”

When Zhang Sheng uttered the word “die,” he lowered his voice, afraid that it might shake the resolve of the other watermen.

“Then go back as soon as you can. Your wife must be worried about you.”

Si Yuer unfastened the waterproof sheepskin bag at her waist and unzipped it—a luxury item in these times that only someone of her status as the Divine Thief’s daughter could afford.

She pulled out a bearer’s promissory note issued by the Huifeng Trading Company, wrote an amount of 6,500 coins on it, and handed it to Zhang Sheng.

“Ah Sheng, take this promissory note to the Jing Country state bank… to the branch on Jiaofang Road. Hand it to the teller, and they’ll give you the money.”

“This is too much!”

Zhang Sheng, who had attended school for a few years as a child, knew how to read. He saw that the amount on the note didn’t match what he was owed.

“Just rounding up the figure for you.”

Si Yuer was rounding up in reverse.

After expressing his gratitude repeatedly, Zhang Sheng left in high spirits.

Zhou Xuan, watching this scene unfold, fully pieced together Xu Qing’s story:

Zhang Sheng had been scammed, forced to mortgage his shop to pay off debts, and had fallen into even deeper despair. He didn’t want children, but now that Xu Qing was truly pregnant, he had resolved to raise the child, even if it meant secretly leaving his hometown and coming to Mingxi to take on the dangerously high-risk job of a waterman, risking his life for money.

“At least it ended well. Zhang Sheng finally earned the money he needed and left alive.”

Having investigated the matter thoroughly, Zhou Xuan only needed to return his Divine Soul to the teahouse to “reveal the divination” for Xu Qing. His first fortune-telling business would conclude with a perfect outcome.

But Zhou Xuan didn’t seem in a hurry to leave.

Zhang Sheng had successfully completed his quest for money, but in this pit, dozens more like Zhang Sheng remained… all waiting to make enough money to return home, none of them wanting to die in the pit.

“Since I’m passing through, I might as well lend a hand.”

Since Si Yuer needed the approximate location of the corpses to use her Five Element Escape Skill for retrieval,

Zhou Xuan decided to pinpoint the location of every submerged corpse and mark them out.

With that thought, his Divine Soul dove into the water, releasing his immense Perception to its fullest extent.

To Zhou Xuan’s eyes, the murky water became crystal clear. In the twenty-meter-deep water pit, he saw over a hundred suspended corpses. Due to varying water absorption rates, the bodies floated at different heights and positions, scattered and unevenly distributed…