Seeing that Yang Kai was genuinely about to leave, Han Fei seized his clothes in a flash. She bit her thin lip, gazing at him with a look of bitter anguish, the very picture of someone who'd suffered a great injustice. She looked utterly pitiful.
A woman as coldly beautiful as Han Fei would never normally show such an expression — unless she was in a moment of complete helplessness.
And right now, that was exactly the case.
If Yang Kai walked away, she would have to follow. The thought of watching such a massive crystal vein slip through her fingers, knowing she couldn't mine it — Han Fei's distress was beyond words.
Her clanspeople desperately needed these crystals.
"What do you say?" Yang Kai tilted his head, watching her with an air of leisurely amusement.
"Fine — whoever mines it keeps it," Han Fei said through gritted teeth, seething inside.
"Then let's get to work." Yang Kai grinned, cracking his knuckles with a sound like beans being snapped apart.
Han Fei said nothing. She turned and began hammering at the rock wall embedded with crystals. Shards of stone flew in every direction. Before long, she'd dug out several crystals from the debris, her face lighting up as she stuffed them into her spatial ring.
Watching her scramble to claim the crystal vein as if she feared he'd snatch them away, Yang Kai shook his head with a wry smile. He sauntered forward and started mining at his own unhurried pace.
Crystals were typically embedded within other mineral deposits. A crystal vein that yielded ten percent pure crystals was already considered rich.
But this vein beneath the volcano was richer than even that — the crystal yield was closer to thirty percent.
Influenced by Yang Kai's earlier declaration that whoever mined it kept it, Han Fei worked with fierce determination. She ignored her injuries entirely, hammering away at the rock wall with abandon, carving deeper and deeper. The moment she found a crystal, she didn't even glance at it — she tossed it straight into her ring, looking as if she were terrified Yang Kai would steal it.
Yang Kai, by contrast, worked at a leisurely pace, advancing alongside her. Most of the crystals ended up in Han Fei's possession, while he claimed only a small fraction.
During the mining, Han Fei sneaked a glance at him and couldn't help feeling a twinge of smugness. She thought to herself that this brazen human actually wanted to compete with her in mining speed — did he even realize how wide the gap between their cultivation levels was?
She kept that satisfaction off her face, though, lest he grow embarrassed and angry and actually abandon her here.
Time trickled past. The crystals Han Fei had collected outnumbered Yang Kai's haul several times over. By now, she no longer worried about him taking any of the crystals away — with his strength, snatching them from her would be rather impractical.
The tunnel they carved grew deeper, and the deeper they went, the more crystals they found — and the larger they became.
Yang Kai even extracted a crystal the size of a human head, which astonished Han Fei.
Even she had never heard of a crystal that large existing.
Both of them were utterly captivated by the wealth before their eyes, completely forgetting they were supposed to be hiding from danger.
What struck Han Fei as strange, however, was that even though his haul was far smaller than hers, this human still wore that same calm, unhurried expression — not a trace of anxiety on his face.
Did he know he couldn't outcompete her, so he was perfectly content with a small share?
Han Fei speculated silently.
That was quite possible. There were more than enough crystals here. She was collecting for an entire clan; he was collecting only for himself. Even a modest amount would be more than sufficient.
She had no idea how much time had passed. Even someone as formidable as Han Fei was starting to feel weary.
Driven by a secret desire to outdo Yang Kai, she'd poured far more energy and effort into the work — several times more than he had.
Suddenly, Han Fei's movements halted. A bitter expression crept across her face. She stood frozen, holding a freshly mined crystal, staring blankly ahead.
"What's wrong?" Yang Kai asked with a chuckle.
"I'm tired. Taking a break!" she said, deliberately stepping back a short distance. As long as she stayed within the range of Yang Kai's true yuan protection, she was safe. She sat cross-legged on the ground and quietly slipped a few unnecessary items out of her spatial ring, discarding them.
After a while, she resumed mining.
But less than an hour later, she stopped again, her lovely face twisted in frustration as she shook her head helplessly.
"Your spatial ring is full, isn't it?" Yang Kai saw the problem at a glance.
Han Fei looked at him with a wistful gaze. "Do you have any cosmos bags? Lend me a few."
Yang Kai shrugged, indicating there was nothing he could do.
"How are you storing your crystals?" Han Fei's beautiful eyes swept up and down his figure. She couldn't see any cosmos bag or spatial ring on him. Every crystal he collected simply vanished the moment he touched it — she had no idea where he was hiding them.
"That's a secret. I'm afraid I can't tell you."
"Putting on a show." Han Fei snorted. A spatial ring was a high-grade storage artifact. The one on her finger could hold roughly the contents of a room.
She refused to believe that someone like Yang Kai could possess a storage artifact superior to a spatial ring.
After a moment's thought, Han Fei gritted her teeth and spoke softly to Yang Kai. "I don't know why, but… I'm feeling a little cold."