It was around then that news came from back home. I heard it from a fellow villager who'd come to Seaview City to buy goods.
"God, it's awful. Just awful." He shook his head, gnawing on a stick of sugarcane. "That state-run factory—the boiler room blew up. Word is the new guy violated protocol. Was even smoking inside."
My heart lurched. Derek's smoking habit was legendary.
"What happened to him? Dead?" I asked.
"Not quite dead, but close enough." He spat out a wad of pulp. "Both legs blown clean off. Face burned so bad it doesn't look human anymore. Heard the old couple at the village chief's place cried themselves unconscious."
I took a silent sip of soda.
If I hadn't sold that slot, the one lying in that hospital bed—legless, faceless—would be me.
Or the Jade Fox of my last life.
Fate. Sometimes it really does come down to a single choice.
So what about Jade now?
She was probably ordering Quinn around, making him dig for gold.
I guessed right.
At that very moment, behind the Fox family's place in the Back Hills, screams erupted from a broken-down thatched hut.
"Quinn Mason! You useless piece of trash! I told you to dig that hole in the Back Hills—why the hell didn't you go!"