Meng Shan didn’t complain about pain.
An ore cart jumped its iron tracks in the lower drift two weeks ago. Then, Meng Shan had caught the four-ton timber frame with his bare chest. He held it stationary for eight breaths while three trapped haulers scrambled free. He hadn’t groaned. He hadn’t grimaced. He had simply spit a mouthful of black dust into the gutter and asked for a rag.
So when the giant reached up. Then he pressed his left collarbone with a slow, hesitant grimace, Lin Ke stopped scrubbing his own healed forearm.
“Where is it catching?” Lin Ke asked.
Meng Shan looked down at his own massive, slab-like shoulder. Beneath dark, coarse skin scarred by fire sparks, the left collar bone was visibly swollen. Thickened into an uneven ridge of bone that looked like hardened tree bark.
“Here,” Meng Shan muttered, his deep voice scraping like river boulders grinding in a flood. “And the ribs beneath. Since the third week of the autumn smelt. When I drop into the Earth-Core stance... The weight doesn’t reach the ground anymore. It stops at the chest.”
“Lift your left elbow ninety degrees,” Lin Ke said.
Meng Shan tried the motion. His arm rose forty degrees before his shoulder seized with a heard, stringy crunch. The giant’s broad forehead instantly beaded with cold sweat, the muscle along his neck corded in violent burst.
