Walker Of The Worlds

"Lin Mu, stop lazing around we still have a lot of trees left to harvest in today's quota, we barely filled our quota yesterday and I don't want to anger the supervisor again, he will definitely cut our wages this time."

Hearing the voice calling him, a youthful-looking boy of about 16 years of age and having short hair turned around towards the man that had just called him. Seeing the man's tense look, the boy gulped and answered;

"I'm not lazing around uncle Yuan Tu, I'm just trying to be careful not to damage the spirit apples while plucking them from the trees."

The man named Yuan Tu, upon hearing the boy's reply, had a tint of annoyance in his eyes as he thought that the boy was merely giving excuses for his slow pace in harvesting the spirit apples from the trees. Remembering yesterday's scolding that he got from the supervisor for being the group leader of the slowest harvesting group out of a hundred this week, he knew that if his group did not exceed their quota that day they will definitely never be able to receive their bonus wages of that week.

"Hasten your pace and stop giving excuses or you will be the one to bear the penalty that we'll receive for incomplete work"

Not giving the boy another chance to reply, the man walked away to another tree to work. The boy heard Yuan Tu's threat and quickened his pace of plucking the spirit apples from the tree. After that he placed them in his basket and then when the basket was full, he carefully transferred them to the wheelbarrow, which would then be sent to the main collection cart.

Spirit apples were the main produce of the Northern town, which was rather lucrative and were sent to Wu Lim city, which was the main city. Wu Lim city had four satellite towns, each named according to their locations and each having their own specialty. Spirit apples were very expensive for common peasants, with each apple costing a gold coin, which only the people from the city could afford to buy. While the peasants that harvested them only received four silver coins every day, it would take them nearly a whole month's wages to buy just one, thus they had to be careful not to damage, bruise or scratch the apples as this resulted in the spirit apples slowly losing their spirit qi making them lose value.

Two hours later, Lin Mu had done four trips to the cart, emptying his basket along with the others. The wheelbarrow was nearly full when Yuan Tu walked towards the cart and emptied his basket that ended up completely filling the wheelbarrow.

Looking at the filled wheelbarrow, Yuan Tu took a breath of relief as the day's quota was finally completed two hours before sundown, which gave them plenty of time to harvest more spirit apples that day. He thought that they may at last get their bonus wages this week. Thinking of this made a slight smile appear on Yuan Tu's face and he looked towards Lin Mu…

today's quota you can go and send the wheelbarrow to the main collecting cart,

for him to move it all the way to the collecting cart and would take him at least 45 minutes to come back during which the rest of the 5 people of the group would be the only ones receiving the higher

this wheelbarrow is very heavy for me, can't you

his mind, and hence definitely did not want to

in the time you spent talking you could have very well been on your

annoyed look in Yuan Tu's eyes, Lin Mu knew it would be useless to argue any further and that he would just have to rush back as fast as possible

the wheelbarrow making it start to tilt. Lin Mu was unable to

other workers heard the voice and gathered around, feeling shocked at the sight of a fallen wheelbarrow.

the people quiet down, and they gave way for the supervisor to come. Looking at the debacle in front of him, the supervisor Li Peng was shocked at first, but then anger started to

THIS MESS? COME

Lin Mu. Lin Mu was now even more horrified

WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, HOW BIG OF

already on his way to see what had happened, looked at the supervisor's now angry

ARE NOW USELESS, THIS IS MORE THAN A 1000 GOLD COINS WORTH OF LOSS. WHAT DO YOU HAVE

more frightened, and his ears were already ringing from the

not all apples are damaged. We can still sell the rest of them, please

spirit apples. He saw that some were indeed still redeemable, but the rest were still damaged apples that were worth at least