As an adult, there are adult troubles.

Although he was only sixteen years old, Wen Yujia was already an adult. Like his father and the adults in the village, he carried tools to the coal mine every day, and he had to work for six hours a day.

After entering the cave, Wen Yujia untied the lamp from his belt as usual, then he took one out of his pocket, hammered it into the wooden plank that supported the cave wall with an iron pickaxe, and hung the lamp on it.

It's much brighter in the mine. By the light, he could see the shiny coal around the mine, and with the knowledge he learned from the books, he knew that this coal was anthracite, also called white coal, in fact, it was still black, but when it shone under the sun, it was shiny and white, and it would be called white coal, and bituminous coal was completely different from it.

In the Ming Dynasty, bituminous coal is used for coking and ironmaking, and only in a few places it makes fires for cooking, and the briquette stoves in the city are made of anthracite. However, there are not many anthracite coal mines, and it is precisely because of this that anthracite coal in Hunan will become the only source of anthracite coal in Huguang and other places.

And the coal here is excavated little by little by miners like Wen Yujia.

As usual, Wen Yu's family, like other workers, continued to work in the mine. After a while, he felt pain in his arms and legs. He had gotten used to it all, and even though he was sore, he had to use a shovel to load the coal from the ground into the minecart.

Is it possible to do it for a lifetime?

Beneath his feet was crushed coal, which had just been blown up, and gunpowder was now used for coal mining, but the old miners were responsible for the kind of work of setting off cannons. In just a few moments, he had cleared the nearby area, the soot had just filled the minecart, but he was already exhausted.

But even so, he has to continue to work, at least, he has to complete today's ration, otherwise, he will be deducted from his salary.

After loading the coal under his feet, Wen Yujia tried to pull the minecart, saving himself from walking too far with the shoveled coal ash, and moved forward, he continued to load the coal, but at this time, he began to slow down, weighing his physical strength, so as not to overwork.

Although Wen Yujia has always paid attention to saving his physical strength, due to the relationship between the work surface, he is getting farther and farther away from the minecart, which also makes him more tired, because he needs to walk more and do more work, but despite the sore muscles, he can still persevere.

The work in the mine was orderly, monotonous and repetitive, and this kind of work freed his mind to think about it, and it was not a good thing, and when people thought about it too much, they did more.

While working, Wen Yujia began to think about how long this mine road would extend in front of him, of course, he also thought of the mountain above his head, and now the weight of the mountain was supported by wooden beams, what if it collapsed?

Naturally, Wen Yujia remembered the collapse of another coal mine last year, and the people who died in that mine. Only a few survived, though.

This thought made Wen Yujia start to feel scared, and felt that he shouldn't think about these things.

"You can't think nonsense, the more you think about it, the more likely it is to get into trouble......"

After recovering the chaotic mind, Wen Yujia felt hungry, in fact, he had been hungry a long time ago, but he had to endure a little, after all, he had to work for 6 hours, and if he was hungry after eating, he could only wait until he went home to eat.

Is it time to eat?

Of course, Wen Yujia, who didn't have a pocket watch, didn't know, but he already felt hungry, and he felt that he couldn't bear it anymore, so let's eat it. He walked towards the place where the miner's lamp was hung, and found his copper lunch box on top of it.

Although there is a place for a lunch box on the top of the miner's lamp, the light can always bring some heat, but after a few hours of placement, the food in the lunch box is already cold. But even so, Wen Yujia still sat down against the wall and took a big sip of the tea that was already cold. Then he began to eat the meal that was said to be cold or lukewarm, the rice was rice, and there were a few pieces of meat poured into the dish. If you work in the mines, you have to eat a lot of food, and you have to eat meat, otherwise you won't be able to survive at all, and the work here is all manual work.

The fried pork belly is one finger thick, three fingers wide, palm-sized, and there are two such slices of meat in the lunch box, although it is already cold, but it is also a mouthful of food, he can almost eat a piece of meat in one bite, and then eat the rice in a big gulp.

After taking the last bite of rice and vegetables into his mouth, Wen Yujia sat there and drank some tea, and then sat there like this, after eating, he felt that his strength seemed to have recovered, but he didn't work immediately, he had to rest for a while, after all, there were still a few hours of work to do.

In fact, the workers in the coal mine are like this, there is always endless work, from time to time, from the depths of the mine there will be the sound of cannons, now, because of the lack of experience, so Wen Yujia can not go to the deepest part of the work, where he is now, is a relatively safe place.

In this way, he will rest for a while. During the break, he also needs to check the miner's lamp so that he doesn't run out of gas. For the miners, the miner's lamp is almost equal to their life, not because it can illuminate it, and without it in the mine, you can't see anything else, but because the size, length and even color of the flame are related to their life, and whenever they get off work, the person in charge of the miner's lamp will count the number, so they will know that someone has not come up.

Therefore, for miners, the miner's lamp is very important, and as a newcomer, Wen Yujia, when he went down the mine, according to the rules, he received a new miner's lamp, and now the miner's lamp looks no different from other people's lamps - dirty and full of soot.

In fact, the same is true of Wen Yu's family, whose clothes were once clean are now full of soot.

Coal blacks...... Always!

In this way, I don't know how long I worked, when Wen Yujia felt hungry again, he knew that it was almost time to get off work.

Six hours a day!

That's what he does, and that's true for all the miners. And every time he thought that he would have to spend his whole life like this, Wen Yujia began to feel scared. It was not only the darkness in the coal mine that made him feel uneasy, but because of this darkness, he could not see the future and direction, and he was worried about his life, and he could only accompany the coal mine until he died of old age.

Then he remembered what he had seen in it.

"If you don't go out, you will never know how big the world is, and you won't know how wonderful the outside world is."

What is the outside world really like?

Is it really as written, full of opportunities? Gold and silver everywhere? Is it even possible to marry a native princess?

Although he knew that all this was just words in China and was not true, Wen Yujia also felt that that life was much better than the current life.

Just as he was thinking nonsense, he heard footsteps, looked up, and he saw his father, with a miner's lamp hanging from his belt, and his face shrouded in shadow.

"Let's go, I'm done!"

Then he took off the miner's lamp from the nail and hung it on Wen Yu's belt, then turned his head and walked back along the tunnel, without saying a word or waiting for Wen Yu's family.

By the light of the miner's lamp, Wen Yujia looked at his father's back, what did he see? It was a future that scared him, and a thought resurfaced in his heart.

"I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life."

Wen Yujia opened his mouth towards his father's background, but did not shout.

Following behind his father, Wen Yujia felt that his legs were tired and a little sore, and even he felt that he might fall at any time, he wouldn't care about these in the past, because he knew that this class was over. Soon he will be able to go home and be able to lie down and sleep.

But today, with every step he takes, Wen Yujia feels that his steps are getting heavier and heavier.

Sitting in the cage with a group of black-faced miners, Wen Yujia looked at the people around him, everyone looked very tired, he knew that when they returned home, they would drink a few taels of wine and eat a few pieces of meat, and then fall asleep and continue to work hard the next day!

That's their life!

The same life!

Listening to them talking about whose women were beautiful in the nearby restaurant, Wen Yujia's heart, that thought was rolling there, and he knew that all this was not what he wanted.

"Tonight, you'll go for a drink with you."

Wen Laosan glanced at his son, and then said.

"You're grown up and can come to the table with us."

Is this an adult?

Wen Yujia looked at his father, and he heard the voices of other people again, as if they were all talking, he had grown up, and most of them were like this.

"Dad, I don't want to dig coal!"

Finally, Wen Yujia said what he had been thinking about.

What the?

The people who were talking about it all looked at Wen Yu's family, and the smile on Wen Laoliu's face disappeared, looking a little puzzled and even a little annoyed.

"If you don't want to dig coal, what do you want to do?"

Looking at his father, Wen Yujia decided to speak his mind.

"I don't want to stay in the well like this for the rest of my life, I don't want to continue like this, I ......"

Wen Yujia hesitated for a moment, and then said.

"I don't have enough land at home, maybe, I, I can go overseas, go to other places, in short, I don't want to dig coal like this."

Wen Lao Liu suddenly laughed, and the others laughed too. Their laughter echoed in the silence, as if they had heard some kind of joke.

In the rattling sound, the cage continued to rise, and with a collision sound, the cage stopped, Wen Yujia looked up at the sky, and the sky was already full of stars.

He hadn't seen the sun in half a year!

"Dad, I don't dig coal anymore!"

Again, Wen Yujia looked back at his father, his face covered with soot, and his expression was resolute.

"Tomorrow, I'll go!"