My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 187 Mercury's Love of Money
The next morning, when Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang were exercising on the hillside, they saw Old Liu carrying a hunting rifle, crossing the wooden bridge, and heading towards the forest on the other side.

Judging from the medicine he took last night and slept well, he has almost fully recovered; otherwise, he wouldn't have had the energy to go into the mountains.

This is an old man who can't sit still. Whenever he has free time, he either strolls up and down the river where the mining sites are located to see if there are any people at the mining sites that Zhou Jingming has marked out, or he goes into the mountains to hunt.

He is indeed very skilled at hunting; he rarely comes back empty-handed when he goes out.

In any case, in the Gold Rush Valley, where being able to eat cabbage and potatoes is considered the best you can do, being able to eat some wild game from time to time, even if he brings back more small animals like rabbits and pheasants, is definitely the icing on the cake.

Therefore, every time Old Liu went out, it became something everyone eagerly anticipated.

Su Xiulan usually gets up earlier than Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang, busy preparing breakfast for everyone.

Breakfast is relatively simple, mostly consisting of boiled noodle soup, rice porridge, or noodles, accompanied by some sauces or pickles.

Even such simple meals were something that the dozens of people working at the mine would have a hard time getting every day back in their hometowns.

They had little to complain about regarding their diet.

After Zhou Jingming handed over the tasks of cooking and recording daily work attendance to Su Xiulan, he didn't really take care of them anymore after confirming several times that there were no problems.

He was happy to be a hands-off manager.

After breakfast, everyone began their day's work.

Most of the time, Wu Yang would sit on the grassy slope above the mining site, a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. From that vantage point, he could see everything that the people below were doing, including the riverbank where the ore was piled up.

Bai Zhishun not only led everyone in their work, but he himself was also very active. He worked harder than anyone else and would urge anyone who was slacking off whenever he noticed them. He was very conscientious and set a good example.

The mining site is busy yet orderly.

Zhou Jingming was somewhat idle. After thinking for a while, he took out the mercury he had refined a few days ago, as well as all the refined sand he had accumulated last year.

We are going to the riverbank to extract the gold from the sand.

The main reason is that the weather has been sunny for the past few days, and the temperature in the mountains has risen a bit. However, it is still very cold in the mornings and evenings, and there is severe frost at night.

But once the sun rises and the frost melts, the water temperature in the river gradually reaches a barely acceptable level.

Having finished cleaning up the pots and pans, Su Xiulan, who had nothing else to do, also came to help him move the fine sand.

Last year on the small peninsula, although Peng Yuanchao didn't have much gold dust left after picking gold every day, he still managed to accumulate two shallow bags of it over time.

When Peng Yuanchao moved from the small peninsula to Haxionggou and transported supplies, he knew that there were many unspottable gold dust particles left in the fine sand. He also knew that Zhou Jingming valued them and brought them over carefully. In addition, he had accumulated a small half bag of them during the time he worked in Haxionggou.

Heavy minerals, on the other hand, are loose aggregates composed of minerals with relatively high density and stable physical and chemical properties. They contain a very complex composition, including rutile, zircon, monazite, magnetite, wolframite, columbite, and so on. They are a direct indicator for mineral exploration and are quite heavy.

Su Xiulan watched Zhou Jingming carry a bag towards the river, and she busied herself carrying another bag. However, she found that she couldn't move the bag of heavy sand at all, so she could only choose the small half bag.

After everything was moved to the riverbank, Zhou Jingming asked Su Xiulan to move the iron pot that had been specially bought for refining mercury last time, and set it up by the riverbank.

Then, he poured some of the fine sand into an iron pot, added water, poured some of the mercury that had been sealed in the can into the iron pot, found a pebble on the riverbank, and ground the heavy sand in the iron pot.

Grinding is to allow the mercury to fully fuse with the gold mixed in to form a gold amalgam, and also to make subsequent washing easier, which takes a relatively long time.

Su Xiulan looked at the simple thing and said, "Brother... water cooling, I can do this, let me do it!"

"You're nothing! Mercury is poisonous, especially bad for you women. Get out of my way!"

Zhou Jingming glared at her and immediately told her to leave.

"Can't I even take a look?"

"Looking is fine, but don't touch!"

"Can this method really produce gold?"

"Mercury loves money. Except for iron, it can dissolve in many metals to form amalgam. There's an old saying that mercury bites gold but not sand. It means that if you pour mercury into these fine sands, the mercury can fuse with the gold inside. Then, you can separate them from the other impurities and get the gold out as well. Just wait and see. Oh, and go back and get me a piece of gauze and a large bowl."

Su Xiulan went to get the things, and when she came back, she saw Zhou Jingming still grinding fine sand with pebbles in circles. Before, he was grinding in clockwise circles, but now he was grinding in counterclockwise circles.

"If you're okay with this, find a stone and polish off the glaze inside the bowl. I'll need it later."

Since she couldn't stay idle, Zhou Jingming simply arranged some things for her.

Su Xiulan was naturally happy to do so. She found a pebble by the river and began polishing the glaze of the large bowl.

After working on it for more than twenty minutes, Zhou Jingming, when Su Xiulan had almost finished polishing the glaze of the large bowl, poured the mixture of fine sand and mercury into the bowl in several batches and carefully washed it in the river to prevent the mercury from being carried into the river.

The already fine sand, which became even finer after being ground, was gradually washed away by the water as Zhou Jingming washed it. After it was clean, only a sloshing mass of mercury remained in the bowl, which he then stored in another jar.

This process is repeated until all the fine sand in the iron pot has been washed away.

After Zhou Jingming thoroughly washed the large iron pot, he took a piece of gauze, folded it several times, poured the mercury from the canned goods into the gauze, and then wrung it vigorously. One by one, silvery-white beads of mercury rolled to the bottom of the iron pot; this was excess mercury.

When he could no longer twist it, Zhou Jingming then used a slapping motion to shake out the excess mercury from the amalgam wrapped in gauze, while simultaneously covering his eyes with his hand to prevent the tiny mercury beads from splashing into them.

Finally, only a clump of silvery paste remained in the gauze; this was gold amalgam.

After putting the paste into a jar, he added fine sand and some mercury back into the iron pot and continued grinding.

Zhou Jingming wouldn't let Su Xiulan interfere. She watched from the side for a while, but found it boring, so she simply went to the mine site and worked with the others.

It took Zhou Jingming most of the day to process all the fine sand.

The excess mercury was collected in a canning jar, leaving only a few small spheres of amalgam.

Afterwards, Zhou Jingming called Su Xiulan over and helped her take the iron pot and the rest of the luggage. They went to the earthen stove where they had refined mercury a few days earlier, put the gold amalgam into the iron pot that had been rebuilt, and gathered up the firewood in the earthen stove, just like when refining mercury.

As the firewood burned, the mercury in the amalgam evaporated easily because its melting point was lower than that of gold. The mercury vapor flowed through the iron pipe into a jar filled with cold water, where it condensed back into mercury. What remained in the iron pot was gold.

Zhou Jingming had no intention of further purifying it, as that would require calcination at a higher temperature and the addition of some chemical reagents to react and obtain truly pure gold.

However, this gold, with a purity of over 90%, is of sufficient quality to be sold to gold dealers, so there is naturally no need to go through the trouble.

When Zhou Jingming was separating the mercury from the amalgam, Su Xiulan was again sent far away because mercury vapor is more toxic.

She could only watch from afar. After waiting for quite a while, she saw Zhou Jingming bring a few small, heavy pieces of gold and some recycled mercury to the dugout, and she curiously followed him in.

It's impossible to recover all the mercury, but after Zhou Jingming's efforts, the loss wasn't actually that significant.

As long as the mercury in the can is stored properly, it's enough for him to reuse for quite a long time.

After Zhou Jingming placed the mercury sealed in water, he immediately took out a small balance and weighed the gold.

The final number made him very happy.

It weighs a whopping 1,638 grams.

Zhou Jingming understood that the accumulated fine sand was extremely valuable, something that was originally meant to be thrown away.

If Peng Yuanchao were to see this gold, I wonder what he would think.

After calculating for a while, Su Xiulan realized that at the current market price, it could sell for more than 67,000 yuan. She was so surprised that she couldn't close her mouth: "This is much more profitable than mining coal."

Hearing this, Zhou Jingming couldn't help but laugh: "You can't compare them like that. This little bit of gold is what I accumulated over several months last year. And the amount of coal is huge. If we could have a good coal mine for large-scale mining, that would be amazing."

Zhou Jingming dared not underestimate the coal mining industry. He still remembered that in the 1990s, any one of those wealthy coal bosses was an extremely rich man.

In Su Xiulan's eyes, Zhou Jingming first turned mercury into ore mined from the mountain, and then used mercury to turn gold into gold from the dark, fine sand. It was all very magical. Looking at Zhou Jingming, she became more and more admiring: "Brother, you are so amazing!"

Zhou Jingming suddenly moved closer to her: "Impressive? You mean... in bed?"

Su Xiulan blushed and quickly stepped aside from Zhou Jingming, saying, "It's almost time, I need to go cook."

Zhou Jingming smiled and slapped her firm and elastic buttocks, making Su Xiulan tremble all over and glare at him.

Zhou Jingming raised an eyebrow: "You dare glare at me? Believe me or not, I'll slap you right now!"

Seeing Zhou Jingming closing in again, Su Xiulan didn't dare to linger. She quickly opened the thick door of the dugout and slipped out like a little fox.

There's nothing to make a fuss about in broad daylight.

We're already in the same bed, there will be plenty of opportunities tonight, it's just a matter of whether we want to or not.

Zhou Jingming put the few small pieces of gold into a jar and placed it on a shelf propped up by wooden wedges and planks on the wall. Just as he was about to light a cigarette, he heard Su Xiulan calling from outside: "Brother... someone is looking for you!"

"who is it?"

Zhou Jingming asked a question loudly.

Su Xiulan responded, "They said they came to inquire about mining sites!"

Upon hearing this, Zhou Jingming knew that business was about to come his way.

He immediately crawled out of the dugout, came out of the passage, and stood in front of the dugout. He saw two people standing by the poplar grove at the edge of the mine. Wu Yang, carrying a gun, stood in front of the two people.

Judging from the two men carrying shovels, buckets, and blankets, they were probably scouting the area in the mountains.

Finally, I've met two reasonable people.

He thought for a moment, then went back to his dugout. He took out the arithmetic notebook from his bag, which he had used last year to register the mining sites. When he came out, he locked the dugout door and walked towards the two of them.

(End of this chapter)