My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 253 Calm and Calm
The sudden turn of events greatly surprised the group of Qingshan team members.

This was something I had never encountered before in all the years I had been doing the work of clearing mountains.

The gold prospectors in the valley had been almost driven away. When they burned their dugouts, they were all lazy and unmotivated because they always thought that few people would dare to lay a hand on them, so they were not on guard.

Unexpectedly, this happened.

The two holes on Liang Mazi's head, oozing red and white fluid, were so glaring that they sent chills down the spines of all the Qingshan team members.

The people who were gathering firewood in their dugouts also ran out. They saw two figures running quickly through the fir forest opposite them. The branches and leaves were swaying and the figures were indistinct, so they couldn't tell who they were.

Some reacted quickly, taking off their Type 56 pistols and firing wildly at Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang behind them. But those bullets, once inside the forest, were like stones sinking into the sea. Apart from breaking some branches and leaves, most of them hit the tree trunks and had no effect whatsoever.

However, the two figures were quickly and completely hidden by the trees.

For a moment, everyone was stunned and speechless.

After a few breaths, someone asked, "Shall we chase after them?"

"How do we chase them? If they were on our side, they wouldn't be able to escape, but they're on the other side. By the time we ride around on horseback, they'll be long gone. Should we swim across?"

The group looked at each other, but no one answered.

The expressions on everyone's faces were fascinating. They knew exactly what they had done in the Gold Rush Valley, and they also knew what kind of people were hiding there.

The two thieves escaped, and finding them is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Finally, someone spoke up: "Take the body back and report the situation. How to handle it depends on what the higher-ups decide. It's best to agree on a consistent story, otherwise, we'll all be in trouble when we get back."

Instead of burning the dugout, they used the leather tubes they had brought to spend the night in the wilderness to stuff Liang Mazi's body inside, tied it to the horses, and the group mounted their horses and hurriedly left.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang ran wildly for more than ten minutes. When they saw that no one was chasing them, they slowed down, panting heavily.

The two decided to take a detour into the mountains to return, as they could no longer follow the river valley.

Both of them had some experience with this kind of thing, and considering the possibility of a subsequent search and capture, they deliberately circled around in the mountains and ravines quite a bit.

They had to traverse many mountains and valleys, which meant they had to walk a lot more. They spent two nights in the mountains, and it wasn't until the afternoon of the third day that the two of them returned to the hill opposite the Fourth Mine Bridge checkpoint.

Just then, we saw that a lot more people had been deployed to the bridgehead, and the horses of the Qingshan team were all in the stables at the checkpoint.

When gold prospectors came out, they were called to the checkpoint one by one for questioning and investigation.

They didn't know the current situation of the Haiertes River; they were only thinking about getting back to Haxionggou as soon as possible.

The two carefully surveyed their surroundings and, finding nothing particularly unusual, cautiously descended the mountain, entered the ravine where the motorcycle was hidden, and rode back to Haxionggou at a leisurely pace.

But Zhou Jingming was still a little worried that something might happen that would draw attention to Haxionggou.

Therefore, the two walked cautiously along the way, carefully observing their surroundings.

Fortunately, the journey was quite ordinary until we returned to the hilltop diagonally opposite the Haxionggou mining site.

Just as the two were about to ride their bikes down, someone called out to them.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang looked in the direction of the sound and saw Old Man Liu and Zhao Li emerge from the woods.

In the past few days, Zhao Li had been thinking a lot about the results of Zhou Jingming and his team's trip: "Did it go smoothly?"

Zhou Jingming nodded slightly. He was very confident in his shot, which he had taken from a distance of only thirty or forty meters. He was quite accurate.

Moreover, there's also Wuyang.

On the way, he asked Wu Yang, who was also very confident in his shot.

Zhou Jingming had reason to believe that things would definitely work out.

“Why did you take so long? Xiulan and Nara were worried sick. These past two days, whenever Grandpa and I returned to the mine, they kept asking if we had seen you come back or heard any news from you. Even late at night, they would crawl out of their dugouts to look around for ages.”

"What, you're telling them what we went to do?"

"How could I dare to say such a thing? Only the old man knows what you went there to do. I didn't tell Brother Li or Brother Peng. If they ask, I'll just say that you went to investigate the Qingshan team. We need to know the Qingshan team's route so that we can hide here. Otherwise, if the Qingshan team comes looking for us again, we'll be in big trouble."

"That's good... It's such a long distance, two legs can't outrun four legs. You don't think I'd dare to ride a motorcycle and follow them in, do you? Besides, we have to find an opportunity for this. It's already pretty good that we're back now."

Zhou Jingming let out a long sigh: "Has nothing happened at the mine these past two days? Have any armed police or public security personnel come by?"

"no!"

Zhao Li shook his head: "These past two days, I've been guarding this hilltop, on guard against anyone suddenly coming in. The old man has also been patrolling the surrounding hills every day, and hasn't seen anything unusual." Wu Yang lit a cigarette and handed one to each of the others: "Brother Zhou, don't worry too much, it should be fine. Liang Mazi died over a hundred kilometers away in the gold mining valley, in a chaotic situation where gold prospectors were being chased by them. We were using hunting rifles, and they had made quite a few enemies in the valley, many of whom wanted to harm him. There were also many hunting rifles in the valley, so they wouldn't have thought of targeting us."

I think you did a great job this time.

“They might still think of us. Don’t forget what happened with Hou Xiangdong. Some of the members of his Qingshan team know about my feud with Liang Mazi, so they might come looking for me.”

"So what if we figured it out? We can just stick to the story and say we didn't do it, that's all!"

"We still can't be careless. In short, try to minimize going out during this period... Zhao Li, you only have one thing to do during this time: stay here on this mountain."

Zhou Jingming then looked at Old Man Liu and said, "Grandpa, thank you for your hard work these past few days."

Both of them nodded slightly.

Zhou Jingming then rode his motorcycle back to the mine with Wu Yang.

Upon seeing the two return, Su Xiulan and Nara greeted them and offered words of comfort.

For the next ten days or so, Haxionggou remained calm and peaceful.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang burned the accumulated felt, extracted the gold, and divided the wages and gold on September 1st. Then they guarded the sluice gate every day, intentionally urging everyone to speed up the mining progress.

The checkpoints have already been set up. The further we go, the stricter the checks will be, and the more difficult it will be to get out of the mountains. We need to finish things at the mine as soon as possible.

After several months of excavation, the mineral deposits in the pincer-shaped ravine have been largely depleted, with only the area around the pond near the riverbank remaining unexploded.

The location of the dugout is now only surrounded by a few earthen walls.

At the current rate, in another half month, the minerals in the pincer-shaped ravine will be completely mined out, just as Zhou Jingming predicted.

As for the mining site upstream where Li Guozhu led his men, there was still a lot of ore to be mined, but the gold yield was not as high as that of the pincer-shaped ravine, so Zhou Jingming had no intention of giving up.

Anyway, he plans to leave once the minerals in the pincer-shaped ravine are mined out.

The end of the gold rush season is always the most dangerous time, so it's best for those in the group to leave early for safety.

During that time, Zhou Jingming only went out once, mainly because the food at the mine was running out.

In addition, he also had the idea of ​​going to investigate the situation.

When he was driving his tractor through the checkpoint, he was stopped. However, after offering cigarettes and secretly slipping some money to the two checkpoint staff who stopped him, he was only questioned briefly and then let go.

This time, he made a special trip to the hideout run by Sun Huai'an.

Seeing Zhou Jingming arrive in his tractor, Sun Huai'an, already wearing a fur cloak, welcomed him into the lavishly decorated mud-brick house: "What a rare guest!"

After taking his seat, Zhou Jingming got straight to the point: "I heard that Liang Mazi was..." He made a gesture of slitting his throat.

Sun Huai'an smiled and said, "I thought you came to sell gold to me."

"The checkpoints are so strict, it's not easy to smuggle gold out. Once I've mined enough at my mine, I'll bring them over, and I'll sell some to you."

Gold, in the end, can't be used to buy things directly; it still needs to be converted into money to be useful.

There are many things to do next year, and Zhou Jingming will need money in many places.

Moreover, the next gold price increase is not far off, and there will be little change for the next two or three years, making it a good time to buy some.

"That's pretty much it..."

Sun Huai'an made Zhou Jingming a cup of hot tea: "Liang Mazi was indeed killed. It happened over the Haiertes River. I heard that the higher-ups only sent people in to investigate and they visited people for a few days. After that, there was no further news, and they couldn't find out who did it."

He looked at Zhou Jingming with a strange expression as he said this.

Zhou Jingming was taken aback for a moment: "Don't look at me like that. It has nothing to do with me. If I really did it, would I need to ask you?"

Sun Huai'an smiled and said, "I'm just wondering what kind of person did it. I heard he was a very accurate shot, hitting the head twice and dying on the spot... He deserved it. I guess he pushed someone too far when he went to Qingshan."

The leader of the mountain-clearing team has changed, but they will continue to clear the mountains. They'll be going in within the next few days, so you need to be extra careful.

Zhou Jingming took a deep breath: "There's one more thing I need to ask you for help with. After I leave the mountain, the tractors and water pumps at the mine will need to be temporarily stored here with you. I guess you'll have to ask someone to go in and move them out."

When the gold rush ended, everyone was carrying gold, but it was difficult to get past the checkpoint. I had to take another route.

Sun Huai'an readily agreed: "No problem."

(End of this chapter)