Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence-Chapter 236: Down into the Mine
Ding Kaifang found it a little hard to believe.
’You’re a doctor. You just "lucked out" and found two pieces of Five-Floral Dragon Bone on Mopan Mountain, and now you’re concluding there’s a whole Dragon Bone Ore deposit there? That’s not very rigorous.’
"But... couldn’t it just be a coincidence? We hired a geological survey team to inspect the area before, and their report didn’t mention any animal fossil deposits."
Li Xu wasn’t surprised.
Conventional geological surveys mainly look for minerals with industrial value. They don’t pay special attention to things like fossils.
Besides, the vast quantities of Dragon Bone are buried deep beneath layers of mudstone. Without deep drilling, they’re impossible to find.
And according to the intelligence,
the main Dragon Bone Ore deposits are located away from the Bluestone Mine Area.
It’s perfectly normal that the geological survey team didn’t find anything.
Li Xu said, "Dragon Bone fossils rarely appear in isolation. There is definitely a larger vein of Dragon Bone fossils in that area."
Seeing how serious Li Xu was,
Ding Kaifang started to feel a bit uncertain himself.
"I’ll organize another professional geological survey team to go and explore Mopan Mountain again."
"Don’t do that just yet." Li Xu shook his head, stopping him.
"Why not?" Ding Kaifang was puzzled. ’If we need to confirm it, isn’t sending a professional team the fastest and most accurate way?’
Li Xu patiently explained, "President Ding, think about it. For something this big, if you send a survey team over with great fanfare, can the news be kept secret once they actually discover a Dragon Bone vein?
By then, the news will likely have spread throughout Feng City before we can even make a move. It might even alert the provincial authorities.
When too many people have their eyes on a juicy piece of meat, it becomes much harder for us to swallow it whole."
He proposed his own plan: "What I mean is, today, just the two of us will go and take a quiet look. After we’ve confirmed the situation, we can come back, formulate a meticulous plan, and then negotiate terms with the city. That way, we keep the initiative in our own hands."
Li Xu knew what he was doing. According to his intelligence, although the main Dragon Bone vein was hidden deep underground, some scattered, shallower deposits near the surface were already showing signs of exposure.
The rubble that Guo Hengchang had previously dug up and discarded as ’waste ore’ was, in fact, low-quality Dragon Bone fragments.
They were overlooked because their surface looked no different from ordinary waste rock.
Of course, Li Xu also knew that complete secrecy was impossible.
Dragon Bone Ore is classified as a paleontological fossil resource. The mining rights require special approval from the relevant state departments; they couldn’t just start digging whenever they wanted.
But what they needed to do now was get ahead of everyone else, stay one step ahead, grasp the most crucial intelligence, and secure the most advantageous position.
"Great! Let’s do it!" Ding Kaifang was completely won over by Li Xu’s meticulous thinking. He made a swift decision. "Let’s go right now!"
...
Ding Kaifang’s driver drove the two of them along the highway to Shanyang County.
Arriving at the foot of Mopan Mountain again, the scene before them was completely different from Li Xu’s last visit.
The once-thundering, dust-filled mining area was now dead silent.
The lime kilns and gravel factories of all sizes along the road were all gated and locked. No more white smoke rose from the chimneys, and the factory grounds were deserted, giving off an exceptionally desolate air.
The vehicle drove straight to the entrance of the Hengchang Stone Factory.
The large iron gate was ajar, and the huge factory grounds were empty.
The two got out of the car and walked right in, unopposed.
Inside the factory grounds, piles of stone material were stacked up like small hills.
Most of it was poor-quality, crack-riddled bluestone—the unsellable waste material from Guo Hengchang’s final mining efforts.
Ding Kaifang picked up a rock, tapped it, and shook his head.
’Looks like a pile of worthless rubble, indeed.’
Li Xu, however, ignored the bluestone. His gaze fell upon a pile of "waste" in the corner that was darker in color and appeared looser in texture.
This was the very stone Guo Hengchang had described as "crumbling as soon as it’s mined."
He strode over, squatted down, and picked up a palm-sized fragment.
The rock was grayish-brown, with a rough surface full of tiny holes. It looked completely unremarkable.
But in Li Xu’s eyes, it was different.
He brushed the dust from its surface with his fingers. On the rock’s fractured face, he could faintly see some fine markings resembling the texture of bone.
"President Ding, come take a look," Li Xu called out.
Ding Kaifang walked over, took the rock, and examined it from all angles, but he couldn’t see anything special about it. "Isn’t this just a broken piece of rock?"
"Look closely here." Li Xu pointed to an inconspicuous spot on the fractured surface.
There, embedded in the rock, was the small outline of what looked like a fossilized tooth.
Ding Kaifang leaned in, his eyes widening as he finally saw it.
It really was the trace of a fossil!
He was suddenly overcome with excitement.
Li Xu tossed the fragment aside. His eyes scanned the surroundings, finally locking onto the dark entrance to the mine shaft at the back of the factory.
"Let’s go. We’ll check it out inside."
The mine shaft was cold, damp, and dimly lit.
The two had come prepared with flashlights.
After switching them on, the inside of the mine became much brighter.
The two made their way deeper, their footing uneven.
The walls were covered in blast marks, and the air was filled with a mixed smell of earth and saltpeter.
After walking for a few dozen meters, Li Xu stopped. He shone his flashlight on one of the walls.
The rock layer there was completely different from the bluestone outside, showing a mudstone structure mixed with soil and sand.
On that section of the wall, an irregularly shaped, darker-colored rock jutted out.
Li Xu walked up and tapped it gently many times with the geological hammer he had brought with him.
"CRACK!"
The surface mudstone flaked off, revealing the rock encased within.
A massive, bone-shaped pattern could be seen, enveloped by the rock.
It was unmistakably a biological fossil.
This was a far more substantial find than the fragments that had been mined.
"This..." Ding Kaifang was overjoyed.
He reached out and stroked the fossil.
At that moment, all his worries vanished into thin air!
He was completely convinced!
Everything Li Xu had said was true!
Beneath this despised mining area truly lay a mountain of treasure beyond monetary value!
"We’ve struck it rich... we’ve really struck it rich this time..." Ding Kaifang was incredibly excited.
Li Xu was excited too.
The situation here confirmed his intelligence.
The two continued deeper into the mine shaft.
The deeper they went, the more traces of fossils they found.
Of course, they required careful identification.
And they were very fragile.
Perhaps for that reason,
the mine workers had never bothered to inspect them closely.
Otherwise, they would have surely recognized how extraordinary these ores were.
When they emerged from the mine shaft and stood in the sunlight again, both felt as if they had returned from another world.
An irrepressible excitement was written all over Ding Kaifang’s face.
He rubbed his hands together and paced back and forth, his mind already calculating how to pocket this enormous fortune.
"Doctor Li, we have to act immediately!"
He grabbed Li Xu and lowered his voice, "We have to secure this place right away! But... we can’t report this directly to the city. Once we do, the city will definitely put this land up for public bidding. When the news gets out, there’s no telling how many hungry wolves it will attract. Even if we manage to win it, it will be at a huge cost."
