The great mine pit had been abandoned thousands of years ago, and whatever scraps had remained had since been dug out by later generations over those sa thousands of years.
High-quality spirit stones ant going deep underground.
The young man had been straightforward about it. He had the goods, but the price would be higher.
Money was not the issue.
Li Qiuchen asked, "How long before you can deliver?"
The young man glanced at the people at the table with him and smiled. "You're here for one of those illusory realm trials, aren't you? Treasure Mouse or Fire Kirin?"
"Fire Kirin."
"Fire Kirin takes at least five to seven days at minimum. If you can put up a thousand taels as a deposit, I can organize a team to go down into the mine right now, and within seven days I'll bring you back a spirit stone vein."
"An entire spirit stone vein?"
"What are you imagining? A thousand taels for an entire vein? Are you out of your mind?"
"Then how much is a vein, the way you're describing it?"
The young man held his hands apart to show an approximate size. "Roughly this much. At least three feet of raw ore. Worth considerably more than a thousand taels, but I won't cheat you. We'll settle up at market price afterward, refund what's over or collect what's short. How does that sound?"
Li Qiuchen glanced at the two young misses sitting across from him.
He gave up on consulting them. The two of them had no concept of money whatsoever, and asking their opinion would be a complete waste of ti.
"What's your na, big brother?"
"Chen with the knife radical, Chen Baishan. My family has been miners for generations. You can ask around about us. We wouldn't ruin our own reputation over your bit of silver."
It was a given that nothing said over drinks in the northern frontier could be taken at face value. But there was no drinking happening here, which made this conversation considerably more reliable.
Li Qiuchen produced a stack of banknotes from his pocket, counted out a thousand taels, and set them on the table. Chen Baishan reached out for them, and found a hand pressing firmly down.
"Brother Chen, the money is here and so are we. My sincerity is evident. But I haven't yet seen what you're capable of. We don't know each other, so let's not bother with pleasantries."
Li Qiuchen drew out a fifty-tael note and passed it to Chen Baishan with a smile. "This fifty taels is for Brother Chen's tea. I'm not going anywhere for the next few days regardless, and I'll be staying in the area. Once you bring the goods over, we'll examine them and then complete the transaction. I think that's the more sensible arrangent. What do you think?"
A thousand-tael deposit, no problem, he had it.
But simply handing over a thousand taels without seeing anything first would be treating him as rather too easy a mark.
If he agreed to that straight away, Chen Baishan might well take his money and laugh at him behind his back for being a fool.
Chen Baishan smiled and shook his head. "The minimum is a hundred taels. That's hazard pay. To be honest with you, there's a kid in my team whose child wants to sit the county school inner hall examination next year. That money is being saved for his tuition."
"If you can put up a hundred taels, we'll risk our lives to bring the goods back."
Li Qiuchen looked surprised. "Is it that dangerous down there?"
"Of course it is. The safe areas were emptied out long ago. You think they left anything for us?"
"Done."
Li Qiuchen settled it on the spot. "Since you have a child with ambitions in your household, and the two of us might end up as classmates one day, a hundred taels it is."
"Now that's what I like to hear! Worthy of the inner hall's top student!"
Chen Baishan laughed heartily. "Shall we have a round?"
"No drinks."
Li Qiuchen refused without a second's hesitation.
Everything was settled. One round of drinks might well undo all of it.
Better to finish the serious business while everyone's head was clear.
He had to admit, the real finishing touch of that iron-plate al had been the grilled pickled vegetables at the end.
Genuinely good for cutting through the richness.
Chen Baishan moved quickly. Since no drinking was involved, he had his team assembled by that sa evening.
This was an exploration crew of over twenty people.
According to Chen Baishan, there had once been a full complent of a hundred such crews. But that was a very, very long ti ago.
Only seven crews still maintained their active status, his included, and the inco generated by these seven was what sustained the residents of the Mining District.
In addition to them, several large rchant associations had also established branches here, running their own private exploration teams that didn't take outside work.
The crew included both n and won, and even a few white-haired elders among them.
Assembling the people was quick enough, but maintaining the equipnt took considerable ti.
The tools looked plain enough in their construction, but so were extraordinarily old, and certain instrunts engraved with inscribed symbols dated back to the prosperous era of the mine's height.
By now they were genuine antiques in the fullest sense, requiring their energy to be replenished and their inscriptions activated before each use. All in all, an extrely involved and ti-consuming process.
While they checked their equipnt, Li Qiuchen took the two young misses, who had eaten until their stomachs were round as drums, for a walk into the interior of the great mine pit to take in the scenery.
The first impression the mine pit gave was simply of scale.
Legend held that an ancient immortal had drawn on the earth's fire here to forge a sword, and the great mine pit was the scabbard of that immortal blade, simply a scabbard magnified ten thousand tis over.
Standing at the rim of the pit, a person felt like an insignificant ant.
Waves of scorching air washed over them.
The reason the Mining District never lacked for energy was precisely because what they used was this natural geothermal power. How exactly it worked was beyond Li Qiuchen's understanding, but it was clearly a sophisticated arrangent.
The Fire Kirin illusory realm trial that Tang Xiaoxue was due to attempt was located right at the mouth of the pit.
But right now she didn't seem particularly inclined to go in.
"I'm guessing you two are planning to dump
in the illusory realm and then sneak off to explore on your own."
Li Qiuchen couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Who in their right mind would go wandering down a mine pit for no reason? I think that's actually what you want to do yourself."
Rakshasa ghosts had an attachnt to pits and excavations about as deep-rooted as Hu Caiyi's fixation on winged creatures.
No particular hobbies, just a love of digging holes and burrowing into tunnels.
"You're right, I don't want to do the trial anymore. I want to go down and explore!"
Tang Xiaoxue confessed her true feelings with complete absence of guilt.
Li Qiuchen could only appeal to her gently. "We didn't prepare properly for that this ti. Let's save it for another visit. I'll bring you back next sumr during the holiday, all right?"
"Why can't we co during the winter holiday?"
"Because by the ti the winter holiday cos around, your father will be back."
"My father doesn't manage
like that..."
She said it with defiance, but inwardly Tang Xiaoxue was already wavering.
"Then when you two go down there, make sure you pick up so pretty stones for !"
"I told you, we're not going down. We'll be right here waiting for you."
"I don't believe you!"
Once a young woman's feelings got running, there was no arguing with them.
What Tang Xiaoxue actually wanted was for Li Qiuchen to go down and have a look, then co back and describe it all to her.
Li Qiuchen could only go along with it. "All right, all right. We'll go down, take a quick look around, and co straight back up to wait for you."
"Promise!"
"Promise. If I see any pretty stones I'll absolutely bring one back for you."
With a combination of coaxing and gentle misdirection, Tang Xiaoxue was finally sent into the illusory realm.
The mont Tang Xiaoxue was gone, the previously quiet Hu Caiyi ca alive.
Looking at her bright and animated expression, Li Qiuchen thought to himself that the friendship between these two young misses was possibly a little on the superficial side.
What are you so pleased about?
"Actually, I want to go down and see for myself too."
Hu Caiyi stood at the edge of the shaft and peered into the depths, then turned to Li Qiuchen. "Steward Li, would you take
down to have a look?"
"Let
go ask."
Li Qiuchen walked over to where Chen Baishan and his team were making their preparations, and ventured, "Would it be possible for us to go down with you? Just to see what it looks like below."
"What is there to see down there?"
Chen Baishan looked puzzled. "There's nothing down there. What do you want to look at?"
"It's our first ti here. Everything seems new and interesting to us. We'd just like to broaden our experience a little."
Chen Baishan exchanged a glance with one of his teammates, then said after a mont's thought, "It's not that we can't take you down, but you don't have clearance to operate the lift. If you co down with us, you can't co back up."
"What if we go down together and co back up together?"
"That's too dangerous. You don't have proper protective equipnt, and if anything happens..."
"If sothing happens, getting back up is our own problem to sort out. Don't worry about that part."
"There genuinely isn't anything worth seeing down there!"
Li Qiuchen produced a fifty-tael banknote from his pocket and passed it over.
Chen Baishan stared at it.
"Well... if you genuinely want to see sothing, there is actually one place worth looking at."
The lift chanism had been built right at the entrance to the mine pit, constructed along what resembled an elevated rail system. On either side of the lift rails, eight massive steel tracks ran along the ground, extending downward into the darkness.
They didn't look like railway tracks, but they were clearly so form of ore transport.
Chen Baishan produced his work badge and scanned it in front of the lift.
Li Qiuchen fell into step behind the group, and suddenly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as though an indifferent gaze had descended from sowhere unseen and swept across everyone present.
This was presumably the legendary City God Office responsible for keeping watch over the Mining District.
Fortunately, nothing ca of it. The presence looked and looked away again.
The lift doors opened slowly. Li Qiuchen stepped inside with the others and found the interior was enormous, roughly a hundred square ters.
Rows of seats were arranged neatly in the middle for passengers to rest, though now nothing remained but empty iron fras.
In each of the four corners stood one of the humanoid machines the mining district people called a tal figure.
Given the considerable size and heft of what the machines were carrying in their hands, they were clearly not purely decorative.
It all felt very secure, though the flip side of that thought was that at so point in the past, this place had evidently not been secure at all.
The lift started up slowly, descending toward the bottom of the mine pit.
Hu Caiyi gripped Li Qiuchen's arm tightly, pressing her face to the window and peering out.
Outside was complete darkness, nothing visible at all.
As the lift continued downward, even the light from the entrance behind them gradually diminished, contracting into a faint point.
Finally only the dim light inside the lift remained, accompanied by the apparently eternal grinding rhythm of the chains.
Clank, clank, clank...
Hu Caiyi began to tremble.
Li Qiuchen pressed his lips together.
Whatever happened to wanting to co down and see?
And this was the extent of her nerve.
Though in fairness, the descent genuinely was taking quite a while.
After roughly a quarter-hour of dropping, the lift finally ca to a stop.
Bright light appeared outside once more.
Li Qiuchen took Hu Caiyi, whose legs had gone soft, and walked out of the lift into a scene of sudden expansiveness.
Before them was an enormous underground hub, surrounded by massive tunnels leading off in unknown directions.
[NEXT CHAPTER]
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