My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 89 Can you tell fortunes?

The two bodies and the cloth bag were thrown into the river. Zhou Jingming watched them drift away with a flashlight, then squatted down to wash his hands by the river. He looked downstream and said, "You asked for it. You saw us with our hunting rifles, but you still insisted on attacking us... If you can be reborn as a human in your next life, don't be so greedy!"

Wu Yang washed his hands and dried them off. He then shone his flashlight on the riverbank behind him and said, "We need to move to a different place early tomorrow morning. There's been a lot of blood on the ground from dragging us all this way."

Zhou Jingming nodded: "We need to find another place quickly and continue walking until we reach a place where we can cross the river!"

Zhou Jingming didn't want those furs either, because after opening them up, he saw that they were all shot with deer antlers, with many holes in the skins, and the skinning technique was not very good. Only the fox furs were worth a little money; the other furs wouldn't fetch a good price.

Moreover, these things are inconvenient to carry around, so it's cleaner and easier to just throw them away.

The two returned to the campfire and were surprised to find that the light drizzle had stopped.

Anyway, it's good that it's stopped; at least I'll be more comfortable sleeping now.

But the night was far from peaceful.

Jin Wang called out three times during the night, waking Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang each time.

After being startled awake twice, the two men grabbed their guns, listened for a while, and then shone their flashlights in the direction Jinwang was barking.

However, after two attempts, I was unable to see anything in the pitch black night. The two-battery flashlight was fine for illuminating the way, but it became blurry after shining it on distant objects.

After finding nothing the first two times, Jinwang stopped calling out, so the two added some more firewood and lay down to sleep.

The third time Jin Wang woke them up, this time the two immediately turned on their flashlights and vaguely saw several figures running away in fright on the gravel slope near the river below.

Wu Yang had never seen anything like it before, and asked curiously, "What is that?"

Zhou Jingming made a judgment: "Judging from its size, it is much smaller than a wolf but a bit larger than a fox. With its red fur and its packs of animals, it should be a jackal, also called a red-haired wolf."

Zhou Jingming had seen it in the wild when he was in the geological team in his previous life, and he had also seen it in the gold panning valley after he came to pan for gold.

According to the herders and gold prospectors, they had rarely seen this thing before.

In recent years, however, more people have come to the valley to pan for gold, and this stuff has also increased in number.

When gold prospectors enter the valley in early spring, these animals appear out of nowhere, usually scavenging for food or eating human excrement.

Looking back now, Zhou Jingming believes that the appearance of these jackals, and the increasing trend of them, was very likely caused by the carcasses floating down the river, which attracted and sustained them.

The rustling sounds coming down in the middle of the night were obviously from them licking the bloodstains, and they might also be looking to see if there was a chance to attack the two people.

With such ferocious creatures roaming around, who would dare to sleep!
Fortunately, most of the night had passed, and the two lit a fire. They squatted by the fire for more than an hour, and then the sky began to lighten.

After hastily eating two baked buns, the two didn't linger. They shouldered their luggage, picked up their hunting rifles, and led Jinwang downstream.

Around 10 a.m., we arrived at the next place where we could cross the river.

Countless streams of varying sizes from the mountain valleys converge into the main river channel. The further downstream you go, the greater the flow and the faster the current becomes, making crossing the river extremely difficult.

Even with Zhou Jingming's swimming skills, he dared not attempt to cross the river easily, knowing that beneath the seemingly calm surface, there were turbulent currents that could easily sweep him to the bottom and cause him to crash into rocks or other objects.

However, unlike the cableways that are controlled by people upstream in the valley, this place is run by locals who are "professional ferrymen".

They used five or six fully inflated car inner tubes and large oil drums to make a raft, and people on both banks worked together to control the rafting back and forth with ropes.

The price is also cheaper than the upstream zipline; it only costs two yuan per person.

However, there are many people traveling between the two sides of the strait. Although the price is only two dollars per person, you can still earn tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Of course, spending two yuan to cross the river is quite expensive.

On the other hand, anything related to gold seems to be expensive.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang stopped there once they arrived.

Gold prospectors entering this valley usually pass through here; they just need to wait.

If you see someone coming, go up and ask them what they want. If they want to come along, they can stay.

Zhou Jingming went up to greet the leader of the ferry boat, offered cigarettes to several boatmen, briefly explained his intentions, and after giving the boatmen a large sum of money, he was allowed to enter the wooden house where they stayed on the riverbank to warm up and rest.

The weather was still gloomy and chilly, with gusts of wind occasionally sweeping by, making people shiver.

The two men moved their belongings into the cabin, placing the double-barreled shotgun to one side.

Around noon, a group of people carrying bundles finally appeared, crossing the desolate mountain ridge in the distance and heading towards the ferry.

When the others arrived, Zhou Jingming tightened his clothes and crawled out of the wooden hut: "Gentlemen, are you going to dig for gold?"

The leader of the group replied, "Nonsense, what else would we be doing here if not digging for gold?"

Zhou Jingming smiled and asked, "Do you have a team yet? Have you found a good mining site?"

"What, are you looking for a team?"

"No, I'm here to hire people."

"You're recruiting people here? You should recruit in the towns and villages. Anyone who can get into this valley must already have a place to go... Let's go, let's not waste any more time!" A group of people carrying supplies found the boatman and, after a lot of trouble, finally crossed the river and started walking upstream along the floodplain.

Zhou Jingming had no choice but to return to the wooden house with Wu Yang to warm themselves by the fire.

At noon, things were alright. A group of ferrymen gathered in the wooden house to cook mutton. Because of the ten yuan, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang also got a meal of mutton. Jin Wang, who had been eating baked buns every day for the past few days, also got a meal of bones.

In the afternoon, more people arrived one after another, mostly in groups. Whenever someone passed by, Zhou Jingming would patiently ask them where they were going, but most of them already had somewhere to go.

There was one team that seemed unsure of their destination. They stopped to ask Zhou Jingming for details. When they heard that Zhou Jingming would provide supplies and water pumps, they were clearly interested. However, when they heard about the way the gold would be distributed, they became unhappy, said "That's too much," and hurriedly left.

It wasn't until evening that Zhou Jingming managed to recruit two people, whose awkward Mandarin had a strong Yue accent.

They already had a team in Tiemaike and were preparing to enter the valley, but because a few more people from Ganzhou came looking for them, they simply kicked out the people from other places in the team.

Those people went to find other teams, leaving only the two of them. Some were still angry, so after discussing it, the two decided to go directly into the mountains and go to the mining site to ask the foremen if they needed anyone.

Upon hearing that the team Zhou Jingming described was a ragtag group, with one Luo Yue person among them, and that they had a water pump and were being provided with food, he was immediately tempted.

However, upon hearing about the method of gold distribution, the two hesitated for a moment, but after Zhou Jingming told them it was a rich mine, they nodded in agreement.

The two of them had gone into the mountains to pan for gold last year, so they knew what a rich mine was and that mining sites with pumps could speed up the process. After considering it, they could accept the somewhat "shady" distribution method.

Despite finally managing to recruit two people, Zhou Jingming was far from happy.

Things were much worse than he had expected.

He had originally thought that he could recruit enough people today to lead them to the small peninsula.

As a result, after most of the day's work, they only managed to recruit two people.

That night, they had to spend a little money to sleep on the floor in the ferryman's little wooden hut, which was much better than sleeping in the wilderness and made them feel much more at ease.

When Zhou Jingming woke up the next day, he found that the gray sky had turned into a bright blue, and his mood improved considerably.

Perhaps due to the weather, many people chose to stay in the surrounding towns yesterday, but today the weather has cleared up, so more people are coming.

The ferrymen also became busy.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang were still the same as always. When they encountered people, whether they were in groups or traveling alone, they would go up and ask them. By noon, they had recruited eight more people.

Three of them were from western Hunan, and they chose to stay because Wuyang is also from western Hunan.

As for the other five people, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang had both met them before; they were the Yuzhou people who were robbed on the bus on their way here.

These people hadn't just entered the valley; they had come out of it, covered in dust and dirt, and two of them were injured.

I asked around and found out that they had formed a team of fifteen people, all from Yuzhou, and had found a mining site in another branch ditch of the main river. They were doing a good job there.

As a result, more and more people came to that valley, and the incident of seizing their mining sites happened five times in just over a month.

Who could withstand that? After several battles, several men in the team lost limbs and had to be sent away.

Just two days ago, another group of seemingly unsophisticated people from Qin arrived, fought another battle, lost their heads and lives, and their ranks were completely scattered.

They hadn't had a chance to pan for gold in peace for more than a few days, and there was already a lot going on. The group of men were all novices from the same village, and they figured they couldn't make it in the valley and were planning to go back. Otherwise, they might end up losing their lives in the valley or going back injured, which wouldn't be worth it.

When they saw Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang here again and heard that they were recruiting people, the group had another idea.

For no other reason than knowing that Wu Yang was skilled and seeing that both of them were carrying hunting rifles.

Wu Yang still couldn't be bothered with them, and remained dissatisfied with their cowardly behavior on the shuttle bus.

But after thinking about it, Zhou Jingming agreed.

Firstly, waiting here to find manpower was really troublesome; secondly, he believed that these five people had been through several battles and had been tempered, so they should be able to be used.

The main problem the team is lacking right now is manpower. As for other miscellaneous matters, those five hunting rifles will solve the problem.

He briefly explained his idea to Wu Yang, who reluctantly agreed.

Having finally gathered ten people, Zhou Jingming thought that with his group, the small peninsula could operate. Bringing in too many unfamiliar people at once wouldn't be a good thing, so he planned to take these ten people back to the small peninsula.

Just as Zhou Jingming had greeted the boatman, paid the fare, and helped the group cross the river, he suddenly saw another hunchbacked young man carrying a shovel with a package hanging from it, hurrying towards them on the mountain path, kicking up dust.

He felt the face looked familiar for a moment, and after thinking about it for a moment, he couldn't help but laugh: Sure enough, many things have to be left to fate. If you don't deliberately look for someone, you'll run into someone you know.

He immediately jumped off the raft and walked towards the hunchback. Just as he was about to pass by the hunchback, he grabbed him and said, "Brother, judging from your complexion, there's something wrong with your family's feng shui. Hmm... You've come to the right place to make a living in the Northwest. You can avoid a great disaster."

Zhou Jingming feigned profundity, but his words had a significant effect. The hunchback immediately stopped and sized up Zhou Jingming: "You can tell fortunes?"

"What do you say?"

Zhou Jingming smiled and asked in return.

(End of this chapter)