Jiang Yimian and her group soon arrived at the stone gate.
Just as Liu Changsong said, the stone gate, which was a full ten meters high, completely blocked the entire mountain. The tall trees around it had also been cleared away, leaving no foothold. Unless the people inside opened the gate, there was no way to force your way in.
A young man was sitting above the stone gate.
He paused for a moment when he saw the people below, and only smiled and said after he recognized Butler Chen standing in front of him: "Oh, isn't this Butler Chen? What brings you here, is there something you need from the leader?"
Butler Chen wanted to call for help, but just as he was about to shout, a dagger was pressed firmly against his back. He was so frightened that he could only laugh awkwardly, "Haha, isn't this the Zhang leader who said he wanted a few young ladies the other day?"
I found a beauty today, and I'll send her over to Chief Zhang."
The young man's eyes lit up when he looked at the disheveled girl with her eyes closed in Lu Cijian's arms.
Although they were quite far apart, he could tell that the girl had fair skin, a beautiful face, and a supple figure; she was a lovely girl.
"Oh my, this girl is really good. If Chief Zhang is satisfied, you'll have done a great job."
Butler Chen was extremely anxious and tried desperately to signal to the person above him, but the person wouldn't even look at him, making him so frustrated that his eyes were about to cramp.
Just as he was about to risk warning the other party, a cold voice rang out behind him, "Make him open the door, quickly."
As he spoke, he lightly sliced the dagger into his back. The slight sting instantly brought him to his senses, and he said in a cold sweat, "Open the door for me, I'll take this girl in."
The young man just smiled and said, "What's the rush? What, you want to try it too?"
As he spoke, his gaze turned to the girl again.
Without much suspicion, he reached out and felt around on the high wall a few times. The originally tightly closed stone door trembled a few times and then slowly moved to both sides.
Upon seeing the stone door open, Steward Chen disregarded the dagger behind him and rushed inside, shouting, "Help!"
The young man was startled. Because of the sound of the stone door opening, he didn't quite hear Butler Chen's voice clearly, but seeing him rushing inside as if his life depended on it, he realized that something was wrong and immediately tried to close the stone door.
However, the next second, a curved dagger flew towards his neck and pierced straight in. His eyes widened instantly, and he fell to the ground without making a sound.
Butler Chen was also knocked unconscious by Lu Cijian.
Jiang Yimian glanced at the people on the ground and said to Wang Er, "You take care of things here, let's go inside first."
Wang Er responded and promptly threw Steward Chen and the man's corpse into the woods to hide them. He then changed into the clothes of a young man, sat back on the wall, and looked around listlessly with his head down, appearing no different from before.
Jiang Yimian and Lu Cijian entered the stone gate and walked inside.
Inside the stone gate was a dark, spacious cave, but there was hardly anyone there at the moment. It was unclear whether they were overconfident in the stone gate or for some other reason.
The two passed through the cave and arrived at the entrance. Light from outside shone in instantly, and they could hear panicked sounds from not far away.
"That mine collapsed again, and there are still many people inside. What are we going to do now? Several mines have collapsed in a row."
"What can we do? It's none of our business. Let's hurry to another mine."
"Who wants to go now? If this mine collapses, we'll all die."
"That's right, didn't you see the few lucky people who were dug out just now? They were covered in blood, and some of them were missing half their bodies."
Suddenly, all around were cries and groans, creating a noisy scene, and the situation didn't look good.
Hearing the noise, a burly man lashed out with his whip, lashing at the crowd and yelling, "What are you shouting about? Is this your first day at the mine?"
"Hurry up and go dig in the other mine. If you don't dig enough today, you're not eating, you hear me?"
After saying that, he lashed out at the crowd several more times with force.
Seeing that the ragged men had even more bloodstains on their bodies, the others dared not make a sound.
Those who were originally reluctant to go down into the mine had no choice but to go to another mine that was still in relatively good condition.
The burly man was finally satisfied, seeing that everyone had gone down into the mine.
He then glanced disgustedly at the blood-soaked, half-dead people on the ground, and pointed irritably at the people digging in the collapsed mine shaft: "What are you digging for? Those people are dead, so be it. New people will come in a few days. Why worry about so much?"
"Why don't you get rid of these people right now? They're an eyesore and a real nuisance."
The men quickly responded and dragged the corpses off the ground into the woods.
The burly man didn't leave. He casually called out to someone, "Go and tell the leader what's going on here. Quite a few more people have died, and we probably don't have enough manpower."
The man responded and ran off.
Satisfied, the burly man walked toward the intact mine shaft and roared at the people inside, "Get back to work and dig faster, or you'll be dead."
After saying that, he walked toward the thatched hut not far away.
Inside the thatched hut, a number of people were chatting and laughing, shirtless, seemingly unaffected by the recent mine collapse. They were even joking and laughing at each other, spewing all sorts of vulgarities.
Suddenly someone said, "Hey, I saw Zhang leading a group of people transporting away a batch of things the other day. What was that? Was it iron ore that was mined and just taken away?"
The people in the thatched hut were all taken aback and lowered their voices, saying, "Who knows what it is? We'd better not get involved. We might not even know what happened if we die."
"That's right, don't mention this stuff. And don't even think about asking around. If you see something you shouldn't, you're as good as dead."
The group changed the subject and started talking about the girl who had been brought up the mountain a few months ago.
"Tsk, you know what, those girls were really pretty, and they must have been quite a fun time with them. It's a shame they're dead."
"Absolutely, it's really bad luck. I heard she died in the leader's bed. How scary! The leader hasn't let his men send any girls up the mountain for the past few months. We don't know when we'll be able to eat any meat."
The group spoke without restraint, as if the earlier chaos had never happened.
Looking around the mine, the once noisy place suddenly fell silent, with only occasional faint cries for help and the sounds of hammering coming from inside the mine.
Jiang Yimian frowned, looking at the blood-stained ground not far away, which had been covered with a thin layer of soil, and the blood-stained footprints were slowly being buried by the sand. She felt a little uneasy.
This has been the case in the mines for the past few years; it seems no one cares about the miners, and even death is treated lightly.
She dared not think about how many people had died here, or how many families had been destroyed.
She never cared about these things before, but after spending time with Wang Fengqin, Xiao Ye, Xiao Nuan'er, and the people in Xiaowadi, she realized how precious family ties were and that she had something she couldn't let go of.
Her empathy improved dramatically, and she didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing for her.
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