"Did you find anything?" Qi Minglin asked as she came over.
"No, this place doesn't seem to resonate with me. I don't feel anything special about it," Chen Feng said, looking around.
"Let Uncle Li take samples first. We don't think we've ever taken samples here before," Qi Minglin said after recalling for a moment.
Li Guanghao squatted on the ground, shoveling left and right, and finally sighed and shook his head slightly.
"No, the soil here is exactly the same as before, there's no trace of rare earth elements at all."
He spoke as he walked back.
"If there's nothing there, let's go somewhere else," Qi Minglin said as she got back into the car.
Several people got into the car, and the car drove forward another five or six hundred meters before stopping after going up a small hill.
Chen Feng got out of the car and glanced around. Various notification sounds were constantly ringing in his ears, but unfortunately, none of them were what Chen Feng wanted.
Li Guanghao wanted to take the equipment and do a proper test, but before he could get down, Chen Feng pushed him back.
This place won't do, let's find another one.
"Hey, but I haven't been tested yet," Li Guanghao said, bending over as Chen Feng pushed him directly into the car.
"I don't feel anything, so what's the point of testing? It's a waste of time anyway. Driver, keep driving." Chen Feng said as he closed the car door.
And so, Chen Feng and his group drove until noon.
"What should we do at noon? Should we rush back to the camp for lunch, or wait until evening?" Qi Minglin asked, glancing at the time.
“It’s not worth rushing back, as it would take at least two hours to go there and back.”
"Is there nothing in the car?" Chen Feng asked.
"There are some spare pots and pans in the car, as well as some noodles and such."
"How are we going to cook this? Right here?" Qi Minglin asked honestly, somewhat incredulous.
Qi Minglin certainly didn't know how to build a stove and cook; she had never done this job since joining the team.
"There's a pot and noodles, why bother eating right here?"
"Chunlai, go get the pot, prepare to build a stove and start a fire to cook." Chen Feng waved his hand and went to find some stones.
"Okay." Li Chunlai told the driver to open the trunk and quickly started picking through the items.
Finally, he brought out a large pot, four bags of instant noodles, and a bundle of dried noodles.
“We only have a pot, not a stove. Where are you going to put it?” Qi Minglin reminded her.
"Didn't Brother Feng say that if you're going to build a stove to cook, you'll definitely have to build it on the spot?"
"If you can, gather some weeds to start a fire later," Li Chunlai said, putting the pot on the ground.
Watching Li Chunlai walk away, Qi Minglin couldn't help but feel speechless.
How come I, as the team leader, can command just anyone?
However, given the current situation, Li Chunlai is right. Let's all work together and not worry about who's the team leader.
Qi Minglin and Li Guanghao went to weed, and the driver took an axe out of the car to chop firewood.
Chen Feng and Li Chunlai returned shortly afterward, carrying a lot of stones in their arms.
And so, the two of them built a makeshift stove and put the pot on it.
Qi Minglin and Li Guanghao returned at this moment, each carrying a large bundle of dry grass.
"It's all set up now. Won't it slide down by itself in a bit?" Qi Minglin asked with some doubt, looking at the makeshift stove.
Although she was in an exploration team, Qi Minglin had never experienced such a life before. No matter how harsh the conditions were, she had never worried about food.
They had a special vehicle that was full of supplies: pots, pans, simple stoves, and even a lot of smokeless charcoal.
When did she ever start building a stove right in the wild like this?
"Don't worry, you won't slide down," Li Chunlai assured him, then took a bottle of mineral water from the car and poured most of it into the pot.
Lay dry grass at the bottom, then put some dry branches on top.
Li Chunlai lit it several times with a lighter, and the fire gradually started to burn.
To be honest, Qi Minglin found this scene quite interesting. She had always heard them say things like that, but she had never experienced it herself.
"Back in the day, we were just like we are now, carrying some dry food, teacups, and water with us."
"When we got really hungry around noon, we would sit together, build a fire, boil water in a teapot, and sometimes we could even drink some tea."
"Then I would bite into the hard, dry food and eat it like that. Back then, being able to drink some hot tea at noon felt really good."
"Look at your conditions now, they're something we couldn't compare to back then."
"In the wild, we could at least have meat every two days. Back then, we didn't even have enough tea to drink. We had a monthly quota."
"Once you've finished drinking, you can only drink water. Want some tea? Let's talk about it next month."
Upon seeing the burning fire, Li Guanghao couldn't help but reminisce about the past. Perhaps due to his age, he always liked to talk about things from the past.
"Times have changed now," Li Chunlai said as he added firewood.
"Why do you guys know this skill? Are you building stoves and starting fires now?" Qi Minglin looked at Chen Feng and Li Chunlai curiously.
"Are you kidding me? When you're panning for gold in the wild, there aren't many convenient options for you. If you don't prepare your own equipment, are you going to eat bread every day?"
"For us gold prospectors, that was simply the most basic skill."
"It's no big deal at all," Chen Feng said nonchalantly.
"Of course, it's just that we don't need it now. If we could, we could show you what we used to carry in our vans."
"With that set of equipment, you could survive in the wild for half a month without any trouble," Li Chunlai said proudly.
“Isn’t that similar to what we have now? Except we have a ready-made simple stove, no need to build anything, we can just take it out and use it.” Qi Minglin said, pursing her lips.
"That's a huge difference. When we go out to pan for gold, we're nothing like you guys, where you get paid for work and travel, and even have tents to sleep in."
“We all slept in the car, seven or eight people crammed into one car, tsk tsk, you can imagine the scene without me having to describe it,” Li Chunlai said, continuing to add branches into the stove.
"Then why don't you buy tents? Buy two tents, at least that would ensure you have enough space to sleep," Qi Minglin asked, puzzled.
"Grandma, that's easy for you to say. There's already not much space in the car, and you're buying two tents. There's still not enough space."
“Every time we set off, we had to carry the supplies and food we bought in our arms during the worst times, because we had to eat them in time to finish them, otherwise we wouldn’t even have a place to sleep at night.”
"We're here to make money, so we'll do whatever it takes to save money. Every penny counts," Li Chunlai said as he started adding noodles to the boiling water.
Upon hearing this, Qi Minglin did not speak, but sat down with a hint of emotion in her eyes.
She had indeed grown up in privileged circumstances and was unable to truly understand what life was like for ordinary people in the countryside.
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