Lin Nian lowered his head and reached out to pick up a handful of silt. Through the sunlight shining underwater, he could see tiny yellow particles scattered throughout.
"Wow, this is real stuff! I can practically see gold dust with my naked eye." Lin Nian's eyes gleamed with excitement.
“These stones are piled up here, blocking all the gold sand flowing down from upstream. There must be a lot of it,” Li Chunlai said with a smile.
As Lin Nian spoke, he hugged the vacuum tube and began to suck up every bit of silt from the beginning until the hard riverbed underneath was exposed.
"Wow, this is real stuff! Fengzi, look!" Huang Fei called out to Chen Feng from beside the gold-panning ship.
The gold-digging boat's troughs were constantly trapping gold dust, and the amount of gold was visibly increasing.
"That's more like it." Chen Feng looked at the golden sand and smiled with satisfaction.
In his imagination, this money-making ship should be this fast; it was too slow before, completely disproportionate to his expectations.
After the money-absorbing ship was sprayed with mud and sand for a while, it started spraying clean water, and Lin Nian's voice came through the headset.
"Brother Feng, put the basket down, we're done sucking."
"Okay." Chen Feng instructed Chen Jianguo to lower the frame down for them.
Once they received the frame below, they started working together to move stones inside.
"Get up!" Chen Feng shouted.
A basket of stones was hoisted up and brought to the ground. Chen Feng and Huang Fei then adjusted the rope, and Chen Jianguo hoisted it up again to empty all the stones.
"Damn, thank goodness this car can seat five people. If it were only four people, we couldn't do this job," Huang Fei said, lifting a rock with force.
The stone was much heavier on the shore than in the water, and he grimaced as he tried to move it.
"I should have brought your steamed buns," Chen Feng said with a smile, putting down the stone.
"Of course, if there were a dozen or so people, this work would be much faster," Huang Fei said, patting the mud off his hands.
"It's a pity, our mine can't pump anymore, otherwise there really won't be anyone to lead the work." Chen Feng tied the rope and waved his hand, and Chen Jianguo put the basket down again.
They worked like this for several hours until the two people underwater were too exhausted to continue, and then they came up.
"Quick, get me a bottle of water." Li Chunlai climbed ashore, took off his helmet, and sat down on the ground.
"Here you are, big brother. You've worked hard." Huang Fei scurried over with two bottles of drinks and handed them to Li Chunlai and Lin Nian.
They gulped down more than half the bottle in one go.
"Don't rush, take a break and we'll talk later. My dad went to cook, we'll get back to work after we eat." Chen Feng took out a cigarette and offered it to the two of them.
"This is really tiring today. Why are there so many rocks underwater? Why weren't they there at the front?" Lin Nian said, puzzled.
“All the rocks from the front are heading this way, so how could there not be a lot here? The most important thing is how much we’ve gained. Let’s not have wasted our time. We saw quite a few underwater,” Li Chunlai asked, looking up.
“Quite a lot, it’s overflowing with gold. Let’s calculate it all together tonight,” Chen Feng replied.
"It's good if there's some, but I'm afraid it'll be a waste of effort if there isn't much." Li Chunlai took a deep breath and lay down on the ground.
Half an hour later, the meal was ready, and everyone sat around the table to eat. It was clear that everyone was tired today, as no one spoke much.
"I'll go down in a bit. Whoever gets tired can rest up there for a while," Huang Fei said, wiping his mouth.
"I'm fine, you should rest," Li Chunlai said to Lin Nian.
“I’m not tired either, you should rest,” Lin Nian said.
Neither of them felt comfortable staying up there, so Chen Feng smiled and asked, "How about I go down and you two stay up there?"
"You're kidding me."
"You're kidding me."
Lin Nian and Li Chunlai said in unison.
Everyone knows that Chen Feng is not a very good swimmer, so no one would let him go in. Actually, Chen Feng doesn't resist, but every time he mentions going into the water, no one will let him, so he stops insisting.
"Can't I go down?" Chen Jianguo said.
"You'd better stop now. If you go down there, who's going to operate the crane?" Chen Feng said, waving his hand dismissively.
"Hey, that thing isn't difficult at all. It's just a few simple things. I'll teach you, and you'll be able to learn it in an hour," Chen Jianguo said casually.
"Forget it, you should operate the crane. If you can't, you two can take turns, one person working for a while, until it gets dark." Chen Feng told Li Chunlai and the other person not to refuse.
“Okay, I’ll go first, you can take over for me later.” Li Chunlai nodded and stood up to get to work.
The group arrived at the riverbank and began putting on their diving suits. When Li Chunlai went into the water, he also dragged the cage down with him.
"What do we do? Just move them in and throw them in?" Huang Fei asked, standing at the bottom of the water.
"Wait a minute, I'll turn the cage to its side, and we'll move it together. It'll save us some effort." Li Chunlai finished and gestured for him to come over and help him.
After carrying seven or eight pieces in a row, Li Chunlai spoke into his headset.
"Brother Feng, you can start pulling now."
"good."
Chen Feng stood on the shore and waved to Chen Jianguo on the crane. Chen Jianguo nodded and started the machine.
After being moved back and forth several times, the money-absorbing ship began to spew out mud and sand.
"I can work for another three hours." Chen Feng glanced at his phone and then looked up at the sun.
"Brother, can we make as much as we did yesterday? I want to break 200,000 again," Lin Nian said expectantly.
"Who knows? But I have a bad feeling about it. We've wasted a lot of time today," Chen Feng said, shaking his head as he estimated.
And so, Lin Nian changed shifts once in the middle of the day and worked until sunset.
"Come on up, you won't be able to see it in a little while," Chen Feng said to the microphone.
"Right away, wait until I finish sucking this piece," Lin Nian replied underwater.
About ten minutes later, Huang Fei and Lin Nian surfaced together.
"Come on, the food's all in the pot. Sit down and rest for a bit," Chen Feng told them not to rush.
"Indeed, I need to rest for a while, this is too tiring," Huang Fei said, sitting on the ground and wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Chen Feng went and collected all the gold dust from the gold-absorbing ship himself, then carried a bucket back and waved it in front of them.
After a long day, isn't this what I've been waiting for?
Everyone looked at Chen Feng's plate without saying a word, and Li Chunlai went to retrieve the small scale himself.
Chen Feng sifted out all the gold in no time, dried it with paper, and placed it on the electronic scale.
"Let me calculate. Don't rush. After deducting losses, multiply by 400, and the total is over 183,600."
"We only worked for half a day, and we still made 180,000?!" Li Chunlai exclaimed in surprise.
"Holy crap, 180,000?" Lin Nian sat up abruptly upon hearing this.
"Damn, you didn't miscalculate, did you?" Huang Fei said in surprise.
"No, how could I have miscalculated? If you don't believe me, I'll calculate it again." Li Chunlai said, pressing the button again, but the result was still the same.
"My God, I thought we'd be lucky to get 120,000 or 130,000 today, but I never expected it to be this many." Huang Fei's eyes were filled with disbelief.
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