Chapter 33, Thirty-Third Mine
With such serious external threats, it's impossible for the regent to be truly oblivious. With such a purse in hand, no matter how much he dislikes it, he has to use it.
Lu Huantang wanted to reach out and pat Jiang Linzhi's head, but before he could do so, Jiang Linzhi rolled up his sleeves, crunched on a fried bone, and said with determination, "One money bag is gone, I'm going to find a new one."
This place is located in the northernmost part of Sui State. It is summer, and the mountains and rivers welcome us, while the green waters send us off from afar, making the spring scenery even more beautiful.
When Lu and Jiang met up with the exploration workers behind several hills, their encampment was surrounded by blooming crabapple and morning glory flowers.
After seeing so many vibrant red flowers in the capital, these flowers are exceptionally refreshing and pleasing to the eye.
The mine shaft had been dug quite deep, but still nothing was found. This was the third such attempt in the past six months, and everyone was both anxious and exhausted.
Of course, except for Jiang Linzhi.
Inside the tent, Jiang Linzhi held a talisman, her eyes closed as she chanted incantations. She sat in the center of the floor, wildflowers spreading in from outside, rapidly climbing up her enormous floral brocade skirt to her waist. From a distance, it looked as if many small flowers were clustered around a large flower.
An even more miraculous thing happened: the talisman slowly rose up and burst into flames out of thin air. The fire burned for a long time, yet the paper remained intact, and the writing was still clearly visible.
More and more flowers bloomed, their fragrance grew stronger, and they wove together a dense carpet.
Jiang Lin waved his hand, pinched the talisman between two fingers, and used the light left by the flame to write an ancient and complex character in the air.
Finally, Jiang Linzhi extinguished the fire with a flick of her wrist, crumpling the talisman into a ball and throwing it into the brazier. She turned around, slightly startled, but didn't scream; she just patted her chest and said, "That scared me to death."
Jiang Linzhi glared at her, but she wasn't intimidating at all; she looked like a fox that hadn't woken up yet.
Lu Huantang was just teasing Jiang Linzhi. Seeing the reaction he wanted to see, he said slowly, "The Regent Prince didn't want me to gain a foothold on the border, so he made me a Marquis of a Thousand Households and left me idle."
Jiang Linzhi gave a soft snort and said, "He's used to using underhanded methods, but you must have a solution before you told me."
It's so comfortable talking to smart people. Lu Huantang said, "Of course, we can't let Miss go to her troubles."
Jiang Linzhi sat in a chair, looking up at the sky, and sighed, "It's true what they say, you only realize how little you know when you need it. I'm not good at this at all. I got the first few divinations wrong. Don't have too high hopes for me. I guess it will take a few more months."
Lu Huantang looked down at her and suddenly said, "Miss should go out for a walk. Don't miss the chance to make the crabapple blossoms outside feel ashamed of themselves."
Those were utterly sweet words, alluring yet subtle. Jiang Linzhi paused for a moment, then pursed her lips.
Just as Lu Huantang was about to feel smug about his seductive skills, Jiang Linzhi burst into laughter. Because he was tilting his head back, he choked on his saliva while laughing, and then he bent over and coughed, snot flying everywhere, looking quite embarrassed.
Lu Huantang was speechless and heartbroken. He patted Jiang Linzhi's back with a little more force, venting his frustration and dissatisfaction, but still handed him a tissue and asked, "Feeling better?"
Jiang Linzhi wiped his mouth and nose, slumped into his chair, and couldn't bring himself to smile. "Come to think of it, this is the first time you've ever said something like this to me. I feel... I'm flattered, hahaha. No wonder all those girls like it, hahaha. I like it too, hahahaha—"
There wasn't a trace of liking in them; it was clearly mockery!
After she finished laughing, Lu Huantang asked without changing his expression, "Are you going or not?"
"Will you come with me?" Jiang Linzhi smiled, her eyes glistening with tears. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at Lu Huantang, innocent and adorable, making it impossible for anyone to refuse.
Lu Huantang reached out as if possessed, and before he knew it, his hand was already beside Jiang Linzhi's face. He came to his senses, straightened Jiang Linzhi's earring, and said, "You used the Soul-Capturing Technique well. Practice it more."
Jiang Linzhi hooked her arm around his waist and stood up, their breaths mingling. "So, do you like it?"
Their relationship had progressed rapidly, and it would be impolite to keep playing along. Just as Lu Huantang was about to speak, someone came from outside to report that there were no mineral deposits in the area.
Without a second thought, Jiang Linzhi blurted out, "Ten miles south, continue!"
"Is Miss so confident this time?"
Jiang Linzhi chuckled, his eyes filled with amusement and madness as he looked up. "Let's make a bet. If I guess right this time, you'll marry me. If I guess wrong, I'll give you two boxes of snuff bottles, how about it?"
Lu Huantang had previously escorted five carts containing fifty boxes of snuff bottles, accounting for one-fifth of the total official transport volume. Jiang Linzhi bet two boxes on it just to make a bet; that's not just being generous, it's downright wasteful!
Regardless of winning or losing, Lu Huantang will get closer and closer to the secret of the snuff bottle, and he has no reason to refuse.
The whole group headed ten miles south.
The surveyor rode alongside Lu Huantang, his face full of anxiety, and said, "If this continues, our manpower and financial resources will be severely depleted. We can't just listen to the young lady's divination; the master should also give us more advice."
"Didn't we come here because we discovered there might be a mineral deposit?"
"Miss found this while flipping through a book. It says that a hundred years ago, a certain place on Guanshan Road was covered with copper grass flowers," she said calmly, but her dissatisfaction and sarcasm were evident between the lines. "Where are there so many copper and gold mines? They must be out of their minds."
Lu Huantang found it amusing that the unreliable Jiang Linzhi had forced so many people around him to say so much, but he couldn't laugh out loud. He could only say to the prospector in a good mood, "Listen to her one last time. If there's still nothing, I'll send her back to the capital. Thank you for your hard work."
Standing on the mountaintop and looking south, ten miles away lay the hills behind Guanshan Village. The exploration workers had already set up their equipment the next day.
Returning to the familiar place, Jiang Linzhi got up exceptionally early. She found a wooden stick and climbed the hill alone.
Looking out, in the dim morning light, the patches of tender green and pinkish-white in Guanshan Village are not as bright as they are during the day, but they still give people a sense of vitality.
Jiang Linzhi was exhausted. She sat on a rock, rubbing her sore and numb calves, and plucked a forsythia flower to suck out its nectar.
"Pah!" Jiang Linzhi spat it out instantly. This wasn't winter jasmine at all; it was forsythia. The taste lingered in his mouth for a long time. Jiang Linzhi suddenly asked into the air, "Did you bring water?"
Lu Huantang emerged from behind the bushes, handed over a water pouch, and said, "You knew I was here?"
Jiang Linzhi rinsed his mouth with water and said, "My meridians are all severed, but I haven't lost all five senses. It's normal for me to hear a living person walking, isn't it?"
Something was wrong. Lu Huantang was incredibly skilled in light-body techniques, able to walk as silently as a leopard. Suspicion began to creep into his mind.
An awkward silence enveloped the two of them. Lu Huantang broke the silence first, saying, "If a mine is discovered later, Guanshan Village can become rich and won't have to work so hard farming anymore."
Jiang Linzhi said, "Their village will be expropriated and become a place for miners to live. It will become a town where people will make a living by mining. This may be the next nameless village."
This had nothing to do with him, but the people of Guanshan Village were simple and kind, and Lu Huantang felt a little reluctant. He clenched his fist, thinking that he should give the person who obtained the mining rights a good talking to.
Jiang Linzhi seemed to have seen through his thoughts again, "There is a place called Mengyu in the southern border of Wu, where there is a large jade mine. Mining jade is very dangerous; out of ten people who go, only one returns, but there are still plenty of people who go to carry jade. Compared to farming, the reward for carrying jade is too high, and we can't stop them."
Lu Huantang could always glean other key points from her words. She seemed to know more about the customs and culture of Wu than he did, so he tentatively asked, "Have you been to Wu? Did you like it there?"
"It's all the same, Wu and Sui are the same. With money and power, you can live well anywhere. There is no true utopian society; it's all about the struggle for desires. The same goes for medicine. There isn't a single person who can cure my meridians." Jiang Linzhiping looked down on every country.
Jiang Linzhi stretched out her arms, holding the water bag horizontally. In less than two breaths, her arms began to tremble. Jiang Linzhi sighed, put down the water bag, turned her head and smiled brightly, "I'm out of strength. I need to trouble you to carry me down."
Waiting for the result was agonizing. Lu Huantang didn't want to stay down there doing nothing, so he simply carried Jiang Linzhi on his back and climbed up the highest point of the mountain.
The path was treacherous, and Lu Huantang deliberately slipped several times to scare Jiang Linzhi, but Jiang Linzhi held him loosely and was not frightened at all.
Even when they were intimate, even when Lu Huantang felt that Jiang Linzhi was the woman who best suited his taste, there were moments when he felt that he really didn't understand Jiang Linzhi.
She didn't care about fame, she didn't care about life or death, and...
They don't care about love.
Without thinking, he tightened his grip on her legs to prevent her from falling.
It wasn't until the sun was too strong that Lu Huantang carried Jiang Linzhi back to the camp. As soon as Jiang Linzhi's feet touched the ground, someone came to report: "Reporting to Miss and Sir, we have gone through more than three zhang (approximately 10 meters) in the three mine shafts, but have not found any ore."
Lu Huantang was somewhat disappointed; if they couldn't dig any more out, the road ahead would likely be even more difficult.
“If we go down another ten feet, and there’s still nothing…” Jiang Linzhi said calmly, “the Jiang family really only has snuff bottles as their money bag.”
The mine was already very deep; even if there was ore further down, it would be difficult to extract. But Jiang Linzhi had given the order, so no one dared to say anything.
The last ten feet was the hardest; without this mine, everything that followed would be castles in the air. To break the slump, Lu Huantang changed the subject, saying, "Let's rest for a bit. Your injury from last time hasn't fully healed, has it?"
The last time Lu Huantang was injured was when he was still at the border. Jiang Linzhi didn't mention it in her letter. She lowered her eyelashes, smiled, and agreed, then teased, "Are you afraid you'll become a widower before your wedding is even over?"
Lu Huantang said with ease, "I'm afraid that if I have two women on my left and one on my right, the ghost of my deceased wife will come back to settle scores with me."
Jiang Linzhi was overjoyed. "Don't worry, it won't happen."
Years later, when Lu Huantang dreamt of no one, he always remembered the expression on Jiang Linzhi's face when she said those words. He always regretted that he should have let her into his dreams; mutual torment was better than the loneliness of the deep night.
In fact, it was exactly the same expression Jiang Linzhi had when he said "I'd give you my life" during their first encounter. Lu Huantang just thought it was a flirting tactic and never looked closely.
He was so fake that he began to believe that everyone else was fake too.
"By the way, where did you find your surveyor?"
"I just picked him randomly. I heard he used to be a tomb raider."
Does it matter?
"Looking for minerals is not important; not finding them is what really matters."
Lu Huantang understood.
Time passed slowly. The servants picked a lot of forsythia flowers and placed them next to Jiang Linzhi to help her pass the time. She picked up a flower and sucked on the nectar, leaving her mouth with a sweet taste. Just as she was about to find some other amusement, the head surveyor came over with a cold face.
An ominous premonition washed over him, but Lu Huantang stood calmly before Jiang Linzhi and asked, "How is it?"
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