After hearing my arrangement, Song Laosan looked at me with some suspicion: "Do you really think my waiting here will be effective?"
"If my deduction is correct, those people are definitely trying to find a way to break through the blue clay anti-theft layer. Once they figure it out, they will continue to dig. As for whether they will dump more stolen soil here, it is hard to say. However, judging from their previous dumping of soil here, this possibility is still very high."
I looked into Song Laosan's eyes and replied frankly, "You don't need to feel that I'm doing this to get rid of you. Qu Ruilin and Wei Shennan will be here soon. I believe that when they see the situation here, they will make the same choice as me."
"You misunderstand. I didn't mean to distrust you; otherwise, I wouldn't have told you this news first."
Old Song wanted to say something, but after hesitating for a moment, he finally just nodded: "I know that after we were in the Far East, you no longer trust me. Once Qu Ruilin and the others arrive, I won't be able to provide you with any more information. You'll have to rely on yourself to find out what happens next. Take care of yourself."
"the same as you."
I threw a sentence at Song Laosan, and then led Jiang Man and the others, leaving the valley along the same route we had come from.
Jiang Man looked at the dense forest around her and said in a low voice, "You just said you wanted to explore the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, but the monkey in charge of digging the tunnel has disappeared. We don't have the relevant personnel or equipment here either. Should I contact Jin Tu Mining and ask them to send another batch of professionals over?"
I shook my head: "No need. I was just saying I was going to explore the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace for Song Laosan's benefit. We don't need to dig our own tunnel. We just need to find the people who did the work before."
"Are you worried that once Wei Shengnan and the others arrive here, they'll find those people before we do and ruin the plan?"
Jiang Man shook her head: "I think the team that can come here at this critical juncture and start looking for the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace is definitely not an ordinary person. Wei Shengnan and the others may not succeed. The most important thing is that only the Black Robe Organization has the key to the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace. Apart from them, the progress of other teams is lagging behind ours. If the ones doing the work are not the Black Robes, I don't think we need to contact them."
“I don’t think the people dumping soil in the valley are actually in black robes, but finding these people is very important to us.”
Before Jiang Man could ask anything, I took a few small stones out of my pocket and handed them to her: "Look at these."
Jiang Man took the few small white pebbles from my hand and looked at them: "These are just ordinary stones, what's the secret behind them?"
I explained, “These are quartz stones, with a Mohs hardness greater than 7, while iron has a hardness of only 5. These stones themselves are nothing special, but they have all been cut into pieces, and the cut surfaces are very clean.”
Jiang Man shook her head: "I still don't understand. These stones were dug out from underground. When the people digging the tunnel encountered the stones, they naturally had to remove them."
"Ordinary Luoyang shovels are made of iron, and even the higher-end ones are made of high-strength alloy steel with a Mohs hardness of around 6. When facing quartz stone, this kind of Luoyang shovel can at most crush it; the cross-section of the stone will not be so smooth."
Jiang Man seemed to understand what I meant: "Did you discover something through these stones?"
"When we were in Fengmen Village, I gave Monkey a set of tomb raiding tools made of meteorite iron, which is much harder than alloy steel! Judging from the traces of tomb raiding in the valley, the soil was dug out by hand. I have only ever seen a set of tools that can cut quartz so easily."
I continued with my analysis: "I suspect that Monkey and his team were likely captured by another team, and for some reason, the other team chose to make Monkey work for them! Another possibility is that Monkey deliberately showed off his skills to save his life."
"If your guess is correct, this is indeed good news."
Jiang Man breathed a sigh of relief: "The monkey helped them dig to the mud layer, which has already demonstrated its ability. The fact that those people did not dump the soil afterwards means that they have not yet come up with a solution. Since the work is not finished, the monkey is still of use to them."
"That's all I was thinking, which is why I made an excuse to leave the valley and go find the monkeys."
As I spoke, I led the way out of the woods: "After Song Laosan tells Qu Ruilin about the soil theft, they will definitely start searching as well. If they find the monkey beforehand, we'll be at a disadvantage."
Jiang Man frowned slightly: "You just rescued them from the black-robed men today! They wouldn't be so ungrateful, would they?"
As I walked, I said, "The chicken head among the three treasures was taken from us, while we took the sheep head from them. The relationship between the two sides can no longer be defined by a single standard! Even if they coerced me into joining through the monkey, this is not the outcome I wanted."
Jiang Man, walking beside her, raised another question: "Currently, only the Black Robe and we, who obtained the replicas, have obtained the Three Treasures Keys. But Miao Xiaoxian only told you about the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace being located at the foot of Qingyun Town. Why are there other teams here?"
“Recently, countless teams have ventured into the mountains of Qingyun Town. It’s inevitable that some people will stumble upon the problem here by chance. The information provided by Miao Xiaoxian only led us astray, but it doesn’t mean that everyone else is a good-for-nothing.”
As we spoke, we had already left the woods, and outside we were still an endless expanse of mountains, stretching out under the night sky.
Looking at the continuous mountains in front of her, Jiang Man felt overwhelmed: "Song Laosan just said that he has already sent people to search the mountains within a two-kilometer radius. What should we do next? Should we start searching from two kilometers away, or search again?"
"Song Laosan's previous saying was correct: the Shang and Zhou dynasties were located on both sides of the river, while the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods were buried on the mountaintops. But we don't need to go to the mountaintops to investigate."
I shook my head: "When those people were exploring the tomb before, they must have started from the top of the mountain. But after digging down to the mud layer, the method of removing the top was no longer useful. Next, they would definitely try to enter the tomb from other directions and determine the scope of the tomb. If it were me, I would definitely dig a water channel halfway up the mountain to drain the blue clay inside. So they will definitely move towards the foot of the mountain. If we follow the valley forward, we will definitely find traces of these people."
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