Chapter 44 - 44 Emptied Silver Mine
She did not immediately return to the passage but instead observed her surroundings carefully. It was indeed strange.
This place should have had people, at the very least there should have been guards.
However, upon further thought, she realized that if there were guards, the secret might have leaked even faster.
After ensuring the area was clear, she went back to the passage enveloped by layers of stone pillars and forests.
She then discovered that this place was indeed complex and hard to find; if she hadn’t made some marks earlier, she might not be able to find it now.
Swiftly returning to the dimly lit passage, Qi Yue inspected it once more and unexpectedly found another triangular stone button hidden in the stone wall.
After a moment’s thought, she directly pressed the hidden button.
The designer of this passage had clearly been meticulous; the visible button was but a decoy, perhaps even linked to traps!
She wasn’t going to be fooled!
With several “clicks,” a stone door indeed split open in the stone wall beside the button.
Compared to the outer passage, the space beyond the door was much narrower.
Qi Yue directly took out a lamp-equipped hat from her space and put it on her head.
The lamp was sound-activated, making it perfect for moving in the dark.
At first, Qi Yue was worried about encountering people, so she moved with extra caution.
There were plenty of signs of recent activity in the passage, but no one was there.
Qi Yue guessed that these people were either on a collective holiday or they had all changed shifts or something.
After about ten minutes without seeing anyone, she confidently dashed forward.
Before long, the path came to an end. Not one to give up easily, Qi Yue fumbled around the wall for a while and discovered another stone door.
Pressing it with a practiced move, and as the door opened, Qi Yue was stunned by the scene before her.
There really was silver.
The room in front of her, about 20 square meters in size, was neatly stacked with silver bricks of identical size.
The silver bricks were about the same size as the bricks used in building houses in her previous life.
She really had struck it rich!
Qi Yue hugged one of the bricks to inspect it and almost burst into laughter.
These silver bricks were freshly smelted, without any markings, brand new.
Collect!
With a lift of her hand, a roomful of silver bricks disappeared in an instant, all transferred to Qi Yue’s spatial storage.
Lighting the lamp to inspect, Qi Yue found no other connections in the stone room and reluctantly retreated back to the original entrance.
In just the time it took two sticks of incense to burn, Qi Yue had made a fortune and felt slightly inflated with pride. She furrowed her brow, pondering.
Generally speaking, silver mines don’t exist in isolation; they’re accompanied by other substances such as copper, lead, zinc, and gold.
The gold would certainly be recognized by these people, but the rest might not be reclaimed, and those were valuable materials!
If only she could find some ore as well.
She wondered where they might have stored the ore; in this ten-mile radius, she hadn’t found any slag or waste material?
Unable to resist, Qi Yue reached out for that button placed in plain sight.
Before pressing it, she steeled herself mentally.
She only pressed it after devising a plan to deal with possible ambushes.
After a series of heart-stopping clicks, an open stone door revealed a pitch-black cavern.
Qi Yue didn’t rush in immediately but instead scrutinized the opening with meticulousness.
With her space’s high-powered flashlight, she could see everything clearly without entering.
It was a naturally formed cavern, the floor covered with piles of pitch-black rocks that seemed numerous.
Qi Yue stretched out her hand, used her will to control the space, and collected a few rocks into it, then pulled them out to examine.
Upon inspection, her heart surged with joy.
These were silver ores of subpar quality that indeed would be somewhat difficult for the people of this era to refine.
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But these things couldn’t stump Qi Yue.
As someone proficient in medicine and poison, she often dealt with various chemical elements in nature. In her eyes, these waste ores contained a lot of copper and zinc and could be made into alloys.
With alloys, many things became possible.
Knives and swords were just the basics—she might even be able to make something else!
With a wave of her hand, she took all the items in the cave into her spatial storage!
Looking at the piles of ore in the warehouse, Qi Yue was delighted.
The person who created this passage probably never imagined that their decoy would actually be of value!
Suddenly, something strange among the rocks caught her attention.
Qi Yue flashed into the spatial storage and grabbed one directly.
“Poison arrows?”
A dark wooden shaft capped with a gloomy black arrowhead.
Qi Yue used her consciousness to control the space, quickly taking out those poison arrows and tossing them aside.
There were nearly 500 of them.
That was more than enough to take down a large elephant.
So ruthless!
Though these poisons were child’s play for Qi Yue, if someone else stepped in carelessly, they’d be lucky not to be dead or crippled by now.
Even someone skilled could hardly avoid being hit.
Luckily, the perpetrator was arrogant and didn’t place poison arrows in the stone house where the silver was kept; otherwise, she would have been done for.
Qi Yue felt a chill run through her scalp and immediately left the passage, burrowing into the hillside.
It was about time to catch a few rabbits and report back.
The rabbits in her space were breeding like crazy; Qi Yue directly picked out six.
She had considered hunting some wild chickens for chicken soup, but upon seeing that the chickens didn’t look at all like wild ones, Qi Yue simply took off her jacket and gathered several dozens of eggs to take back instead.
Before she even reached the camp, Shen Yu had already come up to greet her from afar.
“Yueyue! You’re finally back; Mother has been worried to death.”
Qi Yue showed off her catch, grinning from ear to ear.
“I’m fine, didn’t I return laden with goods?”
“You,” Shen Yu said with an affectionate glare, taking the rabbits from her hands, “haven’t been gone this long before!”
Qi Yue touched her nose guiltily.
“I had a big haul today.”
She lifted the chicken eggs in her hands, “I was gathering wild chicken eggs, that’s why I was delayed!”
Shen Yu was initially delighted.
“Ah, so many wild chicken eggs, Zhonglan will surely have plenty of milk!”
But upon realizing that the eggs were wrapped in clothing, she quickly glanced at Qi Yue.
Seeing that she was indeed without her jacket, Shen Yu hurriedly pulled her aside.
“Yueyue, wait, let’s take out the eggs and put your clothes back on before we continue.”
In Beiyuan, it was a major taboo for a woman to walk around without her outer garment, and she would be subjected to slander and ridicule.
Qi Yue was aware of this.
However, her character had always been such that she didn’t care what others thought; she did as she pleased.
But she typically heeded Shen Yu’s words and complied.
This woman, although nominally her mother-in-law, was more like the mother she’d imagined.
Kind and nagging, a soft call of “Yueyue” always made her heart melt.
Shen Yu found a broken pot to store the eggs, incessantly rambling as she did.
“Yueyue, you mustn’t do this again. Mother doesn’t want those people to speak ill of you. But since their mouths are on their own faces, Mother is powerless; she can’t sew them shut, so she can only nag at you instead.”
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