81: Coal mine accident, accident

The mining lamp swayed back and forth in the tunnel.

Shen Bei and the others began to officially clear the tunnel.

Rotten sleepers, dilapidated chute troughs, rolls of conveyor belts, piles of anchor bolts…

Shen Bei and the others, like ants, slowly cleared away the debris.

This tunnel was not long.

Only about three hundred meters.

The seven workers also cleared it at a decent pace.

After all, in such a dark environment, it truly tested the endurance of the laborers.

After about three hours.

All large objects in the tunnel were cleared.

Only some coal piles on the floor remained, needing to be leveled.

Everyone started to rest for a while.

In this environment, conversation was essential; once there was no sound, people would unconsciously fall into a state of wanting to sleep.

They were all men, and their conversations inevitably turned to women.

Li Quanyou, despite being a foreman, was actually one of those who were irreconcilably opposed to gambling and drugs.

He was quite excited, and with his hands spread open, grasping at the air, he said with a lingering expression, “I’ve been with university students before.”

“Oh, Boss Li is quite cultured,” a laborer chimed in with a grin.

Li Quanyou coughed, “I only have a high school education.”

Everyone said “Oh” in sudden realization.

Li Quanyou said again, “The elasticity of that butt, tsk tsk… At that time, my brain completely crashed, I couldn’t think at all, my mind was just filled with throwing money at her, even if I went bankrupt, I had to be with a university student once, willingly dying from exhaustion for her.”

Shen Bei stroked his chin and said thoughtfully, “The person who wrote ‘to die beneath the peony, even as a ghost, is romantic’ probably did it for the pleasure, not to die from pleasure.”

“However, the butt determines the head, the butt has two halves, and the head also has two halves, who can still think when they see a beautiful butt?”

“Boss Li is a man of passion.”

Li Quanyou gave a thumbs up, “Exactly, great minds think alike.”

“You all say, a man’s life is only about these two things,” Li Quanyou talked non-stop, “One is making money, and the other is making money to play with women. And look at the internet, the atmosphere is unhealthy, there are always some who call themselves ‘little fairies’ jumping out, criticizing men, saying things like ‘a portion of men’s brains turn to color every 7 seconds.’”

Li Quanyou raised his voice here, “What the hell are they talking about? How would she know what I’m thinking? Isn’t that slandering people?”

Everyone responded in kind, with only one assessment of Li Quanyou: a passionate foreman.

Just then.

A group of people walked in from outside the tunnel.

Generally speaking, workers' mining lamps are worn on their heads for convenience, but this group of people all held their mining lamps in their hands.

Li Quanyou immediately stood up with a rustle, “Everyone up! The red-hatted mine leaders are here!”

Sure enough.

Those who came were all mine leaders wearing red hats and white scarves.

In strictly regulated mines, workers' hats are usually black, and leaders' are red.

To distinguish status.

After all, working underground, there's a lot of dust and sweat.

Their faces would be as black as coal, making it impossible to tell who was who.

“Leaders inspecting the work, are they?” Li Quanyou said with a ingratiating smile.

One of the middle-aged men shined his mining lamp on Shen Bei and the others and asked, “Are these your workers? Weren’t they stuck at Shanhai Pass?”

“This…” Li Quanyou chuckled, “We’re rushing the project, so I hired a few people to come over, just for cleaning work.”

The middle-aged man heard this and showed no expression, “Pay attention to safety. Not just anyone can enter the mine. They are only allowed to clean, no other work.”

“Yes, yes, yes, understood, Leader.”

“Don't let it happen again.”

The mine leaders didn't make things difficult for Li Quanyou. They walked around the tunnel for a while, discussed construction standards, and precautions for installing the roadheader, then left.

After seeing off the mine leaders.

Li Quanyou sighed a few times, “This leader is a Third-Rank Martial Artist.”

“Ah?” Shen Bei was stunned for a moment, “A Third-Rank Martial Artist working in a coal mine?”

Li Quanyou said, “You don’t understand this. Everyone has their own aspirations. Martial Artists are distributed across all industries, especially state-owned enterprises. Without some pressure, how can you manage people?”

Shen Bei smacked his lips, thinking that what Li Quanyou said was indeed correct.

Everyone has their own aspirations.

A Martial Artist doesn't necessarily have to join the army to fight cave monsters.

They can also shine in other industries.

“Why don’t you ask if I’m a Martial Artist?”

Li Quanyou straightened his back, seemingly preparing to show off.

Shen Bei looked at him strangely, “You’re also a Martial Artist?”

“That’s right!” Li Quanyou released his Qi, looking proud, “A First-Rank Martial Artist! Otherwise, why would I be able to contract this project here? You know, among those who competed for this project, there was even the brother-in-law of the electromechanical mine chief, but I directly overpowered him!”

“Didn’t you say you didn’t go to university?”

“I didn’t get in back then,” Li Quanyou regretted, “Later, I made some money and achieved it by consuming Medicinal Pills.”

Shen Bei nodded.

So he was a societal Martial Artist.

Shen Bei realized that the natural status of a Martial Artist was truly superior.

Contracting projects was a bonus.

After chatting idly for a while longer, the laborers resumed their work.

About half an hour later.

Shen Bei was squatting down, leveling the floor.

And cleaning up the coal slag on the tracks.

Just at this moment.

A slight tremor occurred beneath Shen Bei's feet.

The rumbling sound was not loud at first.

But after being transmitted through the empty tunnel, the sound expanded invisibly.

Like the floor was tearing apart.

The laborers were startled, standing still and at a loss, shouting:

“What’s that noise?”

“Why is the floor shaking?”

“It’s not an earthquake, is it?”

“No way, right?”

…

At this moment, Li Quanyou calmly waved his hand, “It’s nothing, it’s probably other working faces inside blasting.”

Only then did Shen Bei and the others relax.

Blasting in a coal mine is an important production method.

It generally involves drilling holes in the coal face, then filling them with explosives for blasting, to break out coal slag, which is then cleared, forming a tunnel and advancing the working face inwards.

However, with the increase in mechanized production, and explosives being controlled by the state, coal mines rarely use this high-risk production method.

But when encountering rocky working conditions where the roadheader's efficiency is low, blasting is the only option.

“Let’s continue working.”

Li Quanyou urged.

No sooner had he spoken.

There was a sudden loud bang at the mouth of the tunnel.

The roof collapsed with a roar.

Large amounts of rubble and coal slag fell, forming a blockage hundreds of meters long!

“Holy crap!”

Li Quanyou stumbled backward, roaring hoarsely, “Stop working! Everyone stop! The roof has collapsed!”

Without him saying anything, Shen Bei and the others, who were within two hundred meters of the tunnel, were equally stunned.

They… were trapped inside!

Li Quanyou stared at the tightly blocked tunnel, his heart sinking, “What kind of engineering quality is this? The anchor bolts in the roof aren’t working?”

Li Quanyou, fearing another roof collapse, pulled a few laborers back, finding a spot with better roof conditions to stay.

The laborers, having never experienced such a thing, immediately started shouting:

“What do we do? I don’t want to die!”

“We’ve really had terrible luck to encounter something like this!”

“Are we just going to wait here?”

“Self-rescue, we need to self-rescue!”

“Dig, let’s dig our way out!”

“Don’t panic, everyone, don’t panic,” Li Quanyou kept saying, “The mine has a rescue team, and the mine leaders know we’re working here, they’ll come to rescue us immediately. For now, don’t move around, rescue takes time, conserve your strength.”

Shen Bei’s mouth twitched.

Was his luck really that bad?

…

Lingnan City.

National Seismic Monitoring Agency.

The piercing alarm blared throughout the entire building.

Dazzling red lights flashed rapidly.

The staff on duty, who had been snoring loudly, suddenly jolted awake, raising their heads sharply to look at the monitoring computer screen.

At this moment, he still looked bewildered, “Huh? Is there a fault in the operating equipment?”

In this staff member's understanding, Lingnan City had never experienced an earthquake; it was a geomantically favorable place that guaranteed good harvests regardless of drought or flood.

Facing the sudden alarm, his first reaction was that the detection equipment had made a mistake.

He tried to make the System self-diagnose.

But the System could not execute the command at all, repeatedly popping up earthquake warning boxes.

They couldn't be turned off.

“Holy crap!”

This staff member finally realized that it wasn't an equipment malfunction.

But that Lingnan City had experienced an earthquake!

“This is bad!”

He practically fell to the ground, then scrambled back up, his face contorted with fear and panic as he ran towards the director’s office.

“Earthquake! Earthquake! Earthquake!”