31: Chapter 31: Just a few steps away from getting rich quick

The bed frame in the inn felt exceptionally hard tonight, and the pillow had a slight musty smell, yet Li Xin slept very soundly.

He was truly exhausted. The journey from Shenzhen to Kunming, from Kunming to Tengchong, and then from Tengchong to this border town—more than two days of rushing around, plus an entire day of trekking over mountains—was a bit too much, even for his body, which had been modified by the System.

He woke up once during the night.

Outside the window, the faint, shimmering silhouette of the moon was vaguely visible in the sky. Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting a grayish-white glow on the floor. Occasionally, the barking of dogs drifted from afar, only to fall silent again.

He turned over, groggily thinking about tomorrow's route before drifting back into a deep sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, the sky was already beginning to brighten.

He picked up his phone and checked the time: 6:10 AM.

He didn't linger in bed, throwing off the covers and sitting up. He put on his slippers and prepared to head to the bathroom to wash up.

The water from the tap was ice-cold; splashing it on his face made him shudder, but it was very refreshing.

After washing up, he packed his things and changed his clothes. He dressed more plainly today. A gray-blue jacket and black trousers—both bought in the town yesterday—cost less than a hundred yuan in total.

He strapped on his bamboo basket, changed into a new pair of liberation shoes, and pulled his straw hat lower.

He stood in front of the mirror and took a look; he looked even more like a local than yesterday. He walked out of the inn at an unhurried pace.

The morning in the small town was very quiet.

There was almost no one on the streets, only a few breakfast shops were open, and the aroma of food wafted from afar. He went into the same small restaurant as yesterday, ordered a bowl of ersi, added a braised egg, and slurped it all down, instantly feeling warm all over.

When paying, the owner asked him, "Heading into the mountains again today?"

"Yeah, going to look around some more."

"Be careful. I heard the Patrol Team caught two people trying to smuggle themselves across the border last night."

Li Xin's heart tightened slightly, but his face remained calm as he said, "I won't go that way; I'll just wander around nearby."

"That's good."

After leaving the restaurant, he wandered around the town again and bought some necessary supplies at a grocery store, mainly water and snacks. He stuffed these items into his bamboo basket and covered it with a piece of cloth so it was impossible to tell what was inside.

Most of them were tucked away into his storage space when no one was looking. He only left a bottle of water and a few snacks in the basket, making it light and effortless to carry while walking.

Everything was ready, so he followed the same path as yesterday, heading south.

He left the town, crossed the wooden bridge, and went up the mountain.

The air in the mountains in the early morning was fresh, with birds chirping one after another. Dew hung on the grass by the roadside, and his pant legs were wet after walking for a while.

He didn't walk fast, planning things in his mind as he went.

He would head southwest today. According to the distance on the map, he would need to cross at least two mountains and walk for three or four hours to reach the true uninhabited area. Once he got there, he would use the System to Scan carefully.

When he reached the spot where he had encountered the Patrol Team yesterday, he stopped and looked around. There was no one.

He continued moving forward.

After walking for about another hour, he arrived at a fork in the road. Yesterday, he had gone southeast, but today he turned southwest.

This path was narrower, steeper, and the bushes were denser.

In some places, there was no visible path at all, and he could only rely on his instincts to move forward. He used his engineer shovel to push aside the branches and weeds blocking his way, inching forward step by step.

As he walked, the System suddenly popped up a notification.

It wasn't the usual notification for finding gold, but a message he had never seen before.

[Ding... System Reward Notification!]

[Host's continuous exploration behavior detected. Cumulative walking distance has exceeded 50 kilometers, demonstrating firm determination in exploration. Explorer Reward issued:]

[Reward Content: A large gold mine signal has been detected approximately 20 kilometers southwest of the host's current location. This gold mine has not been discovered by any geological exploration agency, has no mining records, and has no owner.]

[Estimated gold content: Over 50 tons.]

[Note: This is a reward notification, not a mandatory task. The host may decide whether to proceed based on their own circumstances.]

Li Xin stood halfway up the mountain, still gripping the engineer shovel, completely stunned.

Twenty kilometers away.

In the southwest direction.

Over fifty tons; this must be the gold mine he was looking for here.

He slowly squatted down, stuck the engineer shovel into the ground, and took out his phone to open the map. He zoomed in on his current location and swiped twenty kilometers to the southwest.

The map showed a continuous mountain range with no roads, no place names, and no markings of any kind. A few more kilometers to the southwest was the national border.

That location was deep in the vast mountains on the China-Myanmar border.

There was no human habitation, no roads, not even a decent mountain trail.

But the System said there were over fifty tons of gold there.

Li Xin put his phone away and took a deep breath.

Fifty tons of gold, at current gold prices, was worth about two billion US dollars. That was almost 13.5 billion RMB.

Now, he just needed to walk there, place his hand on the ground, and he could get 13.5 billion.

As this thought circled in his mind, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up.

However, he quickly calmed down again.

Twenty kilometers of mountain road was not the same as twenty kilometers of flat road.

In Shenzhen, you could drive twenty kilometers in twenty minutes. But in a place like this, twenty kilometers might mean crossing three or four mountains, traversing several rivers, and it might not even be possible to reach it in a whole day.

Moreover, that area was close to the national border, so the Patrol Team would definitely check more strictly. He might even encounter armed personnel coming from the other side.

He had to think clearly about how to go, how to return, and how to deal with any trouble he might encounter.

Li Xin stood up, put the engineer shovel into his storage space, and took a drink from a bottle of water he took out of his bamboo basket.

He stood on the hillside, looking toward the southwest.

The distant mountains were layered upon one another, becoming blurrier the further they were, finally disappearing into the morning mist. In that direction, fifty tons of gold were hidden.

He gritted his teeth and decided to continue.

Since he was already here, he wouldn't be satisfied if he didn't find that large mine.

He put the water bottle back into the bamboo basket, shouldered it, and continued walking southwest.

The mountain path became increasingly difficult to walk. Sometimes there was no path at all, and he had to crawl through bushes. Thorns tore his pant legs, dew soaked his clothes, and he almost slipped several times when his liberation shoes stepped on wet, slippery stones.

But Li Xin did not stop.

The physical modification the System had given him came into play at this moment. Although it was very hard walking, his stamina remained good, and his heart rate and breathing were steady. If it were the old him, he would have collapsed after walking on this kind of road for two hours.

After walking for about another hour, the System suddenly pinged.

[System: Gold reaction detected. Location: Directly ahead, straight-line distance approximately 750 meters. Estimated gold content: approximately 800kg.]

Eight hundred kilograms.

Another small gold mine.

Li Xin felt a slight joy. Although it wasn't the fifty-ton major mine, 800 kilograms of gold was not a small amount; at current gold prices, it was worth over 200 million RMB.

More importantly, this gold mine was right on his route. It was on the way, no detours.

He quickened his pace and continued moving forward.

After walking for about twenty minutes, he arrived at the edge of a small, low-lying mountain hollow, where the ground was covered with weeds and bushes.

He stopped, looked around, found nothing unusual, then squatted down and placed his hand on the ground.

"System, Collect."

[Collecting... Collection complete. A total of approximately 32 tons of gold ore collected, estimated gold content: 0.8 tons.]

[Refine?]

"Refine."

[Refining... Refining complete. Obtained gold: 0.8 tons.]

[Cumulative gold refined: 9.0757 tons.]

Eight hundred kilograms of gold, instantly obtained.

Li Xin stood up, patted the dust off his hands, and couldn't suppress the joy on his face.

Compared to that fifty-ton major mine, this was just a small fraction, but even mosquito legs are still meat.

Putting away his joy, he hummed a little tune as he walked forward.

After walking for about another hour, he crossed the first mountain.

Standing on the mountaintop, he took out his phone and checked it. The signal was already very weak, only one bar, and the map wouldn't load. He could only judge the direction based on memory and continue walking southwest.

The path down the mountain was even harder to walk than the path up; the slope was very steep, there were many loose stones, and one careless step could lead to a fall. He walked down cautiously, sometimes simply squatting down and using his hands to support himself while sliding down.

After descending the mountain, there was a dry riverbed. The riverbed was full of stones, big and small, which hurt his feet as he walked.

He walked southwest along the riverbed. After about half an hour, the riverbed took a turn, and a dense forest appeared ahead.

The trees were very tall, their branches and leaves blocking out the sun. The light in the forest was very dim, the air was humid, and there was a smell of rotting leaves.

He stood at the edge of the forest and hesitated for a moment.

In this kind of dense forest, it was easy to get lost. Moreover, there must be snakes, insects, rats, and ants in the forest, and maybe animals like wild boars.

But the direction he needed to go was on the other side of the forest.

He gritted his teeth and pushed inside.

The forest was very dark, and it took a while for his eyes to adjust before he could see his surroundings clearly. The ground was covered with thick fallen leaves, which felt soft underfoot; he didn't know what was underneath.

He walked very slowly, using his engineer shovel to probe every step first, confirming it was safe before stepping down.

After walking for about twenty minutes, he heard rustling sounds ahead.

He stopped and held his breath.

The sound got closer and closer.

Then, a wild boar emerged from the bushes.

It wasn't big, about a hundred catties, with black bristles standing up and two tusks exposed in its mouth.

The boar also saw him, stopped, and twitched its nose a few times, seemingly judging whether the thing in front of it was edible.

Li Xin stood still, his hand slowly reaching toward his engineer shovel.

Man and boar stared at each other for a few seconds.

The boar snorted, turned around, and dived back into the bushes, disappearing.

Li Xin let out a long breath.

He continued moving forward.

After walking for about another hour, he finally emerged from that dense forest.

The view suddenly opened up before him; it was a relatively open hillside. The hillside was covered with wild grass and low shrubs, and he could see the ridge line in the distance.

He took out his phone to check the time; it was past two in the afternoon.

From the morning until now, he had been walking for nearly seven hours.

He found a shaded spot to sit down, took a bottle of water and a pack of compressed biscuits out of his bamboo basket, and ate slowly.

After finishing his food, he stood up and continued moving forward.

After walking for about half an hour, he suddenly stopped.

On the hillside ahead, a few plants caught his attention. He walked over to take a look; it was Paris polyphylla.

Truly wild Paris polyphylla.

He squatted down and used his engineer shovel to carefully dig out the rhizomes, putting them into his bamboo basket. It wasn't to sell for money, but to keep up appearances. In case he ran into people, having a few real medicinal herbs in his basket would be more convincing.

After digging up the Paris polyphylla, he continued moving forward.

The sun slowly moved westward, and the clouds on the horizon were dyed orange-red.

He checked the time; it was already five in the afternoon.

From the morning until now, he had walked for nearly ten hours. Calculating by distance, he should have walked more than ten kilometers, getting closer and closer to that gold mine's location.

But he couldn't keep going forward.

It was getting dark, and he needed to find a place to spend the night.

He found a relatively flat spot on the hillside, surrounded by several large rocks that could block the wind. He took a tent and sleeping bag out of his storage space and set them up quickly.

The tent was just big enough for one person to lie down. He sprinkled a circle of snake repellent powder around the outside of the tent. Although he wasn't afraid of snakes, seeing them was still quite creepy, so he had bought it before coming. It had been sitting in his storage space unused, and today it finally came in handy.

Everything was ready, and it was already dark.

He crawled into the tent, zipped it up, and turned on his flashlight.

He took out a portion of braised pork rice he had bought in Tengchong from his storage space; it was still hot. Time in the System's storage space was frozen; whatever he put in, it remained the same when he took it out.

He ate while planning tomorrow's itinerary in his mind.

Today's harvest was good; he had collected 800 kilograms of gold on the way, bringing the cumulative refined amount to 9.0757 tons. He was still 0.9243 tons short of the next upgrade.

But tomorrow was the main event.

According to today's progress, if he walked for another three or four hours tomorrow, he should be able to reach that major mine location the System mentioned. Find the fifty-ton gold mine, collect it, and then head back.

If everything went smoothly, he could return to the town the day after tomorrow.

After finishing his meal, he put the trash into his storage space and turned off the light.

Outside the tent, the mountain wind howled, and occasionally the cries of some unknown animal could be heard.

He lay in his sleeping bag, closed his eyes, and opened the system panel in his mind.

[Gold Search and Refining System 2.0]

[Host: Li Xin]

[Current Level: 8]

[Detection Range: 990 meters]

[Cumulative gold refined: 9.0757 tons]

[Gold required for next upgrade: 10 tons]

[Note: 0.9243 tons of gold remaining until upgrade.]

Tomorrow, as long as he found that fifty-ton major mine, the upgrade would be an easy matter.

He said this silently to himself, then drifted into a deep sleep.