Wang Shuai was not wrong at all when he said it was hard to dig; Wang An had experienced it firsthand.
Because the roots of the Dianthus were like ropes—both resilient and incredibly strong—and the ground beneath them was a mixture of soil and stones of various sizes.
As the Dianthus grew, its roots threaded back and forth through the soil between the rocks.
Consequently, the entire ground was bound together by these roots, forming a single, massive slab of mixed rock, mud, and root fibers.
One could imagine just how sturdy such a slab would be.
Therefore, finishing one hole per hour was actually not slow at all.
But then again, as long as the money was right, forget a mud-slab—even if it were an iron plate, they would have to break through it!
Before Wang An could speak, Wang Shuai continued with excitement on his face
"Based on current gold prices, let's not even talk about eight-point-five yuan per gram; let's just count it as eight. With this, every one of us could become a ten-thousand-yuan household in a single day. This is way better than flipping those second-hand machines, hahahaha..."
Wang Shuai's words resonated with Wu Dong, Zhang Shuya, and the others, and they all began to laugh along.
Wu Dong chimed in, "Exactly! Why bother flipping equipment anymore? Whenever we have time, we'll just come mess around with some gold. Now that's satisfying."
Ma Guoqiang's eyes practically sparkled as he said
"I reckon this job is great. Why bother working a regular job for a few measly pennies?"
Hearing this, Wang An didn't contradict them. According to the trajectory of history, this gold mine wouldn't be discovered and reported until around '95.
In other words, if nothing unexpected happened, they could pan for gold here for over a decade.
However, gold panning couldn't be a full-time profession; being able to pan once a year was actually quite good.
The reason was that during the rainy season, the river water inevitably surged. Trying to pan for gold in a river with such rapid and deep currents would be a joke; it was simply unrealistic.
Furthermore, the gold dust in the gold pockets wasn't infinite; it required time and a process to accumulate.
Of course, if they found the gold vein, that would be a different story—but the prerequisite was that the vein had to be a surface deposit. Otherwise, relying on these ten people to mine it would be utterly ridiculous.
As for the situation of finding "gold rice" in this Dianthus field, to be honest, it was a pure fluke. The very existence of this gold-bearing Dianthus field had already overturned Wang An's understanding of things.
Thinking of this, Wang An said with a smile to Wu Dong and the others
"If you ask me, Brother Wu, you guys should still keep doing what you usually do. Keep the second-hand equipment business running normally; the money isn't that different anyway, and it'll come back sooner or later. Let's just treat this gold panning as a windfall."
Following that, Wang An shared the thoughts he had just had with Wu Dong and the others.
Once Wang An finished, He Liang frowned and said
"So, you're saying we need to find the gold mine, and then it would be best to get some mining equipment. That way, as long as the season is right, we can keep panning for gold, right?"
Wang An thought about it for a moment, then nodded
"Yeah, you could put it that way. But if we do that, it becomes proper 'mine theft.' If anything goes wrong, the nature of the crime changes. By then, if you guys can't cover it up, it'll be a huge problem."
Wang An's words were very realistic, and He Liang, Wu Dong, and the others instantly fell into a state of conflict.
After all, everything requires a trade-off. While gold panning brought money quickly, if it resulted in an unsolvable disaster, it wouldn't be worth the cost.
Seeing the conflicted group, Wang An said with a smile
"Let's just mull this over slowly. It's almost dark; let's head back and eat some *you-zi-la*. We finished processing all that meat this afternoon, so we probably won't go hungry this month, hahaha... Oh right, the four of us moved the camp over here."
The moment they heard there was *you-zi-la* to eat, everyone immediately tossed their worries aside.
"The road will appear when the car reaches the mountain; the boat will straighten when it reaches the bridge." Thinking too much was useless.
As for moving the camp, not a single person even asked about it.
As they talked, everyone held their small cloth bags of gold and followed Wang An back. There was no need to bring back the pickaxes and shovels, so they left all the tools in the Dianthus field.
A few minutes later, they returned to the camp.
By this time, Feng Chengmin and the other two had already started the second pot of oil. The previous batch of *you-zi-la* and oil had been packed into several long, bark-made boxes.
While eating the *you-zi-la*, they pooled today's harvest together.
The amount of gold dust remained the same, but the "gold rice" had increased significantly.
Despite the delay caused by Da Xiong's strike, Wu Dong and the five others had still harvested 6 catties and 3 liang of gold rice in one afternoon!
Adding the 6 liang plus that Wang An dug in the morning, the group had harvested a total of 6 catties and 9 liang of gold rice and 2 catties and 2.5 liang of gold powder in one day, not counting the gold nuggets in Wang An's hand.
Calculating at the 8 yuan per gram rate Wang Shuai mentioned, that was a total of over 72,000 yuan!
72,000 on the first day, averaging 7,200 per person. It had to be said that gold panning was truly a venture of immense profit.
Looking at the substantial harvest, happy smiles appeared on everyone's faces.
Looking at the gold in the cloth bags, Wang Shuai suddenly said to Wang An
"Xiao An, you're too considerate. You thought of us for such a lucrative business..."
But before Wang Shuai could finish, Wang An interrupted him
"Stop, stop, stop, Brother Wang. Let's not say things like that in the future. When you say that, I feel like our relationship has been for nothing."
After Wang An spoke, Zhang Shuya shouted at Wang Shuai
"Why are you being so melodramatic? Don't try that set of lines with my brother. If you keep showing off, do you believe I'll kill you?"
It had to be said that while Wang Shuai's words were sincere, they sounded a bit awkward.
The main issue was that Wang Shuai had used the word "us."
The moment that "us" came out, Wang An clearly noticed the expressions of Wu Dong, He Liang, Ma Guoqiang, and Sun Nian stiffen for a moment.
Fortunately, thanks to the timely intervention of Wang An and Zhang Shuya, Wang Shuai immediately realized it was inappropriate to put it that way, so he apologized repeatedly
"My bad, my bad. What on earth am I talking about."
However, Wang Shuai's previous words made Wang An suddenly realize a problem: although the relationship between these six people was very close, there were disharmonies among them.
Mainly, among these six, there had never been anyone who was the true leader.
But thinking about it, it was normal; even biological brothers have disputes, let alone childhood friends!
(End of Chapter)