The moment he gripped the Type 81 rifle with both hands, Wang An suddenly had the illusion that "with a gun in hand, the world is mine."
At the same time, Wang An felt his entire body instantly wrapped in an omnipresent sense of security.
After a moment's thought, Wang An felt the hand grenade hanging from his lower back.
It had to be said that although a grenade was just an iron ball wrapped around explosives, the feeling Wang An had while holding it now was not at all inferior to the feeling of holding a "Big Snowball" while doing the deed with a woman on a kang bed.
To be honest, that kind of security, satisfaction, fullness, and most importantly, the sense of firm control, was truly intoxicating and addictive.
After touching the grenade, even the last shred of trepidation deep within Wang An's heart vanished without a trace.
All of this made Wang An suddenly realize that when facing danger, all fear and panic actually stem from insufficient firepower. As long as one's firepower is invincible, any fear or panic is fucking nothing but a joke.
Holding the gun with both hands, Wang An flipped off his horse and ran toward the ridge, trying his best not to make a sound.
Just as Wang An's head cleared the highest point of the ridge, he came to a halt.
The reason he stopped running was that the scene in the distance had entered his line of sight.
Furthermore, he could faintly hear the "rumble rumble" of the rock-crushing machinery in his ears.
Less than two li from the ridge where Wang An stood was a large valley.
Calling it a valley might be slightly inaccurate, as a valley is typically a narrow depression between two mountains—essentially a mountain hollow with a stream running through it.
Therefore, the place before Wang An's eyes should be described as a properly large depression, or perhaps a small circular valley.
This depression was surrounded by mountains on all four sides, with a small lake in the center. However, the lake did not look deep and was a freshwater lake.
A freshwater lake is one where water flows down from upstream into the lake, and once the lake is full, it overflows.
Evidently, the water overflowing from this lake flowed exactly through the area where Wang An and the others had been panning for gold.
Right beside this small lake, thirty or forty people were working around two machines. Surrounding these thirty or forty people were four men holding guns, keeping watch over them.
Further away from these people, on the half-slopes surrounding the depression, several tents had been set up.
Some of the tents had armed men pacing back and forth at the entrances, but the gazes of these armed men were all fixed on the group of laborers.
From the non-uniform attire of these gunmen, it was not hard to tell that this was a gang of ruthless men whose business was stealing minerals—specifically, illegally mining gold.
Of course, this kind of illegal mining was a very common phenomenon regardless of the time, place, or type of mineral.
This phenomenon was simply called "running a black mine."
And those working under the muzzles of the guns were a group of laborers forced to come here for various reasons.
Actually, laborers working in the open air like this were considered relatively lucky.
The truly miserable ones were those forced to mine coal.
Once you entered a black coal mine, you would never leave in this lifetime; that was truly no exaggeration.
Digging coal all day in a pitch-black deep shaft, eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, and sleeping all underground, while worrying about cave-ins, gas leaks, and groundwater surges...
One could imagine what a wretched situation that was.
To be honest, Wang An was familiar with such scenes, because in his previous life, while he was "squatting by the fence," he had done this kind of work.
Of course, in terms of treatment, Wang An had been slightly better off than the laborers before him.
After all, the management was different. The gunmen before him were acting as pure bandits and tyrants; it was perfectly normal for the laborers to die.
Back when Wang An was involved, the "fence" side didn't dare let personnel suffer casualties lightly.
As Wang An observed closely, he saw one of the four gunmen swing the butt of his rifle and smash it down onto a laborer who was carrying ore.
After a few blows from the rifle butt, the laborer was smashed flat on the ground, motionless.
At that moment, another gunman walked to the machine, slung his gun over his shoulder, and splashed a bucket of water over the laborer.
Stimulated by the cold water, the laborer jolted awake and stood up. He gathered the scattered ore back into the basket and carried it toward the machine.
Wang An knew why the laborer had been beaten; it was simply because the laborer's speed in carrying the ore was a bit too slow.
In reality, no one could maintain a fast pace indefinitely during heavy physical labor like carrying ore into a machine.
Physical strength was one factor, but most importantly, these laborers never had enough to eat at every meal.
The reason the laborers weren't fed wasn't that these illegal miners were stingy and wanted to save grain, but rather that they *could not* let the laborers be full.
Some might ask: if it's not about being stingy or saving grain, and they need them to work, why not let the laborers eat their fill? Isn't it true that only after eating enough can one do more work?
The reason was actually very simple: humans cannot be starved, because when a person is desperate with hunger, they will go mad and turn to cannibalism.
However, humans also cannot be too full. If a person is too full, they will start trying to cause trouble.
For example, trying to escape into the deep mountains and forests, or taking advantage of a guard's lapse in attention to beat them to death, or teaming up with a few others to stir up some commotion... and so on and so forth.
Therefore, if one wanted to maintain firm control over these laborers, they had to be kept in a state of semi-starvation.
Not full, but not starving to death, and forced to work all day to exhaust the resentment in their bodies. Over time, these laborers would fucking lose all will to think of anything else!
It had to be said that these ruthless illegal miners had studied human nature quite thoroughly!
While Wang An was observing everything, the Short-Tailed Fox patted Wang An's thigh with its front paw, warning him once again.
Wang An looked at the Short-Tailed Fox and saw it looking toward a dense forest.
Wang An immediately followed the fox's gaze but saw nothing.
However, Wang An believed that the Short-Tailed Fox would not act without cause, so he quickly turned around, led his horse, and walked into a thicket.
After waiting in the thicket for a long time, just as Wang An was about to lose patience and go out to check, he actually heard indistinct voices coming from outside the brush.
Thus, Wang An held his breath and began to listen intently.
It had to be said that the Oroqen horse was truly impressive; at such a critical moment, it didn't even let out a single snort.
However, after Wang An finished listening to what they were saying, he was instantly drenched in a cold sweat.
(End of Chapter)