Li Xu didn't set out immediately. Instead, he thoroughly researched information about Dragon Bone.
He started with professional books, which contained simple drawings and methods for identifying Five-floral Dragon Bone.
The crudest forging technique involved corroding a stone with strong acid to make it look like a fossil, a fake that could be detected with a phenolphthalein solution.
But Li Xu's goal this time wasn't to tell real from fake.
It was to find actual fossils among ordinary stones.
So, what he needed was a way to identify fossils.
The most straightforward method was observation.
If a stone had a skeletal texture, it could generally be confirmed as Dragon Bone.
Once he had the method down, Li Xu called Song Sisi. "I have to go out for something today, so the clinic will be closed. I'm giving you the day off; no need to come in."
Afterward, he grabbed his phone and some water and boarded a bus headed for Shanyang County.
Shanyang County was a county administered by Feng City, famous for its abundance of bluestone.
Mopan Mountain, in particular, was the main quarrying area for bluestone.
Bluestone is a hard sedimentary rock, often used in construction and sculpture.
And Dragon Bone, as it happened, were fossils that formed in sedimentary rock.
However, according to Li Xu's research, there were no prior records of Dragon Bone being excavated in Shanyang County.
The area wasn't known for its Dragon Bone deposits.
Otherwise, the quarry owner would have surely recognized it.
'Perhaps hundreds of millions of years ago, a single elephant or rhinoceros was buried there by some twist of fate and became a fossil...' Li Xu speculated.
Other Dragon Bone sites in the country were concentrated deposits.
They were entire fossil beds formed from the mass deaths of ancient animals.
Large quantities could be excavated from them.
...
An hour later, he arrived in Shanyang County.
Mopan Mountain was in Zhengpo Town, a part of Shanyang County. Li Xu asked around and learned there was no direct bus route there.
He decided to just hail a taxi.
"Driver, Mopan Mountain, please."
"Whoa, the road out there is rough. I can't use the meter. It's a flat rate of 40. Get in if that's fine with you; otherwise, you'll have to find another car."
"All right, 40 it is."
Li Xu couldn't be bothered to haggle.
The taxi left the town and headed south.
Li Xu soon found out what the driver meant by a "rough road."
Shanyang County had a thriving stone industry.
The roadside was lined with stone-processing businesses. Some produced slabs and building materials, while others carved various statues.
The entire county road was choked with dust.
But that was the least of it. The road was used by many heavy trucks hauling stone, so it was riddled with potholes.
It was impossible to drive fast, and the ride was incredibly uncomfortable.
The 10-kilometer trip dragged on for over twenty minutes.
"Driver, do you know of Hengchang Stone Co., Ltd.?"
"Never heard of it."
"All right, I've transferred the payment."
"Got it. Here's my card. If you can't find a ride when you're ready to leave, give me a call. I'll come get you. I'll only charge you 60."
"Thanks, driver."
Li Xu took the card and got out of the car.
A cloud of dust immediately hit him in the face.
Li Xu hurriedly covered his mouth and nose. 'I forgot to bring a mask.'
He looked around.
He was in the middle of nowhere, with no place to buy one.
He could only bite the bullet and head up the mountain.
Mopan Mountain was huge, stretching for over five kilometers.
The spot where he'd gotten out was a fork in the road.
One way was the main county road; the other was a path leading up the mountain.
'Damn...'
After walking for a bit, Li Xu began to regret letting the taxi go.
'How am I supposed to know where Hengchang Stone Co., Ltd. is?'
'If it's on the other end of the mountain, does that mean I have to walk over five kilometers?'
'I'll go ask around. If that doesn't work, I can just call for another car.'
Li Xu walked for over ten minutes.
Halfway up the mountain, there was a sheet metal shack.
Behind the shack were clear signs of quarrying.
Seven or eight workers were busy at work there.
Li Xu hurried over to ask, "Excuse me, do you guys know where Hengchang Stone Materials is?"
A portly middle-aged man poked his head out of the shack and pointed to a sign on it. "This is the place. What do you need?"
Li Xu smiled. 'My luck is pretty good,' he thought. He'd found it without much effort at all.
He already had his excuse ready. "I want to build a rockery in my yard, so I'm looking to buy some stones. Someone recommended your company."
"Oh, you're here to buy stone."
The portly middle-aged man's attitude warmed up. He came out of the shack and pointed to a large area behind them. "These are all freshly quarried. I'll show you around. See if there's a piece you like."
"Sounds good."
Li Xu followed the portly man to a large pile of stones.
The stones came in all sizes.
The large ones were just a bit taller than a man, while the small ones were the size of millstones.
They were all irregularly shaped.
"Take a look. See anything you like? We can also shape them for you, but that's an extra fee," the portly man said.
"What kind of stones are these?"
"Mostly bluestone, but there's a bit of granite too. A combination of the two is perfect for making rockeries."
"Got it."
Li Xu nodded. "You can go back to what you were doing. I'll look around for a bit and call you when I've picked something out."
"No problem."
It wasn't like anyone could steal these stones anyway.
The portly man readily agreed.
Li Xu clambered up and down the stone piles, searching carefully.
Half an hour went by quickly. He had searched through nearly every pile of stones but had come up with nothing.
'Where on earth is it?' Li Xu grew anxious.
'The intel can't be wrong.'
'But there's nothing in this entire area.'
Just then, his gaze fell on a pile of "scrap material" in a corner.
Most of these stones were irregularly shaped or unevenly colored and had been casually tossed aside by the workers.
'Could it be...?'
Li Xu walked over, squatted down, and began searching carefully.
After moving a large rock aside, he suddenly spotted another large stone with a rough surface and faint markings.
'This is...'
Li Xu's heart leaped. He rushed closer, his eyes practically glued to the stone.
Faint, alternating blue and yellow patterns were visible on the stone's surface. Its cross-section had a fine, honeycomb-like structure, and a light tap produced a crisp sound.
'Five-Floral Dragon Bone!'
Li Xu's heart pounded in his chest.
'I finally found it!'
The stone was huge, roughly estimated to be over a meter tall and irregularly shaped.
Only a small patch of the pattern was exposed.
The rest of the fossil must be inside the rock.
It was a good thing it wasn't fully exposed.
Otherwise, the quarry's owner might have noticed something was unusual.
'Are there more?'
Although the intel had only mentioned one large rock.
But Li Xu knew that the fossilized remains of a single elephant or rhinoceros couldn't possibly consist of just this one piece.
Sure enough, he found two more Dragon Bone fossils in the scrap heap.
One was medium-sized, like a millstone.
The other was smaller, about the size of a large watermelon.
Li Xu suppressed his excitement and marked the stones.
Then he went back to the first pile of stones he had looked at and picked out a few large pieces of bluestone.
'If you're going to put on a show, you have to see it through to the end.'
He genuinely planned to buy some stones to take home and build a rockery in his yard.
This would serve as a cover for his purchase of the Five-Floral Dragon Bone.
After all, excavating fossils requires government approval; otherwise, it's considered illegal poaching.
The owner of Hengchang Stone Materials was unaware of this and had unintentionally broken the law.
'If I don't point it out and just buy them casually, it'll be a win-win situation,' Li Xu thought.