Wearing hard hats, they entered the mine. The area was rather deserted; due to the holiday, work hadn't started, and only a few people were on safety duty, which made it convenient for Chu Ge and his group to explore.
Once inside, listening to Cai Zhijian's explanation, Chu Ge realized that Old Zhu wasn't exactly a good person either, at least not in his early years.
Because there were no real purple clay mines in Nanjiang.
Old Zhu had made his fortune by passing off some unknown, worthless clay as fine purple clay…
In other words, the large teapot Chu Ge used to brew tea wasn't made of good material either.
The couple clenched their fists, both thinking about giving Old Zhu a good beating when they got back.
"Although it's not genuine Zisha clay, it has all the essentials," Cai Zhijian explained, pointing to the sandstone cross-section. "Look here, this is the topsoil layer, then the yellow stone layer, below that is the Zhu Ni (red clay), then the Mian Tou Jia Ni (cotton-head clay), then the green clay, and look over here, there's even a red clay layer..." Chu Ge's eyes widened in amazement, while Qiu Wuji nodded repeatedly.
Old ladies have seen plenty of these things, but Chu Ge, the nerdy guy, genuinely didn't know. He thought mines were just quarries piled up in cartloads, never imagining a single rock could have so many layers, each with its own purpose.
How the average person could possibly recognize which teapot is good? They just listen to the merchants' hype!
"So, it's not really fair to say we're selling counterfeit goods. The quality is still decent. As for whether it has any health benefits... hehe." Cai Zhijian chuckled. "Whether it's genuine Zisha (purple clay) or not, I can't say, but our fake Zisha definitely does."
Indeed, due to the nourishment from the spiritual energy, in terms of health benefits, Old Zhu's fake stuff is now truly priceless, even though the content is extremely diluted after making the teapot.
The main reason they don't sell it is probably because its value is now immeasurable. If they sold it as ordinary minerals, how could they be willing? They wouldn't even pay double...
As the three talked, the cable car gradually reached the bottom of the mine.
Actually, the mine wasn't very deep, not even in the same league as coal mines. You could still see the sun looking up... but even though it wasn't deep, there was still something special about it.
Turning into the mine tunnel, the miners' lamps were dim. As they went deeper, a chill and an eerie smell filled the air. The sound of their footsteps in this environment sounded like something out of a horror movie.
Cai Zhijian's smile began to falter: "Well... cough, it's true that this many people have come down here to see things, it's a bit... you know..."
"Don't worry," Chu Ge patted his shoulder casually, "If it's really a ghost story, we'll knock out the men and send them to you, and the women... um... we'll send them to my Qiuqiu as maids."
Cai Zhijian sighed, "Keep them yourself, regardless of gender... we're almost there." The mine wasn't very deep; they hadn't gone far before reaching a large pit at the bottom.
Chu Ge jumped down and rummaged around for a while: "Is this the bottom?"
"That's right, this is the bottom at the current mining progress. Of course, there are more than just this one mine; there are several others. This should be the deepest. If you want to see the others, we'll check them all later."
Chu Ge laughed: "Old Cai, you don't have any superpowers, yet you're so interested in this?"
Cai Zhijian smiled: "It's my own mine, okay? Everyone's so interested; do you think I'm as carefree as Mengmeng? Besides, who knows, maybe I'll gain some superpowers from this..."
"That's true, you have an idea." Chu Ge smiled, didn't say much, squatted at the bottom of the mine, and gently pressed his hand against the ground, trying to sense if there was anything suspicious deeper down.
Qiu Wuji had already done this. Her slender hand rested on the bottom of the pit, her eyes gleaming with a faint light. She had clearly been exerting her divine sense to cover an unknown area underground.
The result of her investigation was that she had made a discovery, because this pit had been dug into before, but for some reason, it had been filled in.
In other words, there's no result yet. All the rock strata in this entire area contain a faint spiritual energy, but no single spot is particularly dense, and there's no clear source of its flow; it's as if it's always been this way since the beginning of time.
If we must pinpoint a source, then it's simply that the source is deeper and farther away, and we haven't yet encountered it.
That's normal; if it were easy to find, we wouldn't have waited until now.
"Old Cai…" Chu Ge suddenly asked, "When did you discover the special nature of the minerals here?"
"Was it from when my father-in-law started making his own Zisha teapots?" Cai Zhijian said, "Before, we just sold the minerals and made clay, crafting teapots for others. Later, we found that the teapots they sold had a high rate of repeat customers, apparently due to their health benefits. My father-in-law felt cheated, so he not only terminated the agreement but also started making teapots himself…"
Chu Ge: "Emmm… about a few years ago?"
Cai Zhijian thought for a moment: "It should have been about five or six years. I didn't even know Mengmeng then, or maybe I had just met her? Anyway, that's what I heard later." Five or six years sounds like a very casual timeframe, but Chu Ge couldn't help but think of Yueying, who said her supernatural abilities had also awakened around five or six years ago.
And his own parents started getting busy around that time too.
He felt that something must have happened in those one or two years. He decided to ask Zhong Yi later, or maybe just his mother.
"So, Old Zhu, didn't you plan to drill deeper into the pit yourself to study it?"
Cai Zhijian chuckled, "A geological team came to investigate once, they dug dozens of meters down into this pit, found nothing, and then filled it in. My father-in-law figured even the officials couldn't figure it out, so researching this stuff on his own was even more unreliable. He'd rather just stay put and make money mining."
Chu Ge nodded, then suddenly smiled, "I have a favor to ask..."
Cai Zhijian said, "Don't be so polite, please go ahead."
"Could you please excuse us for a moment? We're doing some things that aren't appropriate for others to see..."
Cai Zhijian's eyes widened in surprise, looking at Chu Ge and then at Qiu Wuji: "You guys... seriously? You can do this in this kind of setting?"
Qiu Wuji's eyes widened even more than his. What's wrong with men's thought processes?
Chu Ge shamelessly put his arm around her waist: "That's right, our fetish is a bit unusual..."
Cai Zhijian retreated, both amused and exasperated.
Qiu Wuji watched Cai Zhijian leave the mine with a blank expression. Only after hearing the sound of the cable car going up did he secretly send a telepathic message to Chu Ge: "Want to use earth-遁 (earth-遁 is a type of magic used in Chinese magic) to go down and take a look?"
Chu Ge replied telepathically: "Yes, it's been dug before, so it's relatively loose. Can I learn earth-遁 (earth-遁)?"
"Your current skill level is a bit lacking. I'll go down and take a look; it'll be the same," Qiu Wuji said. "Why did you try to trick him into leaving?"
"Qiu Qiu, you're so smart now! You can tell what I'm thinking just by hearing one sentence."
"Nonsense! Do you really have some unusual hobby? What are you planning to do here?"
Chu Ge then secretly went to look at Yunji Mountain.
Actually, he did want to.
Qiu Wuji kicked him: "I'm asking you a question!"
"It's nothing much, it's just that this guy clearly has superpowers, but he's been pretending to be weak, so I'm naturally a bit wary of him. Anyway, we should reveal as little of our abilities to others as possible. Earth Escape is a new thing, so we just shouldn't show it to him."
"It feels like more than that?"
"Don't you think it's a bit much for someone from a film company to know so much about mining? Especially considering he's been separated from Sister Mengmeng for so long. When has he ever managed a mine?"
Qiu Wuji narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Curiosity is the most harmful thing. If we don't let him see, he'll definitely want to see even more." Chu Ge continued telepathically: "If we can find out what ability he's using to spy on or eavesdrop on our actions, I feel that the gain might not be much less than finding the source of the mineral's spiritual energy."
Qiu Wuji sighed.
The heart of a writer is always dirty.
She stopped transmitting her thoughts and said normally, "I'm going down. You protect me." Chu Ge nodded, but before he could speak, Qiu Wuji vanished into the ground in a flash.
Chu Ge silently sensed the surrounding spiritual fluctuations, especially those emanating from Cai Zhijian at the top of the pit.
But he found nothing; there were no fluctuations at all.
He frowned deeply. Had he really been overthinking things?