Inside the cave, there is a cave.

What lies before us is a winding cave with many forks.

It is not the complete darkness as imagined. Whether it is the wider tunnel in the cave or the deep winding path, there are fires dancing in the depths, a dim yellow halo spreads across every corner, and the air is filled with grease.

The smell is fishy, ​​definitely not kerosene, it should be oil extracted from animals, used for lighting.

This environment is somewhat similar to the Hu family's lair I saw in Yaoxu, except that the Hu family's lair was naturally formed, with jagged rocks in different shapes, like a karst cave, while this one was completely dug manually.

The only truly naturally formed cave is the most open one in front of you. The other relatively narrow paths are all artificially dug and are relatively flat, with obvious traces of artificial digging visible.

"There are quite a few people..."

I looked around for a while, then touched the rock structure here, and made this judgment in my mind.

The rock structure is very hard. They opened up a cave into a settlement in the mountain and lived like cavemen. The amount of work was quite large. If the number of people was small, even if they came here a hundred years ago, it would be difficult to complete.

With such a project amount, after all... in addition to repairing settlements, they also had to find food in the mountains to survive, and they also had to complete gold mining work.

At least thirty or forty people are needed!!

At least this was the number of people in the team originally sent here by the Qing government to search for gold veins. A hundred years have passed, and it is unclear how many descendants they have left here.

"Still alive and nourishing."

Brother Yaozi licked his lips and added with a smile: "It's best not to play with these people in the mountains, they can kill us!"

I nodded in agreement with this view.

Surviving in such deep mountains and old forests is not an easy task. An inexperienced rookie cannot survive for even a month. Failure to provide enough water can kill him. Any nutrients are very important here, especially

It's fat. These people are so extravagant that they use animal fats to make torches for lighting. It can be seen that apart from wheat, rice and some necessary daily necessities, they are not short of food. They can take whatever they want in the mountains. With just a thought, they can estimate the border area.

They have clear access to all the hills, so chasing them away is not a good idea.

Since this is their territory, and all evidence shows that these gold diggers are not simple characters, we did not dare to split up, nor did we leave anyone to block the entrance of the cave. Anyway, our purpose was to catch a tongue and then figure out what was going on in the mountains.

situation, I didn’t want to catch them all in one go.

Brother Yaozi and I, Wushuang were in front, followed closely by the brothers and sisters from the Yuwen clan, Qian Guangqi was protected in the middle, my master, Laogui, and Duck were at the back, and the group gathered together in a pile along the relatively wide corridor.

As we moved forward, we passed countless forks along the way. There were bright lights inside, but we didn't get into them to prevent us from getting lost in this complicated environment.

This is considered the safest choice. Although there are many loopholes, it can avoid casualties to the greatest extent.

It was so quiet in the cave that you couldn't even hear anyone's snoring. If it weren't for the torches, people would have thought it was a long-abandoned settlement.

As we went deeper and deeper, not even a ghost was seen. Brother Yaozi gradually became nervous. He kept his short knife across his chest and was on guard. At the same time, he came towards me silently and whispered: "Jingzhe, this...

Something’s wrong, there are a lot of wild animals in these deep mountains and forests, don’t they even have a sentry? Are they just letting us barge in like we’re back home?”

I was always on the lookout to prevent sudden attacks. When I heard this, I shook my head slightly to indicate that I didn't notice anything. In fact, my heart was ringing with alarm bells. I felt that this was too unusual. This was in the mountains, absolutely.

There is no such thing as relaxing your vigilance over time, and those who relax their vigilance will not live long.

If there are no more people standing guard, then there is only one possibility left - we have been discovered!!

The other party either escaped or ambushed us!

Soon, this corridor came to an end.

A relatively wide space opened up in front, and the light suddenly became stronger here. You could even hear the "sizzling" sound made by the burning torches. The torches should be right in front.

Brother Yaozi and Wushuang looked at each other. They no longer moved forward slowly. Like phantoms in the dark, they slid along the wall and moved forward quickly, but they could always avoid the stones on the ground without making a single sound.

There was a noise, and when we entered the space in front of us, we rushed in like a hungry tiger pouncing on food. After looking around for a while with a knife, Brother Yaozi waved to us to indicate that there was no one inside.

I quickly followed in. This was a place similar to a place for storing sundries. The space opened up was quite large and filled with a dazzling array of things. Various knives hung on the relatively flat cave walls.

, machetes, skinning knives, even sickles, etc., as well as homemade maces made of seven-inch long ocean nails, the size is very exaggerated.

In addition, there are all kinds of skins piled up, most of which are roe deer and deer skins, but there are also many fierce products among them. I saw the skins of big mama bears, even Siberian tigers, and some special ones.

I didn’t recognize the thick bones, but the duck behind him muttered that they were tiger bones. He had seen them when he was a child, and the bones of adult Siberian tigers were of this size. They could be used as medicine and could be sold, but it was illegal.

As for gold panning tools and baskets, they are all available here.

These tools are very new. They were not brought in by the first batch of gold diggers, but probably brought in by Fang Erwa.

Yuwenda suddenly said "Huh", then passed us and went straight behind a few piles of skins. He said to himself: "There seems to be books and papers here."

After saying that, he bent down and rummaged quickly, and soon took out a shabby cloth bag from inside, but it had an odd shape and many damages.

I was curious, so I followed up, took a closer look, and then said: "The bag... Hey, this thing is quite old. It should have been brought in by the first batch of gold diggers. Come on, open it and take a look. There’s something in there!”

This is a bag that was only used in the old society. It has an opening in the middle and can be used to hold things on both sides. The small one is a kind of purse or can be hung on the waist, and the large one can be carried directly on the shoulder.

Apart from those gold diggers who entered here in the late Qing Dynasty, I can't think of anyone else who would use this thing.

Yu Wenda opened the bag, and there were a lot of things on the left side, all broken and broken. I even saw a rattle used by a child, which was basically worthless. I finally took out two very useful things from the pocket on the right side.

One of them is a black and white photo.

The photo is very damaged. It is an old photo from the late Qing Dynasty. The size is exactly the same. However, at that time, only some wealthy people had such things.

In the photo, there is a man holding a child. He has a big braid and the braid is coiled around his neck. He is dressed in a standard martial arts style. It seems that he has just finished training and is sitting on the steps with a smile on his face, playing with a doll.

Although the man's face was blurry, he could still vaguely see it clearly.

"It looks like Fang Erwa!!"

Yuwenda was horrified and said nonchalantly: "I roughly understand why Fang Erwa is so close to these gold diggers in the mountains..."

In addition to this photo, there is also a letter.

I immediately grabbed the letter. The envelope contained the kind of plaid letter paper used in the 1980s and 1990s. After reading it for a while, I felt a little dizzy.

Fang Erwa’s grandfather turned out to be one of the gold diggers back then!!

However, he was not one of the leaders.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, two German missionaries were killed in Caozhou, Shandong, which was known as the Juye Mission Case in history. As a result, the Germans occupied the entire Shandong. Fang Erwa's grandfather was finally arrested because of his protest, and he met her when he was released. I met a bannerman, and the two had a close friendship. Later, this bannerman was sent to Changbai Mountain to dig for gold veins. He thought it was an opportunity to make a fortune, so he took his grandfather with him. This photo was taken before leaving, with the man in his arms. The person she was hugging was Fang Erwa’s mother.

Her grandfather never returned, but according to the letter, he had been in contact with the family from the earliest days, but the contact method was very special, and he mentioned more than once that they had found the golden vein and would soon I went back with gold and silver, but there was a small problem, but it could be solved.

This is roughly consistent with our guess!!

And this little problem is most likely related to the ruins of the filth!!

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the two sides lost contact. In the 1980s and 1990s, a gold rush broke out in Binghu Village. Fang Erwa was obsessed with making a fortune. Only then did his mother realize that her old father had always been here. I was looking for gold, so I wrote this letter and asked Fang Erwa to put the letter in a place according to the previous special contact information and try to see if he could contact his grandfather!!

"It seems that those gold diggers in the mountains contacted Fang Erwa at that time. They taught so many people how to pan for gold just to protect Fang Erwa. In the final analysis, they only trusted Fang Erwa as their 'own person' and prepared to do it in Fang Erwa.

With the help of Erwa, we occupy the entire main gold vein’s huge wealth!!”

I murmured: "This is all right. No wonder Fang Erwa is so determined. It turns out that he is one of his own. Once the main gold vein is discovered, he can safely get a share of the pie!!"

Even Qian Guangqi was shocked by this relationship. He had been checking for so long and could not find this at all.

"I said, don't worry about Fang Erwa for now!!"

Lao Bai sniffed and said, "Don't you smell it? It smells like dead bodies here!!"
Chapter completed!