Chapter 66: Obtaining Coal Acquisition Rights

Black earth, black night, black rain.

"This kid is just too earnest; once he sets his mind on something, even eight oxen couldn't pull him back," Liu Fugui said, waving his hands as he watched the flashlight beam disappear between the damaged buildings. "When he came to my shop to apply for a job, he was just a little punk with dyed hair. He'd done odd jobs but people wouldn't pay him. He'd been hungry for three days and was as thin as a monkey."

"For just a bowl of leftovers, I told him I'd only provide room and board without a salary, and he actually agreed. Later, seeing the delivery driver's bad attitude, he wanted to get his license to help me deliver goods. He even said he could eat less to save money for the license... In this day and age, there aren't many young people that foolish left."

Liu Mu chuckled, "There aren't many bosses like you either, who provide technical training and even find wives for their employees."

Liu Fugui wanted to refute this, but his old face flushed slightly, and he couldn't deny it was the truth.

He Qizheng really only agreed to take a salary after he got married, and he even said he would help him for the rest of his life and would never jump ship.

After the disaster, this kid and his wife were the first to find him, digging him out from a pile of corpses in the residential complex before they went to the rescue base together.

"This disaster really tests the human heart," Liu Fugui suddenly sighed, then turned to the business at hand. "Boss, how should we handle these people?"

"Just let them stay as they are for now; I'm not running a charity."

To put it cruelly, if it weren't for the need for skilled workers to mine later, she wouldn't even care if they lived or died.

However, it was clear that these people actually trusted them more.

Liu Mu kept a cold face and no one dared to approach her, but Liu Fugui was chatting with these people before long.

Niu Boyi returned through the rain an hour later, and only after reluctantly eating two buckets of dog food made by Xu Xiaofeng was he willing to talk about the situation outside.

Those few punks had indeed gone out along the mountain road used for coal transport, but they didn't take the route Liu Mu had come from, and they were blocked by a landslide before they had gone very far.

They didn't want to turn back, and the corrosive nature of the black rain was already 'starting to show results' on them.

They were about to climb over the rubble.

As a result, before they could climb over, they encountered several massive Mountain Rats.

Their forelimbs were raised almost half a person's height; in their panic, they were bold as young calves and fought the Mutated Mountain Rats.

The result was that several of them were injured, and it was only because He Qizheng stepped in that their lives were saved.

"And then?" Liu Mu was a bit surprised; even after all that, they still wouldn't come back.

Niu Boyi let out a series of woofs and whimpers, emitting a mocking sound.

The young men didn't believe it, continued to walk forward, and were tied up by a pile of Mutated Vines in less than ten minutes.

Niu Boyi said it saw those vines weren't very poisonous, so it came back.

The implication was that it couldn't be bothered to follow them anymore; it was boring.

Liu Mu had forgotten that in terms of intelligence and temperament, this dog was probably on the same level as those punks.

They were all in their rebellious phase; how much patience could it have watching a group of idiots courting death?

Sighing, Liu Mu glanced at the curtain of rain and sighed for He Qizheng.

Sure enough, before dawn, the young men came back, supporting each other and looking dejected.

He Qizheng was embarrassed to trouble Liu Mu, so he found Liu Fugui and asked him to step in and get Li Gang to help look at the young men's external injuries.

Li Gang, who had just finished his shift, was woken up. After looking at them, he shook his head, "I can clean the external wounds, but these wounds have turned black; they are poisoned, and I can't save them."

Hearing this, the young men, who had been terrified all night, finally broke down and wailed, saying they were idiots for not knowing the dangers outside and begging for their lives.

Many people were woken up by the noise, and the older ones couldn't help but lecture them again, but in the end, they all looked at Li Gang and the others.

Li Gang scratched his scalp, "Then I'll go ask the Boss...?"

This was to seek Liu Fugui's opinion. "Fine, fine, stop wailing. Let's go together; if the Boss wants to yell at someone, there will be one more person to take it."

The five people in the room had mostly recovered; the remaining toxins could only be expelled by their own immune systems.

She had long expected the young men to return, so she naturally wasn't angry, but she wanted them to recount their experiences from the night to everyone first.

"Each of you tell it once, the more detailed the better. If anyone slacks off, none of you will get the antidote."

Just like performing on stage in their student days, the punks shoved each other a few times before standing in the middle of the crowd one by one to talk about their experiences after leaving.

The language was blunt, without any buildup, and the telling was very dry.

Liu Mu yawned as she listened, handed a tube of transparent medicine to Li Gang, told him to inject one milliliter per person, and turned to find a place to lean against and doze off.

She wasn't tired; she just wanted to see how much space the system could provide to store coal.

Perhaps because some of the young men later were better at telling stories, the crowd gradually became interested and began to discuss in low voices.

After dawn, another round of Compressed Biscuits and water was distributed.

Liu Fugui spoke bluntly, "Our mission is not rescue, but to load coal and go back. The food and water we brought were only enough for us for ten days or so; you'll have to figure it out for yourselves later."

Someone asked what the situation was with the Haicheng Barrier. Liu Fugui thought for a moment and said, "The entire Haicheng urban area and the three nearby counties only have fifty or sixty thousand people left. The Barrier currently has over twenty thousand, but the military doesn't have many supplies to allocate either. This disaster has hit the whole world. Now, outside, let alone food, you can't even see the cars you used to see often. Why? There is no energy. Gasoline, diesel—we haven't found any at all..."

He exaggerated the facts slightly, but at the current rate, it would happen sooner or later.

Zheng Tian had been running a fever all night; it had barely gone down in the early morning, and he was just regaining consciousness.

He asked his fellow Sichuan-Chongqing brother, Haozi, to help him ask, "Big Brother Leader, do you know the situation in Hu Province? And Chuan Province? Is it true that people are dying everywhere? Has our home been hit too?"

"Brother, I'm from the side of Yun Province near Chuan Province; I can't get in touch with my wife and kids back home either." Liu Fugui said, his Sichuan-Chongqing dialect sounding a bit rusty. "There's no way; cell phones don't work at all, and we can't go back. If you can take my advice, listen to me: first, keep yourselves alive. If your relatives are still there, maybe in the future..."

Speaking of himself, his voice also dropped. "What if you can see them? There's really no way around this goddamn disaster; you should consider it yourselves."

"What about the country? The government? Aren't they going to save us?"

Someone else immediately raised the question.

"How could they not save us? The Haicheng Barrier is a rescue base built for that, but, brother, how many people are in our country? The country has sent out all the surviving troops. In every province, every city, how many rescue teams and supplies can be allocated?"

"It's better to plan ahead and rely on yourselves. Actually, you're quite lucky; you didn't die in the disaster, and the underground Coal Mine didn't catch fire. If you continue to mine in the future and transport the coal to supply the various bases, you'll always be able to trade for supplies."

"We don't even have a vehicle, how can we transport it out? And vehicles need fuel. Didn't you just say there's no gasoline left outside..."

"And there aren't enough people."

"We don't even know if the mining trucks and equipment can be repaired."

Liu Mu pulled the hat on her head down to block out all the light, having no intention of speaking.

Seeing that the atmosphere was about right, Liu Fugui said, "Then you are responsible for the mining, equipment, and transport; we will figure out a way for those. We were originally here to requisition resources; the Barrier will support us."

Saying this, he sighed deeply, his face full of sorrow, "It's the same thing—it's better than doing nothing, right?"

The crowd fell silent, but those few youths whom Li Gang was treating agreed first, "I'm the only one left in my family; my family's mine, yes, and my grandparents', my uncle's, and my second uncle's—all of them can be opened for you to mine."

"My family only has me left too, just like Brother Ji, we'll mine for you!"

"Dad, look, they've all agreed. The leader saved our lives yesterday, shouldn't we show some appreciation?"

……

Very quickly, nearly half of the people agreed.

It was just that more than half of the twenty or so people from out of town still wanted to leave, mainly to see the situation outside and whether they could go home.

The locals knew that coal would be their reliance in the future, so they relented and agreed, only saying that an agreement still needed to be signed.

Liu Mu spoke up at this moment, "I will provide the tools, food, and water until you can obtain food and water yourselves; the Coal Mine belongs to me."

If this had been in the past, it would have been nothing but robbery.

But they had no other way now, having been hungry in the mine tunnels for so long and being full of fear toward the outside.

"Then, could we also trouble the leader for medicine and daily necessities..."

Someone spoke, and Liu Mu opened her eyes and took off her hat, "That will be decided by the quality of the coal at that time. My surname is Liu; you can call me Boss Liu. I have a priority purchase agreement with the Barrier. When I leave, you can choose a few representatives to go out with me to see the situation."

If she didn't let them see the outside world, something would go wrong sooner or later.

With that, Liu Fugui immediately drafted a preliminary agreement, letting those families who were willing sign it and press their fingerprints.

Those who were unwilling to stay could also catch a ride out later, but they would have to pay for the transport and the food costs for these few days.

Someone questioned this, and Liu Mu stated directly that she was not running a charity; she had spent money to contract this energy-seeking business, and even if she didn't find coal, she would find other resources for the Barrier.

If they were unwilling to pay, they could walk out themselves.

The few people led by Zheng Tian could only agree to this proposal; after all, his injuries would not heal in a day or two.

That same day, Liu Mu went down into the mine shaft again herself; the coal seam was indeed without issues.

However, one thing made her feel uneasy, "Logically speaking, there shouldn't be no animals down here, right?"

Niu Boyi stood at the cave entrance, and seeing Liu Mu come out, he came over to shield her from the rain, "Woof woof woof, there is no rainwater, and the temperature is suitable; why are there no Mutated Animals?"

"Indeed, why is that?"

Liu Mu hesitated for a moment and summoned Heitao A, "Is there a Giant Sun Fragment nearby too?"

The system's answer was that no energy signal of a Giant Sun Fragment could be detected within a five-kilometer radius.

"This is strange," Liu Mu had experience surviving the apocalypse and would not harbor any wishful thinking, "If there isn't something that makes the Mutated Animals afraid, then there is a mortal enemy they fear. It seems we need to stay for two more days."

There were only four mine shafts in this Mine in total, two of which were connected underground.

Liu Mu checked them all, but still discovered nothing unusual.

After telling the three people who came with her about this situation, Liu Fugui asked He Qizheng, "Has there ever been a mining disaster or any other accident here?"

"I've asked everyone; since mining began here, there have never been any major incidents." He Qizheng had the experience of losing his wife after facing a mutated monster before, but he still brought up another matter, "However, there used to be ghosts here..."