Chapter 83: Investigation

"Tiankui Snake Company?"

Liu Mu's pupils constricted slightly. Her probing gaze landed on the young man's face, as if she were trying to see if there was anything wrong with him.

This expression gave Cai Zhenlong a fright. He said nervously, "B-Boss, did I say something wrong? Or do you have a grudge against this company?"

"No," Liu Mu said. Holding the skull, she didn't wait for Cai Zhenlong to react; she grabbed him by the back of his collar and jumped.

Cai Zhenlong only felt his neck tighten. Before he could speak, he had already left the basement and was standing steadily on the cluttered ground.

"Let's go outside to talk." Liu Mu strode ahead. After walking a distance without hearing any movement, she looked back to see Cai Zhenlong still standing there like a fool. "Keep up. Once I leave, the ghosts will come out. Aren't you afraid anymore?"

This was, of course, meant to scare him, but it worked. Cai Zhenlong followed quickly, nearly tripping in the process.

Leaving the black-green bungalow, Liu Mu walked at a leisurely pace, heading all the way toward the river in the town.

The rain had already turned the small river that ran through the town into a large one. Some houses built near the river were being washed away one after another, but fortunately, the bridge spanning the river still stood firm.

Only when the sound of the water grew louder did Liu Mu stop to let Cai Zhenlong take two quick steps to walk side-by-side with her.

"Alright, tell me where you've seen that logo, and what's the deal with Tiankui Snake?"

"Seven or eight years ago, I guess. A business manager from Tiankui Snake came to our town, saying they dealt in mining machinery and equipment and wanted to cooperate with us. At that time, I was busy worrying about saving people with Xi Zai and a few other brothers, so I didn't pay much attention. I heard from my dad that the mayor and the heads of several large clans signed a procurement contract with Tiankui Snake. Since it was introduced by Boss Ma anyway, from then on, all the machinery and equipment at the mine were theirs..."

"Were there any accidents?" Liu Mu frowned slightly. She really hadn't expected Tiankui Snake to be so high-profile; it didn't sound like the secretive hostile force that Tan Ziyan and Li Gang had described at all.

"There weren't any major accidents. Their equipment was actually quite advanced, and the quality was a big step up from the old equipment we had before." Cai Zhenlong still asked the question that had been on his mind: "Boss, is there something wrong with this company?"

The sound of the water was loud, and with the houses collapsing, there were no blind spots in the surrounding dozens of meters.

Liu Mu hugged her arms and thought for a moment, then continued, "There is a bit of a problem. So, after they arrived, did anything major happen in your town?"

"Major?"

"Or strange. You know what I mean."

Cai Zhenlong had high cheekbones that made his face look gaunt, and his eyebrows were thick but not very wide, giving him an air of craftiness. But when facing Liu Mu, he was completely tense, as if he were terrified that saying the wrong thing would lead her to silence him.

"There seem to have been two things. One was probably after Tiankui Snake brought in their equipment for the second time. The mayor personally invited their people to drink, but he ended up drinking too much and had a stroke when he got home."

"That mayor was only in his thirties at the time and was in very good health. We often ran into him during his morning jog when we were heading to early morning study, rain or shine."

Recalling the rumors from that time, Cai Zhenlong decided to mention them too: "At the time, everyone whispered that it was because he opposed using women to sacrifice to the mountain ghost, so the mountain ghost cursed him, and that's why he died."

"Who replaced him?" Liu Mu pondered that if Tiankui Snake wanted to secretly control a mining town like this, they would indeed have to start with the government and the local power brokers.

Cai Zhenlong said truthfully: "He was replaced by a township head from our town. We had never really heard of him before; I don't know how he got selected. He probably gave the people above a lot of benefits; that family was also quite wealthy."

It isn't difficult to bribe someone who wants to climb the ladder. Besides, if Yamaguchi Hisashi was originally a person arranged by Tiankui Snake, then it wouldn't be impossible for the new mayor to be a traitor.

Liu Mu thought about what benefits this deep-mountain town could bring to Tiankui Snake... there were too many!

The coal resources alone were enough to make them target it.

"What was the other thing?"

"It was about the same. Our Yang family was originally the largest clan in town, and we held the most power. But the clan head at the time was already over eighty, and one day he just died in his sleep. When it came time to replace the clan head, several families started a ruckus, kicked the old clan head's sons out, and let those spendthrifts sell some of the mine shares to people of other surnames."

Dealing with the second-largest clan head and splitting up the shares...

Tiankui Snake was dismantling the power structure of this coal town from the inside. If she wasn't mistaken, that Boss Ma, or the person behind Boss Ma, should also be one of their people.

By now, it was certain that this group had people from many countries, and their foundation in Haicheng was not as thin as she had thought. Having laid the groundwork for so many years, they might have already infiltrated the upper echelons before the disaster.

As she pondered the probability of Tiankui Snake returning to Yang Family Town, especially after she had made off with so much fuel half a month ago.

The conclusion was—very high!

They might have infiltrated other coal mines as well, but now that most of them had been ignited by the natural disaster, and with the remaining larger Barriers surely arranging for people to go and restore production, a small coal mine in the deep mountains like Yang Family Town naturally regained its value.

If that Yamaguchi Hisashi was still alive, their arrival was already inevitable.

Liu Mu whistled toward the distance. The whistle was sharp, piercing through the sound of the river and reaching its target.

In less than half a minute, Niu Boyi came bounding over, his raincoat covered in mud; there was no telling where he had gone to run wild.

Liu Mu raised her palm from a distance, and he charged straight over, slowing down just in time so that not a single speck of mud splashed onto either of them.

Pulling the dog's head down, Liu Mu whispered a few words into his ear. The dog nodded his big head and ran off again like a carefree 'teenager.'

Cai Zhenlong stood there for a long while, feeling that if he didn't say something else, he would be forgotten by Liu Mu. "Boss, some of the open-pit machinery at the mine also had the Tiankui Snake logo on it before, but it was burned away."

Liu Mu wasn't surprised by this. She asked, "They provided so much machinery; did they have a local service and maintenance office?"

She saw the yellow-haired youth shake his head, his face showing disdain and resentment. "No, every time we had to call them, and then they would send people over. Those technicians wouldn't really hang out with us when they came; they would just finish the inspection and leave. My dad originally wanted to build a relationship with them so he could send a few of us to their company to learn how to repair machines and have a stable job in the future, but they said they only accepted college students with mechanical majors. They just looked down on us losers who had no education and weren't smart."

So they hadn't managed to get in. Liu Mu nodded. "Who at the mine was closer to them?"

"That engineer, and the mine supervisor Yang San. But Third Uncle is already dead, though he does have a son in the city; I don't know if he's alive or dead." Cai Zhenlong stuck his fingers into his half-black, half-yellow hair and combed through it, showing he was trying hard to recall. "Those people were always mysterious every time they came, as if we country bumpkins would really pester them. They were very arrogant."

"Then, after you notified them each time, how long would it take for them to arrive?"