Chapter 740: The Strange Stones

So Che had no choice but to lead the people forward, walking upstream along the small creek, passing through a small valley; the valley was not deep, and the hills on both sides could not be called mountains, but rather ridges or mounds, with the valley itself being only seven or eight meters deep, its sides covered in the roots of Reed.

The soil here also turned into a mixture of red clay and sand and stone, and along the way, they discovered many transparent stones; they came in various sizes and were quite beautiful, but they were rather brittle, easily broken by hand, and some were even layered, with a single stone able to be broken into many pieces by hand, while others had a slight toughness.

They did not know what time this was, but holding the thought that different stones must surely have some special use, they picked out some of the larger ones with better transparency to take with them, so that when they returned to Huaxia, they could see what they were and if they had any use.

Having made such a discovery, they were even more willing to lower their heads to look at the ground, or at the stones on either side of them; the water flow was never very large, and if they took long strides, they could jump across the middle of this small creek, though the damp red mud was very slippery, causing them to fall several times along the way.

When they reached places with larger drops, they had to use both hands and feet to climb up from this narrow valley, or use their hands to grab a few more Reed roots, coordinating with the help of others to climb up.

The journey was not very dangerous, until they saw a winding trail on the mud, and looking at the shape, it was clearly left by a snake; at this, they immediately perked up, for while snakes are not as fierce as tigers or wolves, that thing is venomous.

The group hurriedly took out their Weapon or tools, their eyes fixed intently on the clusters of Reed roots, as that was where a snake was most likely to hide.

However, they could not stop moving forward; the Soldier walking at the very front had leather leggings, which a snake might not be able to bite through, so he had to be the one to clear the way, but because the space was narrow, for safety's sake, he could only hold an engineer shovel, beating the Grass along the way to see if he could scare the snake out.

But before the snake was scared out, their eyes were drawn to a streak of green in the soil beside them; Che rushed over impatiently to look, and he used his hands to scrape some off; it was green, like a stone, but more like soil, because it was not that hard, very brittle, and the colors varied in shade, with some being a very bright green, and others like the tender buds that had just grown on a tree.

He scraped some off, but felt it was not enough, so he took out his Dajian to pry it up, and in this soil mixed with sand and stone, he managed to pry off a large piece of the strange green object; such a thing extended for about half a meter in this area, though the depth was unknown.

Che still wanted to take a closer look, but was distracted by a scream from the person behind him; he hurriedly turned his head and discovered that on the ground there was already a snake that the group had been shouting and hacking into several pieces, yet it was still writhing its body.

The snake was not considered very long, but it still put great psychological pressure on people; after ensuring there were no other snakes, Che immediately rushed over to look; the others did not have much experience in dealing with snake venom, but his experience was relatively greater; at least the people of Huaxia would go to distinguish between venomous and non-venomous, and how to deal with the venomous ones, while the people of the Xuanyuan Tribe did not know; anyway, as far as they were concerned, as long as it was a snake, it was very terrifying.

Che first used his Dajian to pin down the snake's head, because even if a snake is dead, there is still a chance it could bite, but after carefully examining the snake, his anxious heart relaxed a lot.

This was a non-venomous snake, its head considered oval; in Huaxia, it is common knowledge to distinguish between venomous and non-venomous by the shape of the snake's head, and although it is not one hundred percent accurate, it is applicable most of the time.

Che had seen this kind of snake many times; its body was the same color as dried wormwood, slightly brown, and then gradually transitioned from the back to the belly to a slightly white color; they were numerous in Huaxia, mainly eating mice and catching birds, and there were many cases of them biting people, after all, it would not care who you were, as long as you passed through its territory and disturbed it, it would attack you.

However, at this moment, the Laborer who had been bitten had a face turned pale with fright; Che hurriedly explained to him: "Don't be afraid, it's not venomous, you won't die, it just hurts for a moment."

Subsequently, he pointed to the Laborer's companion: "You go and squeeze the blood out from around the wound, and there won't be any problem."

So, under Che's direction, some bright red blood was slowly squeezed out from the two fang marks; some time had already passed, but the person who was bitten did not feel any numbness in the legs or dizziness, and although still very afraid, he believed most of what Che said.

They did not waste this snake that had been hacked to death; they cut off the snake's head and dug a pit to bury it, then put the rest into a bag to take along; the taste of snake meat was still quite good, like chicken, and there were quite a few people who had eaten snake meat, but because it was very dangerous to catch, it was considered a very precious meat.

That bag of green stones was a small one, and it still had some weight; Che handed the bag to a Laborer and let him carry it; with Laborers around, this kind of manual labor certainly could not be done by him; if they were paid wages, they had to work, otherwise why would Huaxia hire people?

The reason he took so much was that Che felt this kind of stone might be able to extract something, and bringing more would make the effect more obvious; that transparent stone looked like some kind of gemstone at first glance, only it was more brittle, or it might be the same as Gypsum, and only a small amount was needed to determine it; even if those were not enough, the stones were right here in the mountains and could be taken at any time, so there was no problem.

When the group climbed over this valley and saw that thick willow tree, they knew they had found the source; the last time, the people from the Ministry of Works had reached this source, and that big willow tree was the landmark given; they walked in the direction of the big willow tree, and the path under their feet gradually became damp, though it was still far from being a swamp.

It was squelching underfoot, and in the lush water Grass, many small insects were hidden; some small frogs that should not have been there at this time, frogs as big as ordinary beetles, were jumping everywhere beside their feet, and there were many small puddles on the road.

However, they did not see any fish or shrimp here; it was likely that the water conditions here were not suitable for the existence of fish and shrimp; the water source was right before their eyes, but there was more and more mud under their feet, and their feet even felt like they were going to sink in.

So Che made a prompt decision to start digging right here, digging away all the silt and throwing it to the sides of this water pool; with their seventy-odd people here, they could clear this place very easily.

The rest of the people stayed where they were to set up the Tent and clear the ground, and did not follow along the whole way, because there was no need; it was not like they were digging a canal, just clearing out a spring.