Chapter 826 Collapsed Tunnel (1/2)

Chapter 826: Collapsed Tunnel

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Li Du was only making a random guess. Little did he know, he was most probably right.

There might be snake nests near the tunnel. Muller told him that he had also found venomous snakes after they had dug a distance into the mine for the tunnel. Furthermore, due to their carelessness, one of his miners was bitten by a venomous snake.

”Luckily, we managed to provide treatment in time and had antivenin in the mine. Otherwise, the situation would have turned really bad.” Muller said, ”As we continued to dig further in afterward, we encountered more and more snakes....”

After finding so many snakes, the miners were reluctant to enter the tunnel and did not want to continue digging. All of them had wives and children back home, and they were afraid that they might get bitten.

Since Muller did not find any traces of the gemstone vein in the tunnel, he also decided to stop digging the tunnel and backfill it. Consequently, the tunnel was as Li Du and his group had found it. They stopped work after only excavating half of the tunnel.

After his explanation, Muller asked cautiously, ”Since this type of situation is very common in all of the mines, you don't think I have scammed you, right? I didn't hide negative information from you out of ill intent, right?”

Li Du's revenge on Blanchett had made them cautious of him. Muller believed that he was not as capable as Blanchett and hence, would be less able to fight against Li Du, so he did not dare provoke him.

Sensing fear in his words, Li Du burst into laughter and said, ”Oh, of course not. I am only calling you to find out more about the situation. We have also encountered a lot of venomous snakes.”

Muller advised, ”Listen to me, friend, just give up on this tunnel. It's normal for two snakes to appear. With so many snakes appearing, this is clearly a snake nest.”

There were quite a number of snake nests below Australia's surface. When a lot of snakes were found while digging tunnels, or when snake infested tunnels were found, people would usually link them to snake nests and give up on digging.

However, Li Du could not give up, as this tunnel led to a black opal vein that contained at least upwards of millions of dollars worth of gemstones.

Li Du ought to have thanked these snakes, as they were the ones who stopped Muller and his miners. Otherwise, Muller and his miners would have already discovered the gemstone vein.

It was not difficult to chase snakes away, as all that was needed to be done was to scatter potent snake repellent powder. If that failed to work, Li Du could use mud to seal up the tunnel and find out where the snakes were coming from.

Li Du was a little puzzled. When I was looking through the tunnel earlier, I did not see a single snake. Why did the snakes appear right after I dug open the tunnel?

He controlled the little bug and sent it back into the tunnel. He slowly came up with an explanation after taking a closer look at the surrounding situation.

As the groups of snakes did not live in or near the tunnel, he was not able to spot any when he checked through the little bug previously. It was only after the tunnel was dug open that the snakes started to appear.

As though there was something attracting the snakes, they mainly gathered at the end of the tunnel after appearing in it.

The only reason that Li Du could think of was that the black opals were attracting them. The snakes had wanted to get closer to the gemstone vein in the past. However, the tunnel had been backfilled, and the layers of rocks near the gemstone vein were sturdy and had no gaps to allow them to get closer.

As there were gaps around the tunnel, the snakes were able to return to the tunnel through the gaps after the rocks used to backfill the tunnel had been dug out.

If his speculation was correct, it meant that, like what the miners had said, snakes were connected to black opal veins.

However, the aforementioned relationship did not hold water. People already had this speculation and did not discover any correlation between snakes and black opals after carrying out experiments. In other words, they did not find snakes to be very much interested in black opals.

Even though Li Du was completely clueless as to what was going on, he had to continue the excavation.

After buying two large buckets of snake repellent powder and bringing them back to the mine, Brother Wolf first scattered some around the small wooden cabin, followed by wearing a pair of goggles and a face mask, and entering the tunnel to scatter some inside.

If Li Du could, he would not have used the powder. As snake repellent powder contained strong irritants, Ah Meow, Ah Ow, Crispy Noodles, and Ali hated it.