Chapter 1554 Secrets (2/2)
Li Du laughed. ”Come on, just tell me. We're just chatting anyway. Will this offend the mountain gods?”
Old Thaw nodded seriously. ”Absolutely, it will offend the mountain gods. The jade vein you want to know about is the life force of the Dena Mountain god.”
Li Du replied, ”We're just talking, it's not like I'm here to take anything.”
Old Thaw regarded him suspiciously. ”Really? There's a bunch of excavators and a team of workers in the town, aren't they yours?”
Li Du was stunned — this man was something else. Li Du had hired a bunch of miners through Zhong Dapao but it had not been long since they arrived at the village, not to mention the fact that they had been careful to keep a low profile. To think the man knew about this!
He confessed, ”It's true, those men were hired by me, but I've not made up my mind on whether I'm mining anything from this mountain. Besides, it's not like there are jade veins in this land. Never mind the fact that the jade veins are the life force of your mountain god. Even if it was the mountain god itself, or the life force of your country's leader, any trace of jade would long have been mined!”
Old Thaw rebutted, ”That may be so, but the tale that has been passed down for centuries around here is definitely true. It is true that there are mineral veins in Dena Mountain, and it really is the life force of the mountain god. Taking the jade it is tantamount to killing the god, and he who dares mess with that will die in the hands of the god!”
”Is the mountain god really capable of that?” Young Markelov scoffed in disbelief.
Old Thaw prickled defensively at his attitude and became increasingly agitated. ”The mountain god is tremendously powerful! Are you from Ukraine? I respect you lot since you've saved a lot of people, but don't you dare insult our mountain god.”
Young Markelov said, ”I'm not trying to insult him. I'm just saying that if it's a mountain god and if it blesses you, why didn't it liberate you guys when your village was detained at the top of this very mountain? In the end, you had to rely on our sudden assault.”
Old Thaw quietened down. After a long while, he offered feebly, ”It's the mountain god who arranged for you to go save them.”
”F*ck!” Young Markelov cursed.
Old Thaw persisted. ”The bottom line is, the mountain god is really powerful. In the past, someone took interest in the legend of our mineral vein and wanted to mine the area to hit it big. In the end, they all ended up dead!
”A long time ago, several centuries back, Dena Mountain was surrounded by a good number of towns. Aside from Wooku Town, there were also Palaung Town and Nierkan Town, but why have those two towns disappeared? Because the people knew that there was jade in Dena Mountain and they started harboring evil intentions. Because of that, the mountain god punished them by getting rid of the two towns.”
This story sent chills down Young Markelov's spine. He remembered that there were indeed three small towns marked out on the jade carving, and questions started forming in his head. Li Du thought of this as well, but he threw a look to Markelov and told him to keep quiet and not interrupt Old Thaw.
Thus, Old Thaw carried on with his tale. ”In more recent years, and I mean just about eight years ago… actually, I remember very clearly that a Chinese man came here 11 years ago to search for gems, but he was killed by the troops. The whole bunch of them were!
”Now, in more recent years, about eight and a half years ago, someone by the last name of Suo came to Hpakant. He was the sixteenth son of the King of Old Hpakant, and he wanted to start up a new mining area, but you know what happened to him? He died mysteriously, along with the people he brought.
”For real, no one knows how they died. I went along to retrieve their corpses and it was truly gruesome. Their entire body was littered with green and blue bruises, it was horrible!”