When we arrived at Shitou Town, we saw that all the houses were closed, with only a few shops open. There were only men on the streets, and not a single woman. Apparently, there was a taboo in Shitou Town that women could not go out during the day.
Xu Lian walked into a restaurant to have lunch, but when he saw the food surrounded by flies, he lost his appetite.
After coming out of the restaurant, he turned into a brothel and ordered a table of food and wine. The food in such a "high-end place" was obviously better than that in the restaurant, at least it was cleaner.
The madam, whose face was painted like a monkey's butt, kept introducing girls to him, but Xu Lian was so busy eating that he didn't even bother to look at them and refused them.
This made the madam feel resentful. "Sir, how can someone come to our place just to eat and not to find girls? How can we do business like this? We will have to close down if we only make a small amount of money from the food and drinks."
Xu Lian thought about it and it made sense. He took out a silver ingot and threw it over, imitating Pei Heng's tone, "Don't bother me!"
Now that the money for food and wine and for finding a girl was ready, the madam immediately smiled and stopped bothering Xu Lian.
"I'm already in Stone Town. How can I get the stone marrow?"
After dinner, Xu Lian drank tea and thought.
He had thought about it before coming here, and now he was just reviewing his plan to see if there were any loopholes.
In fact, there was no plan to speak of. He could only improvise because he knew too little about stone marrow. He only heard from Han Du that stone marrow, like earth meat, was a spiritual object mined from mines.
“Once the ground meat is discovered in the mines of Luzhu Town, the manager will immediately close the mines and send someone to report to the mine inspector. When the mine inspector arrives, he will directly take away the ground meat.
If the stone marrow in Stone Town follows the same process, then I must take it away within a short period of time after it appears and before the mine patrol arrives."
Xu Lian knew that the timing of his move was very important.
If we wait for the mine patrol to arrive before trying to snatch it, it would be no different from sending our heads to the enemy...
With his strength at the Bone Refining Stage, he would definitely be no match for the Stone Town's Mine Patrolman. Even if the Stone Town's Mine Patrolman was not as powerful as the White Fox Mine Patrolman, he would not be able to defeat him.
After all, the Mine Patrol is in charge of all the mines in a small town. It is impossible that he does not have the strength of the Bone Refining Stage, right
"The managers of the mines are usually ordinary people. As long as I seize the opportunity, the success rate of taking away the stone marrow is still very high."
Xu Lian was not worried about the problem of robbery.
What worries him is when will the stone marrow appear
How long will it take for it to appear
If it was like the ground meat, it would only appear every few years, so he couldn't have waited so long in Stone Town.
"There's no point in daydreaming here. We need to do some on-site investigation before we can formulate a complete plan."
Xu Lian left the brothel, asked someone about the location of the nearest mine, and rode his donkey there.
When we arrived at the mine, we saw miners working all over the mountain, with supervisors walking back and forth supervising them.
"If you want to understand the secrets of the Stone Town Mine, the quickest way is to capture a manager and ask him."
Xu Lian came to a high place and observed the mine from a distance, but did not get close.
His eyes were fixed on the rooms in the mine, which should be where the manager looked through the account books. He waited patiently.
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After waiting for about half an hour, I saw a middle-aged man walking out of the house. The clothing and demeanor of this middle-aged man were obviously different from those of the supervisors and miners. He must be the manager of this mine without a doubt.
"It's you."
Xu Lian selected the target.
The middle-aged man simply inspected the mine, then had someone bring a horse over, climbed on the horse, and seemed to be leaving the mine.
"I guess he went out to have some fun."
This made Xu Lian find it a little funny. He was the manager himself and knew the manager's daily work routine too well. It was normal for the manager to have very little free time and go out for fun during working hours.
As for what to do for fun, I'm not sure. Everyone has different hobbies. Han Du likes listening to music, Xu Lian likes to play with girls... I don't know what hobbies the manager of this mine has.
Xu Lian followed the middle-aged man on a donkey.
The middle-aged man did not seem to be in any hurry. He rode his horse slowly, and his donkey followed him at a moderate pace.
I followed him to the town and saw the middle-aged man's horse stopped at the gate of a yard and went in.
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Xu Lian climbed up the wall curiously and looked inside.
I saw a middle-aged man and several other people gathered in a circle, with two big roosters fighting in the middle.
Good guy... Turns out he likes cockfighting.
After watching for a while, he became too lazy to look anymore and rode away on his donkey. There were too many people in the town and it was not convenient to take action here.
He came to the middle-aged man's way back to the mine and waited there.
He knew that when it was getting dark, the middle-aged man would definitely return to the mine and announce "closing work and opening the warehouse to release grain." This was generally what the person in charge did.
Wait until evening.
Sure enough, as he expected, the middle-aged man came back on horseback.
Tear! ...
Xu Lian tore a piece of cloth from his body, covered his face with it, and leaped out. Like a hawk catching a rabbit, he grabbed the middle-aged man by the scruff of the neck with one hand and lifted him off the horse.
It is not accurate to say that it is a goshawk catching a rabbit, because judging from the body shape, the middle-aged man is fatter than Xu Lian, but he is a warrior in the Bone Refining Stage and has great strength. He can easily lift an adult man with one hand.
"What are you doing?"
The middle-aged man was horrified and pinned to the ground, unable to move.
Xu Lian pulled out the sharp knife from his belt and put it against his neck. "I ask you questions and you answer them. If I catch even a single lie from you, I'll cut your neck with the knife!"
The middle-aged man didn't dare to move. "What do you want to ask?"
Xu Lian first confirmed his identity, "Are you the manager of this nearby mine?"
The middle-aged man should say “Yes.”
Xu Lian said, "How to mine the stone marrow, and how to hand it over to the higher-ups after mining it."
The middle-aged man was stunned. "You want to steal the stone marrow?"
Xu Lian's eyes turned cold, and he flicked the sharp knife in his hand slightly, causing the middle-aged man's neck to bleed. "I'm asking you a question, not you asking me a question. If you say one more word of nonsense, I'll kill you!"
The middle-aged man was so scared that his face turned pale and his eyes were terrified, but he was not panicked and remained calm. He was worthy of being the one in charge. "I can tell you, but after I tell you, how can you promise not to kill me?"
"I covered my face on purpose so that you wouldn't see what I look like. I don't have to kill you to silence you."
Xu Lian said this calmly at first, then sneered, "Are you qualified to negotiate terms with me? If you don't, I will kill you right now!"
The middle-aged man looked at him fiercely, hesitated for a moment and said, "I said that the stones mined from various mines will be transported to the warehouse at the town's dock. There are people who are responsible for cutting stones there, and there is a certain possibility of cutting out the stone marrow."
Is chalcedony cut out of stone
Xu Lian understood that the growth methods of stone marrow and earth meat are different. This makes the problem easy. He just needs to go to the dock to grab the stone marrow.
"Is there any stone marrow cut out of the warehouse at the dock?"
"I don't know. I'm just the manager of this mine. The dock warehouse didn't tell me when they cut out the stone marrow, so how would I know?"
"How many guards are there?"
"There are three warriors and dozens of swordsmen."...
Xu Lian asked a few more questions, knocked the middle-aged man unconscious, pulled out an old vine, and tied him up.
If the stone marrow is not cut out in the warehouse at the dock, it would be a waste of time and the enemy would be alerted, making it difficult to seize the stone marrow next time.
There are three more warriors. What are their strengths and whether we can defeat them is also a question that needs to be considered.