Chapter 50: The Desolate Well's Fright (Part 2)

  The smiling faces on those tombstones made me feel a little uneasy, and I had a feeling of schadenfreude. I bid farewell to my parents with a runny nose and tears in my eyes.

  I drove away in the million-dollar Porsche I had just bought a few days ago, declining Tie Dan's offer to be my driver.

  After passing the driver's license, Nima has been practicing with a 28-inch horizontal bar bicycle and forgot that the driver's license is for four wheels. It's rare to show off, and it can't let the iron tortoise steal the spotlight.

  Not to mention, the feeling of speeding is great. When stuck in traffic, the little girls on the side of the road keep giving me flirtatious glances and shouting "handsome guy come get a haircut" and I'm not refusing, they're even more coquettish, enjoying the admiring gazes.

  After getting on the highway, there aren't many vehicles on the road. I recall the days when I rode a 28-gear bike and it's truly amazing how life is full of surprises. Ever since I got my own ride, I even want to drive just to buy soy sauce.

  All the way, I closed my eyes and rested, listening to the soft music on the car radio, shaking my head and swaying back and forth, enjoying myself.

  Ran all the way...

  As the coal dust on the road and the gradually appearing coal trucks, I don't need to listen to the navigation girl say that I already know I've reached the boundary of Pingzhou Taiyuan. I don't know if it's psychological or not, but I feel like there's a slightly sour taste in the air, which is very appetizing.

  When I got off the highway, I saw a restaurant called Jin Yun Lou in the distance with a lot of people coming and going. I thought it should be good. In fact, whether this restaurant tastes good or not can be known by looking at the traffic flow, which is basically 80-90% accurate. If there are no customers, it's best to detour and leave.

  Watching the parking lot security guard directing on site, I just stabilized the car and woke up the sleeping iron clothes. This guardian is not reliable at all.

  At this time, a middle-aged woman rushed into the restaurant with a smile on her face.

  "Hey young man, we have good food here, what do you want to eat? This car is really great!"

  Seeing this enthusiastic face, I suddenly felt not hungry, wanted to leave, looking at the indifferent iron clothes, thinking that since I came, I might as well eat something, otherwise it would be a waste of the big brother who just shouted for oil.

  "What's good to eat here?" I asked the big mom in front of me with a smile.

  "What's good to eat here? We have bingfen, mianwa, roujiamo, youguo rou, ganbian, menmen and huangtui. What do you want to eat?"

  By the way, this big mom is quite enthusiastic in her service attitude, except for being a bit older, plumper, with more wrinkles and a louder voice, making us feel very welcome.

  Looking at Tieyi beside me, who seemed to be able to eat anything, I didn't bother asking for his opinion. Just as I was facing this pile of unfamiliar names and was about to randomly pick something.

  "Cut the noodles, stir-fry the pot." This loud voice, one shout can reach Zhūmùlǎmǎ, I suddenly sweated.

  Following the sound, I saw a short and stout middle-aged man with a shiny bald head from the transparent glass-enclosed kitchen. His head was round and smooth, shining like it had been greased with vegetable oil.

  His eerie movements instantly caught my attention.

  "What is that master doing?" I pointed at the chef with a piece of dough stuck on his head, who was brushing the shiny bald head with an iron plate.

  "That's knife-cut noodles!" The aunt said with pride.

  However, I've heard of this knife-cut noodle, which is one of the top five noodles in China, along with Beijing's zhajiangmian, Henan's huimian, Hubei's re gan mian and Sichuan's dan dan mian. But this head-on noodle, with two hands chopping, I've never seen before. It feels very dangerous, at any time there might be extra ingredients like ears or the back of the brain appearing in the pot.

  "Alright then, just bring a few more of what you mentioned earlier, enough for two people to eat." I said with a smack of my tongue.

  At this moment, my attention was completely conquered by the plump master's skillful knife skills. I saw the plump master put the good dough on his forehead, with each hand holding two thin metal sheets, chatting and laughing while working simultaneously with both hands. The willow-leaf-sized noodles fell into the pot one after another, not a single one falling outside the pot.

  In a short while, several dough lumps transformed into steaming hot noodles in the blink of an eye, which was appetizing just by looking at them.

  Soon, the aunt brought up two large bowls of noodles. The bowl was so big that I felt it could be used as a foot bath if placed on the ground. It was really value for money. Along with the two large bowls of knife-cut noodles came several small bowls, which should be the sauce for the noodles, including pork, beef, snow vegetables, and tomato scrambled eggs. Seeing this, I quickly called out to the aunt, handed her a 100 yuan tip, and asked for another pot of tea, nothing else was needed, as after eating this noodle dish, one could basically only crawl away.

  The aunt walked away with a smile on her face, holding the qiu (a type of Chinese pastry).

  I picked up a pair of chopsticks and took a bite of the noodles, which were cut into thin slices with a sharp knife. The edges were thick and the middle was thin, with a clear distinction between the two. The shape resembled a willow leaf. As I put it in my mouth, the outside was smooth and the inside had a nice texture, soft but not sticky. The more I chewed, the more fragrant it became. My companion Tie Yi and I buried our heads and ate silently, until about halfway through, when we were so full that if we continued eating, it would have come back out. After drinking some tea, we both exclaimed in unison that this noodle dish was truly famous for a reason.

  I was burping, picking my teeth, and patting my belly in satisfaction as I walked out of the Jin Yun Building wearing my iron armor, but basically couldn't take big strides anymore. The feeling of having a full stomach was very reassuring, truly with food in one's belly, one's heart is at peace.

  After getting on the car, Tiejie continued to sleep. I followed the navigation prompt and arrived at Yangquan City in about an hour or so. After asking many locals, I finally found a mine called Kaishan Village in the western suburbs of Yangquan.

  This is a private mine built on the side of a mountain. During the ten years of coal and gold rush, many bosses from the south came to dig coal and mine here. Every mountain was dug with holes all over it. I reckon the mine in front of me now was also a product of that time.

  It's really aptly named, the entrance of Kuangshan Tun Mine is indeed located on a hillside. If I hadn't spent 50 yuan to hire a local kid to guide me, I wouldn't have believed that this cave was actually a mine.

  The yellow soil all over the mountain, from time to time a northwest wind blows up, and it's full of dust. It seems that these coal bosses are really stingy, this so-called mine doesn't seem to need any investment at all, just dig a hole and that's it.

  The scene in front of me is worlds apart from the mine where I used to work as a technician.

  In front of me, the entrance to the mine is roughly wide enough for two people to squeeze through side by side, and about 2 meters high. It's very crude. If Iron Clothes hadn't been certain that this was the right hole, I would have thought it was some kind of limestone cave or maybe even an animal den.

  Perhaps due to the long abandonment, there are many fallen rocks at the entrance of the cave. Only from the yellow soil near the entrance can you vaguely see some coal powder mixed in, softly proving its identity as a coal mine.

  I can hardly imagine how this thing became a mine. The narrowness is simply appalling, if I were to evaluate this thing, I could only say: a tiny piece of land.

  Since I came with a mission, the arrow on the string had to be shot. Iron clothes and I stopped the car at an empty place at the foot of the mountain, and in less than five minutes, I felt that the car was almost buried alive by the yellow soil, becoming unrecognizable and pitiful, making me very heartbroken.

  After opening the trunk, Tieyi took out two mountaineering bags that had been prepared long ago. Inside were the equipment we had purchased. Along the dirt road, we half-walked and half-crawled to the entrance of the mine. I pulled out a bottle of mineral water from my bag, took a sip, and rinsed my mouth. The feeling was no longer like spitting out water, but mud instead.

  Standing at the entrance of the cave, looking out towards the opposite side of the well, a vast expanse of yellow stretched out before me. The layered loess soil was densely packed with gullies, and sparse withered trees stood upright in the fields. As the wind blew, my face and mouth were filled with yellow dust. Seeing a gust of yellow sand blowing towards us, I quickly gestured for Tie Yi to enter the cave entrance.

  Standing at the entrance of the cave, I patted off the dust on my body and said "Geez, it looks like we're here to drink the northwest wind!" Tieyi was busy rummaging through his equipment. As he walked into the wellhead, the top plate above began to gradually lower, and the stone blocks at the entrance became denser, looking as if there had been a severe collapse. This entire cave had no facilities whatsoever, from entering the cave until now, not even a single electric wire was seen.

  The support of the well wall is basically some old wood, and there are almost no protective measures to speak of. No wonder the coal bosses make a fortune with zero investment and high returns.

  I look at everything in front of me with great dissatisfaction, thinking that people living here really have a hard time. Although I used to live a difficult life too, it was at least several dozen times better than here. For a moment, I wanted to hold my ancestors' hands and thank them for choosing the beautiful Fengdu as their settlement.

  The scene in front of me is suffocating just by looking at it, feeling tight-chested, short of breath, and having difficulty breathing.

  Looking at Tieyi's appearance, it seems that the external environment will never have any impact on him. I sighed and thought to myself, this guy is really a good brick, wherever he is needed, he can be used.

  With the wolf-tooth strong light flashlight emitting a beam of light, we took out the equipment we were wearing one by one, portable tile inspection instrument, self-rescuer, high-hardness safety helmet, my Swiss army knife, iron clothes bronze...

  Because I used to work in coal mines, wearing these equipment is simply too easy for me. I quickly put them on and looked at Tieyi who was still dressing. I turned on the flashlight and shone it into the well. This mine should be a manual excavation from the waist of the mountain downwards. About 7 or 8 meters ahead, there's a steep slope downwards. There are no cement steps, just some pits that were dug out by manpower. It's clear that the coal excavated here must have been carried out on people's backs and climbed up this slope. The intensity of this labor is unthinkable now. I really don't know how people did it in the past.

  This is indeed not a good occupation, I said to myself as I walked down the steep slope of the well.

  Seeing that Tieyi was also dressed, I opened the gas detector in my hand and saw that the value was still within the safe range. I said, "The gas is okay, we can continue down."

  He nodded, and we continued to move forward with our heads down, looking at the steep slope in front of us. At first glance, it seemed a bit steep but not too bad. However, as I looked along the beam of light from the wolf's tooth, I couldn't see the bottom through the dark darkness. I felt that this wasn't a slope at all, but rather a vertical drop. The so-called steps on the landslide were small, and if you weren't careful, you'd fall off. With the sound of the wind in the cave, there was an eerie feeling like a ghost crying.

  Tieyi furrowed his brow, using the wolf's fang in his hand to scan the surroundings.

  "What's going on?" I asked curiously.

  "Something doesn't feel right, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Let me take a look around the surroundings, if something unexpected happens, at least I won't be left fumbling in the dark. Meanwhile, let's find a rope to secure a fixed point."

  I sneered at Tieyi and said, "You've never been down a well before, have you? I have. It's normal to be a little scared at first. When I first went down the well, I was putting explosives on the working surface and thought it had collapsed. I lay on the ground, mentally preparing my will." Thinking back to those days, it seemed like they were still not far behind me.

  Who would have thought that Tie Yi's words were not just a figure of speech? I know.

  Come to think of it, is there anything about me that this guy doesn't know?

  This guy's sudden interruption killed my interest in chatting, I was observing the data on the gas detector in my hand all the time, and there are many high-gas mines around Taiyuan, Shandong Province, if you're not careful, it's easy to get into trouble.