Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 871 Mine
The sun had just risen, its pale light piercing through the leaden clouds and barely illuminating the chaotic camp on the outskirts of the mine.

The biting wind whipped up snowflakes, lashing the faces of those emerging from their low shacks.

These people held various tools, shovels, picks, and even homemade crowbars tightly in their hands.

The crowd silently gazed at the gaping maw that resembled a crack in the earth.

The air was filled with the scents of tobacco, breakfast, and a faint, lingering aroma of frozen soil and some indescribable, decaying smell that seemed to emanate from the depths of an abyss.

"Attention! Attention! Everyone listen up! Today's purchase price! Five-colored stones, 400 ghost coins per gram! 400 ghost coins per gram! Those who want to sell, hurry up! Payment upon inspection, fair and square! No waiting after the deadline!"

The sound was an electronic recording playing on a loop from a large loudspeaker nearby.

"Fuck it!"

A middle-aged man with a face covered in chilblains and a stubble of hair suddenly spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the snow, cursing in a hoarse voice, "Yesterday it was 420! These bastards who eat people without spitting out the bones!"

"It's going down! It's going down! If it keeps going down, I'll have worked for nothing again!" A companion next to him said, his face ashen, his eyes filled with despair and anger. "This little bit of money isn't even enough to buy amulets!"

"Exactly! The deeper we dig, the more ferocious the curse becomes, and the price keeps getting lower and lower! Are we even allowed to live like this?" Another skinny miner chimed in, his voice trembling with tears.

Most of them were ordinary people or low-level beginners. Every time they went down into the mine, they were gambling with their lives, hoping that the colorful stones could be exchanged for supplies to survive and money for the dead.

Every drop in price means they are one step closer to the death line.

Of course, it's not that no one has thought about leaving.

The problem is that you have to pay an entrance fee to enter this place, but most of them were tricked into coming in by unscrupulous merchants and didn't pay an entrance fee at all.

If you want to leave, you must pay ten times the price of the ticket plus interest.

As for escaping, that's impossible. In this freezing weather, it's too easy to find a trace of someone. Those bandits send people out to keep watch every night.

If they get caught, the consequences are predictable.

To stay here, they need sufficient supplies, and these supplies are really expensive, basically costing them half of the money they've earned from the underworld.

In addition, when going down into the mine, you should bring at least one amulet. Its effect is naturally not comparable to that of a health pack, but it can still provide some benefit.

This is bound to be another expense.

As the saying goes, make money in the mine, spend it in the mine, and don't take a single penny home.

Some people reluctantly clutched the five-colored stones in their arms, hesitating whether to make a move today.

Some had ferocious expressions, their eyes fixed on the mine with even more ruthless intent, as if they wanted to chew up the endless darkness.

Others are completely numb, mechanically moving forward with the flow of people.

At that moment, a man wearing a black leather jacket, sunglasses, and a menacing scar on his face, surrounded by a group of burly men who were clearly thugs, walked up to the vicinity of the platform. He held a piece of paper that had just been printed and still smelled of ink, and slapped it onto a large wooden board next to him.

"What's all the commotion about! The prices are public! Not satisfied? Don't dig! Don't sell!" The scarred man's voice, sharp as metal, silenced the surrounding noise. "Think the price is too low? Look at this!"

He pointed to the piece of paper. It clearly showed a printed copy of "Today's Acquisition Guidelines":
400 joss coins/gram: Loose, multicolored stones weighing less than 5 grams, with average purity (many impurities).

420 ghost money/gram: weighing more than 5 grams or with high purity (few impurities and rich color).

450 ghost money/gram: A whole piece weighing more than 10 grams and of excellent purity (rare).

480 ghost money/gram+: Special forms (such as crystal clusters, associated rare minerals, etc., require on-site identification).

Note: All transactions must be verified by an appraiser from Changchun. Goods found to be adulterated or of inferior quality will be confiscated!

On the surface, these so-called "detailed rules" seem to give higher prices to good products and further standardize pricing.

In reality, the stringent requirements for weight and purity, along with the vague requirement of "confirmation by an appraiser," firmly hold the pricing power in the hands of the Changchun Association.

The so-called prices of 420 and 450 are nothing but a pie in the sky for the vast majority of miners struggling in the shallows who can only pick up scattered colorful stones.

The cold reality that most of them face is that 400 ghost coins per gram.

"Sigh, this is forcing us to jump into a pit."

"Damn it, I've heard of this Changchun Club before. It must have been infamous outside that night. How did it end up here?"

The crowd shouted curses, but that was all they could say.

Resistance was futile; the mine had no shortage of people. There had been a previous resistance, which resulted in hundreds of people being thrown into the deep pit.

In their eyes, human life was less than a dog's. Amidst the crowd's curses, everyone still lined up to enter the mine.

"Changchun Society! Hasn't this organization been eliminated yet?"

Qi Jinguang and Jin Chanzi followed behind, looking at the new rules the man had hung up to the side. Qi Jinguang frowned and said, clearly he had also heard of the Changchun Society's infamous reputation.

Upon hearing this, Jin Chanzi said, "Changchun Society, Changchun Society, since it occupies the word 'spring,' it is like wildfire that cannot burn it out and spring breeze that brings it back to life. Its roots are intertwined, and it survives by relying on people's evil thoughts and greed. How difficult it is to eradicate it completely."

His voice was low, carrying a hint of world-weary indifference. His gaze swept over the numb miners queuing, who dared not speak out in anger. "Look at this barren soil, isn't it the very breeding ground that nourishes it?"

As the two talked, they followed the crowd into the mining area. At the front of the line, there was a simple wooden shed, and a man with an unfriendly face sat at the entrance. Each miner had to pay a sum of money and take away a small wooden sign when he walked over.

After Qi Jinguang walked past, he looked blankly at the three wooden signs spread out on the ground, which were hastily painted with some distorted runes in cheap red paint.

Upon seeing this, the man selling wooden signs raised an eyebrow and impatiently tapped the table with his knuckles:

"New here, huh? Don't you know the rules? Amulets! There are only three types: 30, 70, and 120. I advise you, if your life is at stake, you'd better buy the highest level one, so you don't go down and never come back!"

Jin Guang frowned even more. He picked up a so-called talisman priced at 120 ghost money. He lightly touched the surface of the wooden plaque with his fingertips. It was rough to the touch, the wood was loose, and it had a raw smell of freshly cut wood.

"Isn't this just the most rudimentary and crude Purification Spell, which can't even properly draw in Qi? It's made of mixed wood, not even as good as the lowest grade of jujube wood! What kind of curse can this thing possibly block? It won't even last half a quarter of an hour!"

His voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally clear amidst the stifling and oppressive atmosphere of the queue.

Upon hearing this, the muscles on the numb faces of several old miners nearby twitched, and their eyes dimmed even more, but no one dared to utter a sound.

The man in the shed instantly turned grim, his eyes flashing with malice. He even reached under the table with one hand: "You little brat! What the hell do you know! If you're not buying, get out! If you dare to talk nonsense again, believe me, I'll throw you into the mine right now!"

"Amitabha! Young man, please don't be angry."

Jin Chanzi stepped forward at the opportune moment, a harmless smile plastered on his face. With a flick of his round little hand, two hundred pieces of ghost money were neatly stacked on the table.

“We’re new here and don’t know the rules. We’ve offended you, young man. Please forgive us. We’ll have one of each of the three, so we can learn something and have peace of mind.”

Upon seeing the ghost money, the man's fierce aura softened slightly. He snorted coldly, grabbed the money, and casually tossed out three wooden plaques of different colors: "You're smart! Take these plaques and get inside! Don't get in the way!"

Jin Chanzi chuckled as he accepted the sign, then pulled the still somewhat indignant Qi Jinguang to a spot where the crowd was a little thinner.

He tossed the most expensive piece to Qi Jinguang: "Here, my grand-nephew, weren't you quite curious? Take this and appreciate it carefully."

Qi Jinguang held the wooden plaque worth 120 ghost money in his hand, feeling the faint, pitiful, almost negligible "protective" aura emanating from it.

As a young man, and one who came from a Taoist family, Qi Jinguang felt a surge of anger rising to his head and cursed, "These beasts!"

As he spoke, he casually tossed the sign aside.

In his opinion, this thing was utter garbage; it would be better to carry two chicken bones with him.

Ignoring the chaotic appraisal area and the angry crowd, the two walked straight into the depths of the mine.

After passing a pile of abandoned slag heaps, the huge pit that existed only in rumors and memories suddenly appeared before our eyes.

Even with his resolute will, Qi Jinguang couldn't help but gasp in shock.

Before them lay a colossal, deep crater, so vast it seemed as if a horrific scar had been brutally ripped from the earth.

The pit's diameter is estimated to be over one kilometer, resembling a bottomless abyss leading to the Earth's core. Its edges are steep and precipitous, and looking down, one's vision is swallowed by a profound darkness and a biting cold.

The pit walls are not vertical, but rather consist of working platforms and narrow walkways that spiral downwards like giant terraces, layer upon layer, with no bottom in sight.

The sparse figures on the platform, like ants, were carefully moving down the steep boardwalk.

The two did not immediately descend, but instead walked slowly along the weathered, rough edge of the mine pit, which was covered with ice shards.

The frozen ground beneath my feet was as hard as iron, and every step I took made the snow crunch loudly.

Just then, Qi Jinguang's gaze was drawn to the bottom of the mine pit.

In the deepest part of the pit, almost completely shrouded in profound darkness, a faint yet exceptionally persistent brilliant light pierced through the layers of gloom and came into view. The light was not a single color, but rather flowed with a magnificent and rich hue of red, orange, yellow, green, and purple—the unique and wondrous luster of the five-colored stone!

"Grandmaster Uncle!" Qi Jinguang suddenly stopped in his tracks, his voice filled with disbelief and astonishment. He pointed to the seemingly unreachable depths of the pit, "Look! Down there... it's huge!"

The golden toad glanced sideways at the enormous, multicolored stone at the bottom of the pit, and sneered, saying:
"Yes, it's huge. I wonder how many people have been blinded by this rock and recklessly tried to crawl down into it."

(End of this chapter)