My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 97 We Can't Be So Cold-Blooded
The man slumped into the shallow water, his hands behind his back, struggling to move, his legs kicking wildly backward, desperately trying to get away in terror.

Seemingly finally realizing what was happening, he rolled over, got up, and ran away.

Seeing this, it goes without saying that there was something wrong with the water pants that were floating by.

Aside from those still clueless in the sandpit, everyone on the ground crowded around the pair of waders that had been dragged into the shallow water and were no longer drifting with the current.

Upon getting closer, Zhou Jingming immediately understood what was going on.

Beneath the waders, a tuft of hair floated, swaying like seaweed on the water's surface.

That wasn't just a pair of waders drifting with the current; it was clearly a person wearing waders.

However, after the person fell into the water, because the waders were waterproof, a wad of air was trapped around the buttocks and legs, making them float at the top. This caused the person wearing the waders to be top-heavy after falling into the water, with their upper body submerged in the water and hidden by the waders, making them unrecognizable.

Or, to put it another way, it's like being tied up by your legs while swimming, making it very difficult for your head to surface.

I was only thinking of retrieving a pair of waders, but instead I pulled out a person. Anyone would be panicked if they saw this scene and were not prepared at all.

No matter who you are, everyone has a primal fear of death; it's just that the intensity of this fear varies with life experience.

Zhou Jingming moved closer and examined him closely.

He suddenly saw the corpse's head sway.

He frowned slightly, unable to tell for a moment whether the head was swaying because of the water flow or whether the head itself was swaying.

He turned to Wu Yang and Peng Yuanchao, who had followed him, and asked, "Did you see his head move just now?"

Peng Yuanchao shook his head: "No, I didn't see it!"

Wu Yang looked puzzled: "It seems to have moved!"

I think two look similar, but I didn't see one.

Then it's possible that this person actually moved.

"Drag him out and let us see!"

Zhou Jingming, who was already wearing waders, immediately strode into the shallow water, and Wu Yang followed to help.

Peng Yuanchao disagreed: "Why drag it up? If we push it back into the water, it'll be bad luck if it dies. We might as well push it back and let it go where it belongs. Besides, dragging it up might cause us trouble. In Xihai, I've seen people use this kind of thing to cause trouble at the mine. Don't do something so thankless."

Zhou Jingming disagreed with this view: "Brother Peng, that's not fair. If the person is dead, letting him go with the current is fine, but if he's alive, not trying to save him is just inhumane."

As the old saying goes, saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda.

Of course, I don't care about pagodas or anything like that, and I don't have that kind of awareness, but from another perspective, if this kind of thing happened to you or me one day, you wouldn't want others to stand by and watch you die, would you?

On the other hand, bringing people up here might cause trouble, but it might also garner some goodwill.

We are all living, breathing human beings; we can't be so cold-blooded.

After he finished speaking, without caring what Peng Yuanchao thought, he walked a few steps to the man's side, forcefully turned the man over, and was shocked again when he saw the man's face.

His face was completely deformed, almost flat, his features collapsed as if they had been flattened, his mouth was half open, full of blood, his front teeth and a few surrounding teeth were gone, only his molars were still there, and what was most frightening were his eyes, which looked like they had been squeezed out by a huge force, appearing big and round, staring straight at Zhou Jingming.

Zhou Jingming felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't help but curse, "Damn it!"

Wu Yang, who had come to help, reached out to check the man's breath. Just as his hand touched the man's nose, the man suddenly stiffened his neck, made a gurgling sound in his throat, and then a cloud of blood foam came out of his mouth.

The sensation was like it was about to bite him; Wu Yang was startled and quickly withdrew his hand, cursing, "Damn it..."

But it is precisely because of this commotion that we can be sure that this person still has a chance.

"Quickly, get him up here!"

Zhou Jingming gave a shout, and together with Wu Yang, they each grabbed one of the man's hands and dragged him ashore.

After settling the person down, he conducted a further examination. He shook the person a few times, but there was no response; the person was likely unconscious. He then checked the area around the mouth, nose, and neck. The breathing was faint, but the pulse was still present, and the throat was twitching intermittently.

Zhou Jingming had dealt with Jinzi for most of his life, most of which was spent in the river valley. He had seen many drowning incidents and had also seen some first aid methods, but he had never actually practiced them.

He considered performing artificial respiration, but looking at the man's bloodied and mangled face, he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.

He simply placed his hands together and pressed rapidly on the man's chest, hoping to wake him up. But after more than a minute of this, there was no response. After thinking for a while, he decided to use the most basic method.

"Wu Yang, carry him upside down and walk around here to see if controlling the water will work!"

After Zhou Jingming finished speaking, he asked Peng Yuanchao for help. He lifted the man upside down, then placed his legs on Wu Yang's shoulders and had him hold onto them for stability as they walked aimlessly on the riverbank.

Water control methods have a long history and come in many varieties.

Zhou Jingming had seen villagers put drowning children on the backs of oxen and lead them around, constantly bumping them. He had also seen drowning victims carried upside down on their backs and run around in agony. He had even seen drowning victims hung upside down from trees and beaten in the abdomen... There were quite a few successful examples as well.

He has no better options now, so he can only resort to this old-fashioned method. Whether he can survive depends on how tough his luck is.

Wu Yang carried the man on his back and walked quickly along the riverbank. After about a minute, the man suddenly convulsed and vomited a lot of water. After walking for a while, he vomited some more and then coughed violently.

Seeing this, Zhou Jingming breathed a sigh of relief and told Wu Yang not to stop. After struggling for a while longer, Zhou Jingming finally saw the man waving his hands and told Wu Yang to put him down.

Seeing him lying weakly on the beach, but at least his breathing was normal, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Just then, a few people came down from upstream, running and stopping along the riverbank.

A dozen minutes later, seeing the group approaching the small peninsula, Wu Yang asked in a low voice, "Should we stop them?"

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "Judging from their appearance, they're probably looking for something along the river, and they're probably looking for this person. Let them come up!"

Those men were somewhat sensible; they didn't recklessly run straight up the small peninsula. At the edge of the woods, the leader called out, "Gentlemen, have you seen someone swept down by the river?"

Zhou Jingming replied to them, "We rescued one here. Come and see if he's the one you're looking for."

"It's him! He's the person we've been looking for!"

Upon hearing this, the group jogged over together. Seeing the person lying on the ground, their tense expressions eased slightly.

"It was so difficult to revive him..."

Taking the opportunity, Peng Yuanchao asked, "What's going on up there?"

"Don't even mention it... A couple of days ago, two groups of people went up the mountain. They were both teams that had just come to pan for gold. They spent two days in the valley, but they probably didn't find any good gold deposits. One of the teams crossed the mountain pass and disappeared. The other one set its sights on our mining site."

They probably thought we were easy to bully because there were fewer of us, so they suddenly rushed over today and tried to seize the place.

He was hit directly in the face with a shovel, staggered and fell into the river, where he was swept away.

We were in the middle of a fight and couldn't pay attention to everyone at the time. We only rushed down to look for them after we'd driven them away and they were out of sight!

The middle-aged man leading the group, who was probably the head of the team, said with a grateful expression, "I really want to thank you for saving him. This kid is my sister's son. When I brought him out, my sister repeatedly warned me that if he died, I wouldn't know how to explain it when we got back."

Zhou Jingming and his group arrived at the Gold Panning Valley early. There were only three or five other gold panning teams in this side valley who had arrived before them. Most of the teams that came to this side valley later, as long as they went upstream, had seen them.

He remembered the group of people looking for him; there weren't many of them, only about seven or eight.

Since more people had appeared in the valley trying to seize territory, Zhou Jingming asked one more question: "How many of them are there?"

"There are fifteen of them. Judging from their accents, they're from the Western Sea region."

"You guys are really amazing for winning with fewer troops."

"There's nothing we can do about it. Coming to pan for gold has always involved shedding blood and risking your life."

"That's true... You should take him away quickly, his facial injuries are quite serious, and we need to treat them as soon as possible."

"Then I won't say any more. I'll come to visit again after things are settled. My surname is Li, and my name is Li Guozhu. We are all from Jincheng. We haven't had a chance to learn from you yet..."

“My surname is Zhou… The burly guy next to me is surnamed Peng. He’s our leader. Our group was temporarily assembled; we’re from several different places.”

"I've got it. I'll come back another day to get to know you better!"

The leader gave Zhou Jingming and Peng Yuanchao a fist salute, a gesture rarely seen in these days, and then, with their help, carried the rescued person on his back and hurriedly left.

The fist-and-palm salute is a very traditional etiquette. When performing the salute, the left hand is turned into a palm and the right hand into a fist, with both arms bent in front of the chest, symbolizing respect and humility.

Li Guozhu's actions gave Zhou Jingming a rather strange feeling.

Only after the group had walked a distance did Wu Yang whisper, "Fifteen people, that should be the group that went upstream that day. The group in front only had ten people!"

Zhou Jingming nodded slightly: "Mm!"

Wu Yang then said, "Brother Zhou, when those guys went up there that day, they should have noticed that there were only the two of us at the mine. Why didn't they come after us?"

Zhou Jingming laughed: "You really want others to come looking for trouble for us?"

Wu Yang shook his head: "No, I was just thinking that if someone comes looking for trouble, maybe we can make some more gold!"

"You've tasted the sweetness of success from those two groups, Bearded Man and Old Tang... You'd better rein in such thoughts!"
If someone attacks and you win, you might not gain anything. But if you lose and get wiped out, wouldn't you feel like you've suffered a huge loss? Like I said, let's not cause trouble, but let's not be afraid of trouble either. Isn't it better to quietly mine for gold?

Zhou Jingming took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

He truly felt the fighting spirit in Wu Yang's bones; perhaps only someone like him could have mastered combat techniques so well.

"Don't underestimate the gold prospectors who mingle in the valleys. They're all experts at picking on the weak to maximize their profits with minimal cost."

There were only two of us guarding the camp, but we had a water pump and three tents set up, so it wasn't hard to tell that the team was quite strong and had a large number of members.

They need to consider the consequences of seizing our mining sites and whether they can withstand a counterattack.

Zhou Jingming patted Wu Yang on the shoulder: "Don't think about those things. Don't worry, as long as you're in Gold Rush Valley, all sorts of clashes are inevitable. If you want to fight, you'll have plenty of opportunities... Alright, stop standing around and get to work."

After saying that, he walked towards the chute first, sat down on the pebbles again, and shook the gold bucket that had been placed there.

(End of this chapter)