The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

During his time in Africa, Lin Che became increasingly clear about one thing.

The things in his head never directly give him the answers.

It only provides direction and a vague outline; the rest is up to him to fill in, stroke by stroke.

The information I filled in consisted of bits and pieces of what I had heard, seen, and asked along the way.

None of these points alone will amount to much.

But if you can put them together and compare them, the blurry outline will gradually become clear.

Over the next few days, Lin Che went through everything in his hands again from beginning to end.

He wasn't in a hurry to draw any conclusions; he simply laid out the bits and pieces he had collected along the way, one by one, on the exploration map.

The exploration is still ongoing, and the data from Engineer Zhou is being sent back every day.

On Lin Che's drawing, an area gradually appeared that had been repeatedly traced with a pencil.

He himself couldn't say for sure when that area started to slowly emerge on the map.

Was it a piece of data reported by Engineer Zhou one day, or a place name that Old Ao let slip in a casual conversation?

Or perhaps he caught a glimpse of one of the squares that Kamau had dropped.

The lines were scattered, none of them able to connect with the others.

But after he thought about it for a while, the threads somehow started to come together on their own.

In the end, they put all their bets into that small area shown in the picture.

The more he looked, the clearer his vague guess became.

That evening, he called He Wei into the tent.

The picture was spread out on the table, covered with haphazard lines and circles.

The light from the oil lamp shone on it, casting flickering shadows on the pencils.

When He Wei came in, Lin Che was bent over looking at the drawing and didn't look up when he heard the noise.

"Come and see."

He pointed to the diagram and said, "I've figured out a bit about what's been going on these past few days."

He Wei leaned closer and looked at the densely drawn picture, but couldn't understand it for a moment.

"What have you figured out?"

"Three lines."

Lin Che picked up his pen and marked the first spot on the map.

"The first piece of information is Engineer Zhou's data."

He connected the several rich areas that Engineer Zhou had discovered in the past few days with his pen.

"Geologically, this area has the most promising deposits, with the thickest and highest-grade ore veins."

He Wei nodded.

She understood this; it was hard evidence, obtained by Engineer Zhou and his team drilling hole by hole and measuring it step by step.

"Zhou has tested it several times over the past few days."

She checked her records and said, "He said that the enrichment level in this area is much higher than that of the surrounding area, and it is the essence of the entire mining area."

"right."

Lin Che nodded. "This is the truth from the underground, it can't be faked, this is the first clue."

"Article Two."

Lin Che moved his pen to another spot, "about the people and things I've inquired about along the way."

"Where did the company that withdrew set up its exploration camp back then?"

He Wei thought for a moment.

"Old Ao mentioned it once, it seems to be in the middle of the mining area."

"right."

Lin Che drew an X in that spot.

"And the elders. Of the three villages, which one is the most difficult to deal with, the one that stubbornly refuses to concede the land? Where are their ancestral graves located?"

He Wei flipped through her notes.

"Also near the middle section."

She turned down two more pages, her brows slowly furrowing.

When I met the elder that day, he wouldn't budge an inch on the matter of mining.

But what they were really protecting was the land where their ancestral graves were buried.

She paused for a moment as she spoke.

"The places where our predecessors stumbled and the places where the locals fought to the death to protect are all in one place."

"It's not a coincidence."

Lin Che connected these two points as well, saying, "This area is what all parties are most concerned about and most wary of."

"This is the second line."

He Wei's gaze fell on the place where the two lines intersected.

The area they point to almost overlaps with the area identified by the first geological survey line.

Her heart skipped a beat for no reason.

The best minerals lie underground, and the deepest resentment gathers on the surface; these two things happen to be squeezed into the same piece of land.

No wonder that company failed back then, no wonder the elder refused to admit it.

The fattiest cuts of meat are often the hardest to chew.

Before she could recover from the shock of this floor, Lin Che had already spoken.

"There's a third point."

Lin Che lowered his voice, "You know half of this."

He Wei looked at him.

These past few days, she had a vague feeling that Lin Che was paying attention to something, but he didn't say anything, and she didn't ask.

"Kamau".

Lin Che uttered the name.

He Wei was taken aback.

"His daily records will be turned into reports and submitted."

Lin Che said, "And when he was taking notes, he would subconsciously mark certain blocks."

"mark?"

He Wei didn't quite understand.

"A small square."

Lin Che pointed out a few more locations on the map. "The places he marked correspond to these areas on the map."

He Wei followed the gaze and her breath hitched slightly.

Those pieces, once again, fell in the same area.

She suddenly realized what was happening.

Lin Che noticed something strange about Kamau these past few days; it turns out he had figured this out.

A doodle drawn unintentionally by someone sent to monitor them was unexpectedly discovered by Lin Che and turned into intelligence.

She was both surprised and impressed, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.

Those eyes that were staring at them, ironically became Lin Che's eyes, allowing him to see through the thoughts of those above.

She had witnessed this skill before, back in the country.

But the fact that he could still do this in a foreign land where she knew no one made her feel both uneasy and strangely at ease.

With someone like that leading the way, it seems like I'd dare to wade through even the deepest waters.

"Those in charge of regulation are also concerned about this area."

Lin Che slowly drew the third line.

The three lines have completely different origins.

One is an underground mine, cold, hard data.

One is the people on earth, the entanglements of grudges and entanglements spanning generations.

One is a thought hidden in a small square, far away in the sky.

But these three lines, after circling around on the map, all end up pointing to the same place.

The tent fell silent.

On that picture, three lines of different colors extend from three directions, like three hands, all pressing down on the same small area.

He Wei stared at the point where the three lines intersected, speechless for a long time.

This is not something that any single line of communication can tell her.

The geological data is presented in isolation, but it does indicate that the area is rich in mineral resources.

The personal grudges and entanglements in those relationships only show that the place is full of troubles and murky waters.

As for the seemingly insignificant little box of regulation, under normal circumstances, no one would give it much thought.

But ironically, these three completely unrelated things were piled up together, all resting on the same piece of ground.

The sheer weight of that land was overwhelming, making it hard to breathe.

She finally understood what Lin Che had been thinking about these past few days.

"So... the real core of this land, the most valuable and also the most sought-after part, is this piece?"

"Most likely."

Lin Che picked up his pen, and the tip landed right in the center of the intersection of the three lines, where it stopped.

He didn't say "die".

The fact that the three lines match up only proves that his judgment was correct.

But at what precise point do these three lines intersect, and where exactly is the boundary of that core area?

The details shown in the diagram alone are not enough to make that precise a deduction.

Just as he told Engineer Zhou, he was confident in the general direction, but as for the specifics, he had to measure with his own feet and see with his own eyes.

Even if the lines on a drawing are perfectly aligned, it's still just something on paper.

To truly implement this core area, we need to personally visit the site and explore it firsthand.

That area wasn't large; on the vast mining map, it was just a tiny circle.

But it is weighed down by mines, by people, and by unseen forces.

He Wei subconsciously moved closer, trying to see clearly which piece it was and what the label on it was.

Lin Che's hand moved.

He didn't circle those circles.

Instead, he slowly and deliberately closed the entire picture.

"Just one last step."

He said, "This is just something I deduced from the chart."

"Before you can verify it with your own eyes, it's still just a judgment."