Chapter 579: So That’s The Reason
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After he was pointed at, the group of people looked over at Li Du and company.
Godzilla clenched his fists and mumbled, "F*ck, what is it?"
Big Quinn held him back and said, "Calm down buddy. Although I don't know what's going on it's surely not a fight!"
He was confident because with his appearance and build, other than the police, he had never met anyone who had dared challenge him to his face.
"It was you guys who rented this plot of land?" someone asked Li Du eagerly. "It was you guys?"
Not knowing what to make of it, Li Du frowned and said, "Yes, it was us. Why?"
"Two days? You guys rented it for two days? Left only yesterday?"
"Yes, why?" Li Du was puzzled.
A middle-aged black man yelled, "What did I say? You fools, still don't believe me? This Chinaman stayed here for two days and dug up many boulder opals!"
"What?" Li Du was bewildered—what was he talking about?
The black middle-aged man continued to holler, "If you don't believe me, you can go and ask Owen. Owen bought his gems, many gems! I dare swear upon the honor of the Christopher family name that he dug up many gems from here and sold them to Owen!"
As the crowd looked at him, Li Du frowned and asked, "Hey, how do you know that?"
Although this man sounded like he was making things up, part of what he said was true: he had indeed found many opals here and sold them to Owen.
But how did he know this?
Li Du realized that they had been tracked and even closely monitored. He hadn't been aware that someone had been monitoring his moves.
His reply affirmed that the man was telling the truth. This news made the hunters even more excited.
Someone said, "Christopher is right, I saw him. This Chinaman stayed here with his two musclemen for the past two days. They stayed here for two days!"
"Of course they found something. If you were at a place where you couldn't find anything, would you still stay there for two days?"
The man Christopher shouted, "Yes, that's it. My friends and I were watching them. When they left to sell the gems, we grabbed the chance to rent this plot of land."
"And then you found the gem mine here?"
Christopher said, "In actual fact, we were not the ones who discovered it. It was this Chinaman. But as he was a rookie, he did not extend his rental. That's how we got the chance to rent it."
Li Du's frown deepened. Hang on, what's going on? The gem mine here had been discovered by him? And he was a rookie? Forgot to extend the rental?
The reason he did not extend the rental was that there was no way of finding any more opals on this surface. These people were bullsh*tting, and using him for some devious scheme!
But he still didn't understand what it was that the other party wanted. To show off?
The real intention was revealed soon after. As more and more gem hunters came over, it was clear that Christopher and his friends wanted everyone to know what had happened.
The story was: Li Du was a gem hunting rookie. This was something that everyone knew since the community was not a large one.
Despite being a rookie, he was lucky. The last time he had discovered an opal and this time, when he returned to the national park, he had discovered a gem mine.
But he had been too careless, or maybe being a rookie, he had lacked experience. After discovering some boulder opals, he had busied himself with selling them instead of extending the rental on this plot of land.
Christopher and company, who had been monitoring him, hurriedly took over the land and discovered a large number of boulder opals. There were still boulder opals being found.
The box in front of Christopher filled with opals quickly. Earlier, someone had overestimated it to contain 100 pieces but now it was not an overestimation. Li Du gauged that there could be as many as 180 pieces of boulder opal in the box.
The hunters were not allowed to look for opals on this piece of land. Someone asked in a flustered tone, "Hey Christopher, where's the boundary of this piece of land?"
They couldn't look for gems on this piece of land but they could look outside it. Although it was against the rules, unless security got involved, they should still give it a shot.
Christopher shouted, "Haha, this here is all our territory, the entire national park is at our feet! Aha, we're gonna be loaded!"
"You son of a b*tch, tell us the boundary quick, or else we are going to start looking!" a frustrated man yelled out.
Christopher waved his hunting gun. "Who's got the guts to? Who's got the guts to make a scene on my territory?"
A distinguished-looking black man around fifty years old walked over. He shoved Christopher and said, "Don't you get so agitated, buddy. Calm down. Watch that gun of yours, don't let it go off!"
As he looked at the worked-up crowd, he added, "God taught us not to be too greedy. We have got enough, we should leave."
Christopher yelled, "Leave? Cousin, what do you mean? Do you mean for us to give these d*mn gemstones away?"
The man licked his lips. "We've gotten too many, Christopher. You know we can't watch over these. Let go quickly. That Chinaman did what's right—it's right to let go when it's time!"
Li Du became more and more confused. What's going on? These two *ssholes kept referring to him as "Chinaman." Were they asking for trouble?
Christopher looked at the jealous faces of the gem hunters around him. He seemed to become a little fearful and gripped the gun in his hand.
He gulped. "How can I just give up the gems here? Just like that!? We rented this plot of land for three days and it's not even been one day. I can't give it up!"
A big, bearded man walked over and said, "Buddy, rent it to me. You rented it for 500 dollars a day, right? I'll give you 1,000 dollars!"
"I'll give you 2,000 dollars!"
"Five thousand dollars!"
The hunters started to bid frantically. The mood heated up and got even more chaotic.
Suddenly, Li Du had a lightbulb moment—he finally understood what was going on!
There were absolutely no boulder opals on this plot of land. The boulder opals that they had were not from here. It was a scheme by Christopher and his friends to dupe the hunters into paying exorbitant prices for that piece of land!
He released the little bug to fly into the box in front of Christopher to check out the boulder opals in it.
Based on their appearance, they looked fine. The outer stones were pitted and ugly-looking while those in the middle were dazzling with brilliant colors.
The little bug flew into a gem, and there was the problem.
Over the past two days, Li Du had observed the inside of opals many times through the little bug's vision. The opal was a very beautiful gem: its material was clear and uniform, and it would be so from its exterior all the way to its core.
However, this boulder opal was not this way!