One night across the Black River
On a moonlit night in the autumn of 1996, a Blue Arrow 1041 drove alone along the bank of the Xiaohei River, a tributary of the Nujiang River in Yunnan Province.
There were not many vehicles in the Lin Cang area of Yunnan, and there were even fewer vehicles on the border road. After driving for half a day from Lin Cang, there was not a single car in sight. It made people feel that the car had driven into an uninhabited wasteland.
I sat at the front of the car and stood up. I lifted the canvas hood and looked out. We could vaguely see the undulating mountain ridges on the other side of the river, like a giant beast racing against our car. The unpolluted night sky was filled with twinkling stars. A crescent moon hung above the river, and the hazy moonlight enveloped the river surface, giving people a dream-like feeling. There was no traffic, no pedestrians, only a few sparse lights in the riverside village. The monotonous roar of the car engine and the sound of the river waves made this strange moonlit night even more silent.
A sense of desolation and loneliness rose in my heart. The night deepened the melancholy and uneasiness in my heart.
We are going to Myanmar to open up a mine. There were seven men and one woman in the car. Zhou Xingzong and Guan Yunwu sat in the driver's seat. Inside the carriage were Luo Ruhui, Shen Qiyou, Chen Hui, Shi Tianlin, Bi Min, and me.
Bi Min had fallen asleep close to me. I helped her pull up the jacket on her body, and her depression and uneasiness eased a lot. With a lover by her side, even if she was at the ends of the earth or in the wilderness, her heart would still be warm. This was true.
There was a cigarette butt at the back of the car. It was Luo Ruhui smoking. The others were silent, probably dozing off. When they set off from their hometown, everyone was still talking and laughing. After two days of bumpy driving, they had lost their interest when they first set off. After the excitement, they all looked uneasy and worried.
It was no wonder that our journey was uncertain, and our future was uncertain.
After I graduated from the Construction Institute, I was originally assigned to the Design Institute, but I was squeezed out by a backdoor, so I had to work as a worker in a state-owned construction company. Four years later, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy by the boss, so the higher-ups sold the company to the boss. The workers had all become laid-off workers, making a living for themselves and going their separate ways. Bi Min and I had no choice but to work for a private boss in the decoration department. Once, Bi Min and I went to a big boss called Chen Peng's new house for renovation design. His son, Chen Hui, sympathized with our situation. He said that his father was going to invest in Myanmar with others to do mining. He asked if we dared to go, whether we wanted to invest in the company or work. Chen Hui was cheerful and humorous. According to him, mining was the most profitable business in the world. According to their investigation, the grade of Myanmar's lead and silver mines was shockingly high. This trip was simply to pick up money, similar to robbing a bank. There was no problem of losing money at all.
My heart thumped. In our hometown of southern Yunnan, dry mines have a long history. The mansions and courtyards in Lingshui Ancient City were built by the owners of the dry tin mines in Gejiu after they made a fortune. After the reform and opening up, private mining was allowed. There were also people in his hometown who had made a fortune from the lead and silver mines, and there were many legends of them becoming rich overnight.
I have 100,000 yuan in my hands. This is the hard-earned money I earned from working late and waking up early. I originally wanted to use it to open a small decoration department. However, if it was really as Chen Hui said, they would definitely see mines in Myanmar within half a year. At that time, one yuan would become ten, twenty, thirty, or even a hundred yuan. Wouldn't I become a multimillionaire? He would have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of his life. After becoming a rich and idle person, could he do something he liked?
The temptation was too great, but I still hesitated. Although dry mines could make people rich overnight, they could also make people bankrupt and become beggars. If there was a line of work that could bring in money the fastest and had the highest risk, it would be mining. In fact, mining was no different from gambling. If they dug the mine, they would be rich. If they didn't, they would lose. There were many rich people who did mining, but there were even more poor people. It was because human nature liked to hear good things and report good news but not bad news. Therefore, everyone only heard about who had dug mines and who had made a fortune. They did not hear about who had lost people or who had lost money.
Just as I was hesitating, Bi Min said,"I think it's worth the risk. If you can't bear to part with the child, you can't catch the wolf. If you're timid, you can't be a general. If you're afraid of death, you can't see the King of Hell. Don't you think so?”
Bi Min's words were gentle and soft, but to me, they were very important. I gritted my teeth and decided to take a gamble. But when I told Chen Hui, he was a little surprised and said that he didn't expect you to have the capital to be a boss. I was very unhappy. It turned out that in his eyes, I was a penniless pauper who could only be a wage earner.
The car suddenly stopped, pulling me back from my thoughts. The people in the car also woke up. Zhou Xingzong, who was driving, got out of the car and said that he had arrived at the border checkpoint. He wanted to make up for a border pass for me and asked me for an ID card.
I was a little uneasy. Is an ID card enough? When I applied for a certificate in my hometown, it was because of the many procedures and the rush that I didn't have time to do it. Everyone else who came with me had it, but I didn't.
Not long after, the car started moving. He didn't know if it was done. Shen Qi said that it was definitely done, otherwise the checkpoint would not let them pass. This was very unexpected. They said that it was so easy to get a border pass here. If they had known earlier, they wouldn't have had to spend so much effort and look for this and that.
Shen Qiyou was a skinny old man in his fifties. He was Guan Yunwu's university classmate, and both of them were geological engineers. However, he did not invest in the company. It was unknown whether he had no money or was afraid of losing money.
"Maybe he knows Zhou Xingzong, which is why it's so easy to deal with him.”A rough voice sounded in the darkness. It was undoubtedly Luo Ruhui. Luo Ruhui was a 46-year-old brawny man with a square body and a big head. This trip to Myanmar was all because of him. His girl went to Kunming to attend a foreign trade system conference and met Zhou Xingzong from Lin Cang Foreign Trade. Zhou Xingzong said that there were many people who wanted to invest in Myanmar's lead mines. Coincidentally, Luo Ruhui was in this line of work. When his lady came back, she was immediately interested. She spread the news everywhere and invited people to invest. That was why she came here.
Luo Ruhui never forgot to flaunt his relationship with Zhou Xingzong. However, Zhou Xingzong was indeed like a government official. He was gentle and reliable, and could not be underestimated. Everyone was new here and unfamiliar with the place, so many things had to be taken care of by him. He really couldn't do without him.
This time, we set up a company called Stars in Myanmar. The soldiers split into two groups, one to Myanmar cuisine. They bought equipment and recruited workers in the country before arriving. After we arrived at Lin Cang, Zhou Xingzong drove the company's new Blue Arrow 1041 to pick us up.
At 11 o'clock at night, we arrived at the county town of Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County and checked in with the tourists.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。