Chapter 1739: The Truth Behind the Mining Accident
The clues from the instance pointed toward the accident that had once occurred at Tiantianle Mine. Aside from her father's untimely death, everything else related to Solan involved people she could come into contact with in Dingding Flower Town. Among these people, some had families that had experienced upheavals also connected to Tiantianle. The "Ember Maiden" might very well have originated from within this network of relationships.
The most important of these was, of course, the accident involving Solan's father. The number of people who died in that collapsed mine might not have been as high as what Tiantianle had publicly announced. Of course, women were rarely present in mining work, and young women would be even less likely to appear there, so the only way to investigate was to start with the relatives of the victims.
Places and people called "Ember" had existed a hundred years ago as well, but finding the relatives of the victims from these locations would likely prove very difficult. First, given the passage of time, the relatives of the victims might no longer be alive, or even if they were, they might not have stayed in their hometowns. Second, those victims who had not been publicly announced were mostly unclaimed, or they had been deliberately selected by the corporation from the start—outsiders with few relatives or friends. This would only make the search even harder.
Was there a trail to follow, or was it all just coincidence? Xu Huo's thoughts wavered for a moment before he decided to go find someone from Tiantianle first.
He hypnotized the boss and got him to confess a few specific names before Xu Huo left his residence.
The Tiantianle uniform and the accompanying player naturally didn't exist. He calmly walked out onto the main street, merging into the flow of passersby like an ordinary tourist, sightseeing as he crossed the bustling thoroughfare.
The names the boss had given him were, within the scope of what he could know, the suspects within the Tiantianle Group who knew the inside story of the accident. Whether they truly knew was hard to define, but the person in charge of each accident was still easy enough to find. If you wanted to get things done, you couldn't completely hide it from the mine's management. By going through them one by one, he was bound to run into someone who knew something.
He found a place to rest for a while, and after nightfall, Xu Huo went to find the people from Tiantianle.
Those who had reached the leadership level over a hundred years ago were now either elders of the group, protected by the corporation, or they had already retired and gone to some scenic place to live out their remaining years. The former were hard to find and hard to grab; the latter were much easier.
In just a few hours, Xu Huo had visited three homes, and finally, at the third one, he got a lead.
The man was a hot-tempered little old fellow. Upon learning why Xu Huo had come, he couldn't help but roar, "Why me again! You've already ruined my family, isn't that enough? I've been living a living hell for all these years, what more do you want?!"
"My loved one was buried in a place that never sees the light of day. My family didn't even dare to go look for his body, until I grew up little by little and gained some ability..." Xu Huo stood before him, spinning the dagger in his hand. "You really think no one knows about the things you've done? Don't worry, after you die, there will be plenty more people going underground to keep you company."
The old man had been a heavy drinker for years. His eyes were cloudy, and his mental state was somewhat deteriorated. After his initial burst of anger, he said with a hint of resignation, "Kill me then, kill me. This is all the sin we've committed... You want to know where your family member's body is buried? That's impossible. Tiantianle doesn't collect the remains of the dead. Most of them are sunk somewhere beneath the mine... You see those gems coming out of the mine? Some of those strange-shaped ones might just be your family member..."
"So many people, most of them reduced to ashes, but occasionally a few who had evolved would leave behind strange stones... What's so special about those stones? They're just shaped like human bones, and with the word 'natural' slapped on them, they can sell for such a high price..."
As he spoke, he leaned back in his rocking chair, swaying gently. "...We're all sinners, all sinners..."
Xu Huo injected the half-conscious man with a truth serum and finally got the truth behind the manufactured accident out of him.
It turned out that over a hundred years ago, Zone 019 had experienced an unprecedented economic crisis. They urgently needed a massive fortune to fill the gap. At that time, due to technological limitations, the gems buried deeper underground could no longer be mined. Without this source of income, no one in Zone 019 would have it easy. On top of that, it was a critical period for cultivating players. Without enough money, not only would the government collapse, but the hard-won players might also leave Zone 019. To avoid such an unbearable consequence, Zone 019 frantically searched for any possible way to break the deadlock, until they heard that bone gems were popular in other zones.
Which specific zone it was, no one knew, but for a considerable period of time, accidentally formed bone gems had fetched extremely high prices and were in short supply. Because the conditions for forming bone gems were quite stringent, most people who took evolution agents didn't have skeletal mutations that reached the level of forming gems, and it was impossible to kill players just for the sake of gems. That was why they purchased them from other zones.
Zone 019's constantly erupting underground magma was the perfect natural condition. At the time, after accidents caused by technical issues, the government had indeed found some gems that resembled parts of the human body, but they had simply been collected as relics by the government. Once they sold those gems, the government and the mining corporations stepped onto a path of no return.
That's right, the whole thing was as bizarre and seemingly fantastical as a fairy tale. In exchange for a massive fortune, the government of Zone 019 and numerous mining corporations shared this conspiracy internally and put it into practice.
Of course, they weren't stupid enough to collect people from their own territory. Instead, they recruited workers from more remote places—preferably people with few relatives or friends, or simply vagrants off the street. At the time, under the banner of government welfare, they offered miners extremely high wages. Some of the recruiters in charge thought this was a great deal. People from small towns, wanting to help their hometowns, would voluntarily bring the young and strong men from their villages... The people at the top opened a crack, and the people below, whether intentionally or not, tore that crack open to all of society.
But doing such things too often would eventually draw suspicion. Even if the bone gems they fished out weren't many, there were still smart people who sensed something was wrong. Because the accident rate was too high, there was even a period when they couldn't recruit miners at all. But the families of the victims who sought answers found nothing, and in the end, they could only take their compensation money and go home.
None of this could be found on the message collection terminals. In fact, there had been a small-scale player uprising at the time, but it hadn't blown up. The government knew, and the insiders in the mining corporations knew—it was retaliation by the victims' families. The heads of the mining corporations at the time were frequently assassinated. Some couldn't bear the pressure and retired early. Others had their entire families wiped out. Some survived, of course, but that was only due to sheer luck and circumstance. After all, too few people knew the truth, and those who were in the thick of it often couldn't bring themselves to suspect that a mining corporation would commit murder just for a few gems shaped like human bones.
The vast majority of people believed that those who died in the mining accidents were just unlucky.
(End of Chapter)