Star Gate

Chapter 622: I Am About To Arrive (III)

“Y... yes... noble... sir...” Drenched with sweat, the fatty stammered a painful reply. “These... are... not... our operations... but the Inspectorate’s... operations. The Inspectorate... has a mine... and we’re... just errand boys...

“We are paid... only two thousand coins... for every person... we get... We only target... foreigners... and don’t dare touch... locals...

“Don’t kill us... noble sir... We just work for others... You are a noble one and know... what the Inspectorate does... There is no need to cause an investigation... for two worms such as us...”

“The Inspectorate has a mine?” Li Hao frowned. “So they have a mine. They can just hire people, why are they taking people off the streets?”

The fatty refused to respond, whereas Accountant Zhang quickly replied, “What we do cuts down on costs and increases profit margins... How much of a fee do they need to pay for one hundred people? Just two hundred thousand coins! But if these people are all hired employees, they would require monthly salaries of three to five thousand coins. That would be nearly five hundred thousand coins a month... and one hundred people are hardly enough for the mines.

“The mines require at least one thousand staff, which means a few million or tens of millions a month. That’s at least one hundred million a year!

“Not to mention, there are a lot of refugees nowadays. Some of the cities in the central region have been razed to the ground and refugees are running everywhere. There’s beggars throughout all of the cities, or thieves, or robbers. The Inspectorate is kept too busy by them and decided to haul them all off to the mines. Not only does that save money, but it saves a lot of trouble...”

Li Hao blinked. “Refugees?” he whispered.

“That’s right! A city’s been blown up near us, which means at least five hundred thousand people don’t have places to stay. They need to run anywhere and everywhere—several tens of thousands have come to us. We don’t have the time for them, we barely have enough time for our own people. All of them come with a lot of issues as well, so it’s best for everyone that they’re hauled off to the mines. They won’t die of starvation out in the open and it saves us a lot of trouble...” Being more dim-witted than the fatty, Accountant Zhang spilled everything he knew of in one go.

Li Hao mused over his words, so this was the true situation. The Inspectorate earned a lot of money and eliminated a lot of trouble with this course of action. There was no need to think about settling in the influx of people when there were no beggars and no refugees. Neither did they need to worry over a city’s worth of minor crime and infractions.

It was multiple birds with one stone!

No wonder Li Hao had thought the city was a nice place earlier. It was so prosperous that there wasn’t a sign of a single beggar—those could still be found in Silver Moon. He’d felt that general security was quite good!

How could it not be? All of the beggars and refugees had been sent to the mines.

“Your inspector general... is quite a talent!” Li Hao laughed.

Who knew if he truly meant the compliment, or was jeering with sarcasm. This city’s inspector general was indeed a brilliant person!

Li Hao didn’t grow mad as there was no need to. He’d seen the military collude with pirates and the Steadfast Duke raise pirates as a personal force. He’d bore witness to the director general of a province supporting pirates. What hadn’t he seen yet?

This was just the Inspectorate of a small city hauling people off to the mines so that they could maintain a picture of peace and tranquility in their city! They were simply one city out of one thousand in the central region. Perhaps they were an exception.

“Where are the mines?”

“Just... up... ahead... Another twenty... kilometers... by car...”

It was far away. Li Hao heaved a sigh and stepped on the two. He kept stepping on them until they could no longer speak. The young man leaned back against his seat and said, “Panth, drive the car. Let’s go take a look!”

Panther wagged its tail merrily and saw that Li Hao meant his words when it took another look. It climbed excitedly into the driver’s seat, ignited the engine, shifted into drive gear, and stepped on the accelerator.

The little car flew over the terrain with a dog in the front seat! Its two forepaws clutched the steering wheel, looking very much like an experienced driver!

The dog’s driving was steady enough; Li Hao grinned. Thank goodness no one was around to see this, or they’d say that his driving was less than a dog’s! Even a dog drove better than him!

To be honest, Panther really did drive well. As it grew more comfortable with driving, it could even pull some tricks. Its tail hooked around the steering wheel and drifted the car across the road...

Inside the car, the two men almost being crushed to death looked at each other with horror. This was a monster spirit! A major monster spirit! Those of the central region had seen many more monster spirits that could understand human speech compared to the north. Abject with terror, the two realized that this monster spirit was at least a Sunflare or Solar.

Li Hao ignored them and sat comfortably in the backseat, contemplating something. He saw a mountain after half an hour of the dog’s rapid driving and had Panth stop a long distance away.

The car disappeared with a wave of his hand when everyone alighted, sending more fear into the fatty and accountant. A storage ring!

That was the equipment of a powerhouse!

Li Hao still didn’t speak. He grabbed both men by the arm with one hand and squeezed hard. They stuck to his hand like balls of dough. He shot into the air, the two dangling from his hand like fluttering rags. They’d long passed out from terror and pain.

......

In the air.

Li Hao looked down over the mountain and noted that there were several supernatural guards on the mines. There were possibly a few martial masters as well. None of them were strong. The supernaturals were either Starlight or Darkmoon, there wasn’t a single Sunflare.

There was a gathering place in the mountains that rang with activity. Li Hao flew over for a look; food was being distributed from the meeting point. A middle-aged woman was receiving her portion of a black steamed bun and a bowl of congee. It should fill her stomach and wouldn’t result in starvation, but the woman wailed with distress.

“Sir, please give me another bun, just one more!” she cried to the heavens. “Just one more... I have three children who are dying of starvation! The eldest one can’t move anymore and the four of us really can’t survive on so little everyday! I can’t sleep at night and have to enter the mines after I finish washing clothes in the morning. Sir, please give me one more bun...”

“Get out of here!” An inspector in official uniform kicked the woman away. “Ingrate! We give you a chance for survival, otherwise all of you would’ve long died! How dare you ask for so much! Do rations not cost money?! Do you know how much they cost now?? What kind of times are we in for you to think of having children?? And three of them?! So what if they die? You’ll have a few meals of meat if one of them dies! Is your brain confused or what??”

Li Hao started and looked down below. So this is the central region, the incomparably prosperous and rich central region. For a second... I thought I was hearing a pirate.

He’d seemed to meet the White Shark Raiders under similar conditions.

“Pirates... local army... inspectors...” He looked back at the city. It was bustling and flourishing! And here? There were a lot of people, but they seemed to belong to a different era.

Here, he saw history. He saw the end times of those dynasties in which lives were not worth anything. But there was a thriving city roughly thirty kilometers away from here. Lights, food, and drink abounded there.

Li Hao shook his head. He seemed to have traveled through time and space for a quick moment.

“The central region is the picture of prosperity...” The oft-quoted saying floated into his mind. He promptly thought of what Hong Yitang once said. “The dynasty is about to sink into chaos and chaos churn through the world. The people will suffer in misery. There is no hope for this era!”

His first foray into a central region had taught Li Hao a lesson. What he saw may not be true; there were unspeakable matters hidden beneath the glitz and glamor. There was no word of these destroyed cities and refugees in the central region. How many mines like these were out there? How much of this darkness?

Li Hao smiled, but didn’t know why he should smile. His bare minimum was lowered again and again, sparks of hope repeatedly extinguished when they flared to life!

He wanted to think that the central region was quite nice, but these people told him in the next breath that it was much darker than one thought. Evil lurked behind the prosperity!

An inspector of the Inspectorate told everyone not to have children in this day and age. It was nothing if one’s child died, that just meant a few meals of meat... Everyone seemed numb to this, apart from that woman! It was as if the world itself was shades of gray here.

“The Inspectorate...” Li Hao murmured with some pain. His first job had been at the Inspectorate and so he was very kindly disposed toward inspectors because the ones he knew set good examples in their roles. He thought of Liu Long, Liu Yan, Wu Chao, Kong Jie, Wang Henggang, and many other inspectors...

He was proud to wear the official uniform. As a public servant, he was paid by the government and didn’t have to do much. Those at the desks did their jobs and those in the field caught thieves and solved some cases. The benefits were good and they saw to the security of the city.

Some danger might come to the Night Watchers since they had to fight supernaturals, but the Inspectorate was a decent place. There might be some risk in their line of duty, but there wasn’t that much violent crime.

Various thoughts floated into Li Hao’s mind. He felt that Near River was an exception since Fan Chang was not a good person. He also felt that the Steadfast Duke in Calm Borders colluding with pirates was an exception since the Xus were not good people.

But here... who wasn’t a good person? Was everyone in the Inspectorate in the wrong here? What about elsewhere?

Li Hao took a deep breath and flew away. Indeed, he flew away. What could he do? Nothing at all. Kill these inspectors? What would that do? Absolutely nothing! Not to mention, there were tens of thousands of people on the mines. This was the central region. Was he supposed to send them all to Silver Moon?

That would be the greatest joke of all!

Therefore, he might as well kill their inspector general or all of their senior executives. Maybe the next batch would be better.

In spite of his strength, the young man didn’t know what to do. He was helpless when it came to a mine of ten thousand people. There was absolutely nothing he could change and killing those inspectors might cause greater trouble to arise. He knew what the consequences might be in order to cover up events here. Perhaps the entire mountain would collapse and all of the people disappear to cover up these happenings.

He wouldn’t have thought this was possible before, but now he knew that everything was possible.