Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 845 - 90: Abandoned Oilfield (2)

Later, these people gradually left Nanhua Town—the reserves of fresh water and food in the company warehouse were all consumed, and every abandoned house in the town was scavenged countless times. These people couldn’t afford the high transportation costs, so naturally, no trucks would bring food and water to the town anymore... Between dying of thirst and hunger and seeking a livelihood elsewhere, the vast majority chose the latter.

In fact, Nanhua Town was one of the earliest towns in the Hexi Corridor Region to become a no-man’s land—at that time, the activities of mysterious entities in the Hexi Corridor weren’t as frequent as now; deadly sandstorms and terrain changes hadn’t appeared yet. The main reason Nanhua Town declined was still the depletion of the oil field.

A town born from oil also withers because of oil; there’s nothing surprising about that... The only puzzling aspect is the huge gap between the survey reserves and the actual extraction volume of the Nanhua Oilfield.

Nowadays, it’s hard to clarify why the survey data had such a large error. The grandchildren of the survey team members back then are now old enough to buy soy sauce, and relying solely on those preserved yellowing paper documents reveals nothing.

The road spanning Nanhua Town is only 600 meters long; the four individuals quickly reached the end. But the monk didn’t stop walking, and instead led them out of the town, continuing forward.

"That thing isn’t in Nanhua Town?" Candle Dragon glanced back at the increasingly distant ruins, pondering, "Could it be at the... abandoned oil field?"

"Yes." The monk nodded.

"Could that thing be related to the depletion of Nanhua Oilfield back then?" Candle Dragon quickly linked the two matters—even though they seemed unrelated, intuition told Candle Dragon that the depletion of Nanhua Oilfield was definitely not as simple as the records suggest.

No matter how big the error in survey data could be, it wouldn’t be absurd to that extent.

"Do you know how Nanhua Oilfield was discovered back then?" The monk suddenly asked.

Candle Dragon was slightly stunned, then shook his head: "I don’t know... I found no record in the archives."

"Actually, Nanhua Town first discovered a coal mine, not an oil field." The monk said, "But the coal reserves in Nanhua Town were small, the layers thin, and not worth exploiting."

"Then how was the oil field discovered?" Candle Dragon continued to ask.

"Although the Federation Government wasn’t planning to exploit the coal mine here, a private businessman got interested in it years later for some unknown reason. He bought the mining rights from the Federation Government at an extremely low price and recruited a group of workers along with some cheap excavation equipment..."

"Isn’t that purely a losing business?" Sun Hang wondered aloud, "Given Nanhua Town’s godforsaken location, even if coal was mined, the money made from selling it would barely cover the transportation cost, unless his workers don’t need food or drink or wages... But that’s not right, robots need electricity, and there’s no power grid here, electricity has to come from oil-burning generators, plus daily maintenance... Forget it, human labor seems to have a lower cost."

"Indeed, it was a loss-making business, but that businessman had another identity." The monk said.

"What identity?"

"He was a member of the survey team that discovered the coal mine."

"Could it be that this guy discovered oil under the coal and deliberately concealed it, waiting years later to have enough startup capital and then bought the mining rights from the Federation Government... If that’s true, this guy’s quite a talent." Sun Hang muttered.

"No... you’re not aware of this." The monk shook his head, "He wasn’t after the oil, but for that thing."

"That thing?" Candle Dragon’s eyelids twitched, "Was that mysterious entity already in the mine at that time? How do you know these things?"

"We found his corpse in the mine, along with a diary." The monk said, "In the diary, he described that thing as something worth giving up everything for... In the first survey, that thing was still buried deep, but he felt its strong pull on him, so much that after returning inland, he resigned from the geological survey department and chose to enter business..."

"Seems this guy was quite inspirational." Sun Hang commented, "In ten years, starting from scratch and amassing enough startup capital; with that capability, he could succeed in anything."

"No...according to my analysis, that person has probably turned into a ’zombie’." The monk sighed, "Different ’zombies’ have different missions, his mission is to spare no effort to release that thing, and my mission is..."

"Is to lead us to find him." Sun Hang followed, "How many people have you brought in total?"

"I don’t remember." The monk said.

"Recently, in the past decade, 85 people have gone missing around Nanhua Town, but these are only the documented numbers, the actual figure might be larger." Candle Dragon’s voice reached Sun Hang’s ears, "Among them, there are top free hunters."

"What happened to those hunters you led in?"

"I don’t know." The monk said, "I only lead them to the entrance, then I return."

"Did anyone come out after entering?"

"No."

...

Outside the abandoned Nanhua Oilfield are fences made of plastic steel plates, but now two-thirds of them have fallen, revealing the broken houses and disjointed drilling equipment inside.

In the center of the work area, there is a large pit formed due to ground collapse; its walls show many cavities, some reinforced with steel and concrete, some in their most primitive state, giving a feeling like they might collapse again at any time.

A beam bridge made of welded steel plates crosses the area around the pit, and at its end, there is a lift directly leading to the depths of the pit.

The monk led the three onto the beam bridge, walking all the way to the lift.

"I will only lead you here, if you want to turn back, there’s still time." The monk turned to Sun Hang and the others.

"How do we get down?" Sun Hang asked.

"The lift can still operate." The monk pulled the lever, accompanied by a grinding sound of rusty metal, the iron gate of the lift cabin gradually rose.

"The oil field has been abandoned for so many years, yet the lift still works? Where does the power come from?" Sun Hang scrutinized the lift’s structure and, like the monk, felt no mysterious entity presence, meaning that it wasn’t one, "Have you maintained it all this time?"

The monk didn’t answer the question, instead repeating: "If you want to turn back, there’s still time."

Sun Hang answered with actions, he walked straight into the cabin, followed by Candle Dragon, and then Xue Yue.

The monk sighed and pulled the lever down.

The iron gate fell, followed by the sound of cables rubbing against chains, the cabin slowly descended.

"This pit was probably formed during a secondary extraction accident." Candle Dragon turned on a tactical flashlight and surveyed the surroundings.

"These rock layers look very brittle, feels like you wouldn’t need special equipment, just a hammer..." Sun Hang muttered.