[WDIDWAMGB] Chapter 97: Old Mine

Li Yexing held a lighter in one hand and felt the rocky wall with the other, cautiously making their way through the cave with Kanan.

Gradually, the sound of the rain faded behind them.

Kanan's guess was correct - as they went deeper into the cave, the interior became more organized, and Li Yexing saw more and more evidence of human activity on the walls, such as rotted wooden frames used to support the cave and many broken light bulbs. After walking for about ten minutes, they finally saw a faint light ahead.

"It seems like we're getting out of here," Li Yexing turned to Kanan and said, "Guess what's at the end of this cave?"

"Who knows..." Kanan shrugged and didn't seem to care much about Li Yexing's question.

Now, Li Yexing had a better understanding of her personality. Unlike himself, who tended to procrastinate, she was a person of action. For her, it was always better to move than to wait. Just now, if it were him alone, he would have chosen to recover his strength and wait for Lilith and Rita to rescue him in the cave. But Kanan was different; she chose to explore the inside of the cave and kept walking deeper.

So they kept walking, following the light ahead, and after a few more minutes, the path suddenly opened up into a vast space.

"This is incredible..." Li Yexing exclaimed as he looked at the scene in front of him, "What is this? The African version of 'Peach Blossom Spring'?" {TN: China fable}

"I can't believe that there's something like this in the valley..." Even Kanan couldn't help but be amazed.

At this moment, what appeared before them was a huge hollow, as if the entire rift had been dug out, and in the middle of the hollow stood three huge buildings, surrounded by large areas of somewhat dilapidated tents.

The whole layout looked very much like the Tricell Pharmaceutical camp, but there was no sign of any living people. The light inside the hollow was very dim, and there was a gap in the dome of the entire hollow, through which faint light shone down from above.

"That hollow seems to be the old mining area..." Kanan murmured to herself, looking at the gap in the dome that was emitting light.

"The old mining area?" Li Yexing was a little curious when he heard her words.

"Yeah, the old mining area..." Kanan nodded and said, "It is said that a diamond mine was discovered near the rift a few years ago. Later, a large European company and the government of Malvia communicated and bought it at a relatively low price."

"The government sold the entire land to the European company? No wonder the civil war has been going on for so many years..." Li Yexing showed a sarcastic expression and asked, "And then?"

"And then the European company found out that the mining area was actually a 'chicken coop mine', and the diamond reserves were not as large as they had imagined. After mining for a year, they sealed off the mining area and left..." Kanan shrugged and said, "Although they left, they did buy the land, so the local government just sealed off this area. Besides, this is an abandoned mining area, so ordinary people won't come here." {TN: Chicken coop mine - worthless and only good for raising chickens}

"The water here is not just a little fishy..." Li Yexing muttered to himself, "A large European company spent a lot of money buying a piece of land in Africa and found out it was a chicken coop mine. It's like playing a game, and it only cheats those locals who don't have a brain."

"I don't understand these things, but one thing is for sure..." Kanan looked at the buildings in front of her with a serious expression, "There must be a lot of secrets hidden here."

"Let's go..." Li Yexing patted her shoulder and smiled, "Let's take a look at which European company did this."

As they walked between rows of tents, Li Yexing frowned. He found that although these tents were somewhat dilapidated, they were not particularly old. At most a few months ago, there should have been people here.

Most of these tents had collapsed, and there were no markings on them. The few tents that were still intact were either empty or contained only household garbage. It was impossible to determine who owned these buildings from the tents alone. What was even more unsettling was that many of the tents had brown stains and bullet holes on them. He was well aware that those were dried blood stains and bullet holes.

"What happened here...?" Kanan also recognized these marks, and a hint of doubt and unease flashed across her face.

"Tsk, it's a little troublesome..." Li Yexing whispered.

The two of them walked further inside and finally came across a body.

The corpse was rotten and only the dark brown bones remained. It was wearing a work uniform that was too faded to make out the color and was lying face down on the ground with obvious bullet holes in the skull.

As they progressed towards the building, more and more such bodies appeared. There were probably over a hundred of them, most of them wearing work uniforms, with occasional ones wearing dirty lab coats. The cause of death was mostly a bullet through the head.

"There was a massacre here," Kanan muttered softly, looking at the bodies around them.

"Yeah, a massacre..." Li Yexing frowned. "But to be honest, I'm a little suspicious of whether the guys with guns were the ones doing the killing, or the ones being killed..."

"What do you mean?" Kanan was confused.

"Nothing, just forget it..." Li Yexing said softly.

Looking at these bodies on the ground, he had a vague sense of unease.

From the direction they were facing, without exception, they were all running towards the entrance when they died, and their fatal injuries all seemed to be in the head. This reminded him of something not good.

Those guys with guns who fired here, what exactly were they facing? The answer was about to be revealed.

Zombies!

Based on these traces, Li Yexing boldly guessed that this was likely a secret research facility of Tricell, which had taken control of a piece of land locally and secretly built a research facility.

As a result, an accident occurred in the facility and a biohazard outbreak broke out. It was unclear whether this was due to inadequate insurance mechanisms or the fact that there were none in the first place, but the situation got out of control, and the weak-armed forces were unable to contain it in time, so they fled in embarrassment.

Thinking of this, Li Yexing looked up at the three buildings in front of him and felt his scalp tingling. However, upon closer examination, several months had passed and even if they were zombies, they were likely all decomposed by now, so there was probably nothing to fear.

"Let's go..." Putting aside his disorderly thoughts, he turned his head and asked Kanan, "Which one do you want to go into?"

"Let's go to this one." Kanan pointed to the relatively smaller three-story building in front of them. "This one looks easier to explore. Let's see if we can find something for self-defense inside."

"As you wish..." Li Yexing nodded and followed her footsteps into the somewhat dilapidated building in front of them...