"They... what are they doing?"
The coffin-bearing procession suddenly stopped—the villagers had merely set the coffin down at the entrance to the Hall of the Departed.
Long Xiruo could not help stopping as well, but that was not what surprised her. What caught her off guard was that the villagers had begun removing the large wooden barrels strapped to their backs, then moved around to both sides of the entrance.
After they pulled the plugs from the two pools, the black oil... petroleum began slowly flowing out.
The barrels were empty, and the villagers quickly began filling them.
"This is a rare source of income for them." Father Alai explained, "Every time someone is buried, the villagers bring containers and take away as much petroleum as they can."
"What can they even use this stuff for? If it isn't processed..." Long Xiruo frowned at once.
"Trade." Father Alai said, "They sell it to local peddlers or the Rebel Army in exchange for supplies. The rainforest is huge, and quite a few villages can collect small amounts of petroleum. They have a centralized location, something like a large bulk market."
Long Xiruo shook her head and mused, "If it's so troublesome, why don't they just extract it directly?"
"There are naturally many reasons." Father Alai said helplessly, "Economic, technological, environmental, and so on... Developers from the country once wanted to exploit it, but it ultimately came to nothing. Then there are the political reasons. A large part of this country consists of rainforest, and the government is divided between north and south, with constant civil strife. Besides, no one knows exactly how many indigenous people live here, so development has never been possible. Only the owners of a few small workshops make a little money by collecting it in bulk. Still,