Although they hadn't caught the poaching gang, by a twist of fate they had uncovered a hardworking, long-suffering group of gold miners. It was a case of losing something in one place and gaining it in another.
The mountain patrol team cooperated to restrain these criminals engaged in illegal armed gold mining. As before, they kept the men hungry and thirsty, cautiously guarded them all the way, and slowly left Bolamula.
Along the way, Duojie interrogated the leader of the group.
The man was named Chen Guohua, in his thirties. Everyone in the group worked under him. They had been mining gold here for two years and had even dug up two gold nuggets, yet they had only been caught now.
When the matter of being caught came up, Chen Guohua looked thoroughly frustrated, as if he bitterly resented his bad luck and blamed Heaven for not showing him favor.
But when asked about his channels for selling the gold, as well as his other partners or anyone backing him, Chen Guohua clammed up and claimed he did not know. Asked about other illegal activities, he insisted he was a law-abiding citizen who had done nothing unlawful except mine gold. He repeatedly stressed that he had merely mined gold illegally—mining gold was not a crime...
They had been traveling for three days, and these men had gone hungry and thirsty for three days. Their lips were cracked, their faces pale, and they were weak and listless, their eyes staring blankly. Watching the mountain patrol team eat, their gazes turned wolfish again.
Duojie said, "These people will take a beating and a scolding, but they won't say a thing or confess anything. They're going to be very hard to handle."
"There are no people in this world who are hard to