"Hiss... how is that possible..."
Su Mulin looked at the underground diagram before him with a complicated expression. "You're sure there's nothing here?"
A worker beside him nodded firmly. "There really isn't."
Amid the vast mountains, excavation had been underway here for over a year. Yet it had yielded nothing.
"Digging any deeper would be beyond human limits. We'd need some fairly strong Pokémon," the worker asked. "Do you want us to keep digging down, or try another direction?"
After a long silence, Su Mulin sighed helplessly.
"Stop for now..."
"Let me think... give everyone some time off..."
"Oh." The worker scratched his head in puzzlement. The Mayor had paid them and only told them to dig downward here, without saying what it was for.
But leaders naturally had their reasons for what they did. Small fry like them only needed to collect their pay and get on with their work.
"Ring, ring, ring..."
"Hello? Huang?"
"Su, come back as soon as you can. Something urgent's come up."
"What is it?" Su Mulin pushed open the door and entered, travel-worn.
Mayor Huang smiled, a hint of exhaustion in his voice. "If you don't come help me, these documents are going to crush me."
"Huang, you know these are unusual times. These things..."
"Su, how long are you going to keep this up!" The sudden outburst left Su Mulin frozen in place. He looked at his old friend, somewhat at a loss.
Mayor Huang slammed down a stack of documents. "Look! For the sake of your plan, the two of us joined forces to put on a show about mineral development for the higher-ups. Now the deadline's almost here, and they've already started pressing us. They keep telling us to go all out, but we have no results to show.