205: Chapter 204 Astounding Wealth

At this moment, Fujiwara Asao was like a smitten young girl, her face brimming with an innocent and romantic smile. Her graceful figure swayed as she appeared at the very front of the team. Upon reaching those approaching spots of light, she tilted her head back and gently lifted her right palm in the shape of an orchid, attempting to catch a single speck of light. This beautiful scene left all the men entranced, their gazes fixed upon her as if she were the most beautiful scenery in this starry sky.

"Idiot! There's danger, those are plants! Quick! Open the flamethrowers and burn them all! Don't let them touch our bodies!" This beautiful sight made Ono Koji's eyes bulge with fury. Instead of stepping forward, he retreated in terror, roaring at the top of his lungs.

But his warning came too late. At least a dozen people had already touched the light spots with their hands. Moreover, those spots of light seemed to be adhesive; as soon as they got close to a human body, they automatically flew onto the skin. In an instant, another dozen or so people at the front of the team were contaminated by the light spots.

"Ah!"

Hearing Ono Koji's roar, some people finally snapped out of it and tried to retreat, but they were shocked by the scene before them and let out cries of bewilderment. They saw the dense spots of light, like iron filings attracted by a magnet, covering only the skin—even the eyes were not spared—while the clothes remained completely untouched. Instantly, all the exposed skin of the people stuck by the light spots began to glow, making them look like beings made of light.

Those whose skin was touched by the light spots felt a cool, crisp sensation. This feeling didn't last long; within a few seconds, those light spots eerily began to dim, and within just a few more seconds, they were completely extinguished. The light spots in the air no longer landed on them. When they looked again, they found their skin seemed to have been smeared with a layer of soot from the bottom of a pot, completely obscuring their original skin color. Of course, they couldn't see this change themselves because their eyes had been covered by a black film, meaning they were now blind.

"Ah!"

The next moment, a chorus of screams suddenly rang out in the tunnel. One could hear the inexplicable horror and heart-wrenching pain the victims were suffering. Looking again, bubbles actually began to appear on their skin, which instantly started to fester into a disgusting yellowish-brown liquid. It was like a lit candle dripping wax, slowly flowing down from the surface of their bodies. In a short while, their skin had completely disappeared, and even their muscles were festering at a speed visible to the naked eye. Before long, their eyeballs, teeth, and bones were exposed, while their hair and clothing slid to the ground. No matter how they struggled, it was to no avail. It wasn't that others didn't think of rescuing them, but as long as skin touched the pus, they would suffer the same fate as if infected. Those who were decisive enough to ruthlessly chop off their own hands could save themselves, but those who couldn't bear the pain and hesitated either fainted or wailed their loudest screams as they watched their bodies slowly melt and their voices gradually fade away. For a time, the tunnel was like a living hell.

The green fluorescence continued to float slowly, but to those who hadn't been affected yet, these gorgeous spots of light were no different from ghost fires from hell that could scorch a person's soul. Many people were scared out of their wits; no matter how their companions called out to them, they remained rooted to the spot without any reaction. Fortunately, some of them were soldiers whose ability to react was much stronger than ordinary people, and in the moment of life and death, they exploded with the necessary bloodlust. The tunnel wasn't wide, so three flamethrowers were enough to seal it off tightly. The blazing fire not only burned all the light spots to nothingness but also ended the suffering of those who were struggling. Three people in front, who were lucky enough not to be touched by the light spots but had been too paralyzed with fear to retreat in time, were also swallowed by the flames.

More people came to their senses, and with collective effort, they burned away the light spots in the air in a few strokes. Under Ono Koji's command, they went to deal with the source of the light spots, only to find that the beautiful fluorescent things on the cave walls were actually clusters of mushrooms! These people never expected that dozens of them would die because they were deluded by mushrooms. Even more ironic was that several scientists, including the botanist Fujiwara Asao, were among them. Ono Koji's expression flickered between light and dark. He watched as the charred corpses on the ground underwent another change; their surfaces began to break out in dense small bumps like the skin of a toad. Upon closer inspection, he recognized them to be tiny mushroom caps. While his scalp tingled, the strange smell of burnt human flesh filled his nose, making him feel so nauseous he couldn't help but vomit bile. The others were no better off; those with weaker physical constitutions vomited until they were exhausted.

As the dozens of corpses burned into a pile of black ash, Ono Koji was still shaken. During their previous exploration, they had advanced cautiously step by step; although they had lost many hands, it was within an acceptable range. But now, forced by the situation and combined with negligence due to lack of preparation, their numbers had suddenly been cut by nearly half. Now, at full count, there were only about sixty people left, and more than half were extremely weak. Many had already developed the urge to retreat, and some even acted on it after their mental state collapsed. Many would rather face the muzzles of the enemy's guns outside than die cruelly and painfully in this dark cave. In a fit of ruthlessness, he shot two people to intimidate the crowd, and only after staying in place to encourage them in every possible way were they able to continue forward.

Even though they were incredibly cautious as they moved forward, burning the cave walls and the ground ahead regardless of whether they found plants, they still couldn't escape misfortune when encountering plants that couldn't be viewed with common sense. For example, a type of fern hidden among the sand and stones on the ground had stems and leaves that were incredibly hard and sharp, and they were also highly toxic. High-temperature flames couldn't destroy them. As soon as a person stepped on them, they would pierce the soles of their shoes and stab into their palms, causing instant death. This fern alone cost them more than a dozen casualties. They also encountered several types of plants that emitted toxic gases; neither fire nor gas masks were effective. Although some weren't lethal, the consequences of inhaling a certain amount were more serious than a reduction in personnel. Some could cause unbearable skin itching, some could destroy respiratory mucus causing difficulty breathing, and some could paralyze the body's nerves, causing total weakness. The number of wounded continued to grow, and many who couldn't move independently required others to take care of them. In case of emergencies, they would be burdened by the wounded. In the end, when they reached the destination Ono Koji spoke of, only twenty people were still alive, and fewer than ten could stand. The others had various degrees of toxic aftereffects. This was only because they had ruthlessly abandoned some of the seriously poisoned people to get here; otherwise, just taking care of more than half the wounded would have left them waiting for death on the spot.

"My god! Have we arrived at His Majesty the Emperor's palace, or another world!"

"Gold is piled up like mountains! The ground is covered in gems! Antiques are left lying around like trash!"

"Are those all jadeite on the cave walls? How can there be such large pieces of jadeite!"

"glass species! ice species! Tielongsheng! emerald? Imperial Green! chicken-fat yellow! purple eye? Heavens! Is this the home of jadeite? Are all those legends about jadeite circulating in Myanmar true?"

"Is that also jadeite? It can actually emit bright fluorescence like a night-luminescent pearl! I've never seen it, nor have I heard of such jadeite existing!"

"No mine in the world can compare to this. No! The high-grade jadeite here... if you added up the total reserves of all other mines, they wouldn't amount to this much. Not to mention this is just the cave walls; this must be a super jadeite mine. The reserves might be so large it's inconceivable. As long as we control this place, the global jadeite industry will be decided by us Japanese!"

"How did our ancestors find this place? Why has it been kept secret for half a century, only to be opened this year? If we had known of this place's existence, our Japanese jewelry merchants wouldn't have had to endure being slaughtered by those detestable people from Myanmar!"

"Mr. Ohno, your decision was right. For these inestimable jadeite resources, it's worth sacrificing not just hundreds, but thousands or even tens of thousands of people!"

This was a very wide karst cave space, which was the destination Ono Koji had mentioned. Over the past six months, they had only managed to clear less than half the passage through steady progress. So today, even though they had paid a heavy price to reach this place, Ono Koji's heart was full of a sense of achievement. No one knew the importance of this place to him, because his family had sacrificed too much for it. He himself had given up almost everything to fight for the position of the person in charge of this operation. Although most of this unimaginable wealth would be handed over to the state, his family would also receive a significant share, and a portion of it would fall into his private pockets. Moreover, he was in charge here now, so there was a lot of room for manipulation. Aside from what was on the recorded inventory, he could hide at least a small half. As long as he had this wealth, his destiny would be reversed, and everything he lost would be reclaimed one by one. Furthermore, he would have the capital to defeat his older brother and seize the position of family head. With this wealth as his backing, he believed that with his methods, it wouldn't take more than a few years for him to reach the top level of power in Japan and become an existence looked up to by his countrymen.

However, as a decisive person, Ono Koji understood that now was not the time to celebrate. They had already been delayed too long on the road, and the enemy might be catching up soon. The urgent priority was to solve the trouble behind them; otherwise, being happy too early might benefit the enemy. He immediately ordered several soldiers to go back a distance and use C4 explosives to blast the cave walls, completely blocking the tunnel. This way, there would be no more worries, and they could enjoy themselves in peace. As for getting out, he wasn't worried; when their ancestors stored this wealth, they had already prepared a retreat route for transfer at any time. There was a passage here that led directly to the outside of Yeren Mountain. But that passage had to be opened from the inside, which was why they had spent so much time and effort and sacrificed so many people to enter from the deep mountain entrance.

As the booming sound of the explosion rang out, a look of relief finally appeared on Ono Koji's face. Immediately after, an endless greed flashed in his eyes. He began to laugh wildly as he looked at the floor covered in jewels. The others only thought he was excited, and those who were previously sickly also laughed out loud. For a time, the laughter echoed incessantly in the empty cave hall. However, no one noticed that a sinister expression had surfaced on Ono Koji's face, which was just beginning to show wrinkles, and his gaze toward everyone carried a mocking intent.

As Ono Koji slowly suppressed his laughter, everyone's laughter gradually stopped. At this time, most people couldn't help but walk toward the gold, silver, and jewels before them. Those who were poisoned seemed to suddenly regain their strength and walked over on their own without needing support. Meanwhile, three cold-faced young soldiers did not move, standing quietly behind Ono Koji. Ono Koji stood in place without saying a word, simply waving his hand to the people behind him. Suddenly, gunfire erupted in the cave hall. When the gunfire stopped, the floor was already covered in blood-drenched corpses. Except for Ono Koji and the other three, there were no living people left in the cave hall.

"Go clean up, don't get my treasures dirty!"

These three soldiers were death soldiers trained by the Ono Family since childhood, with absolute loyalty to the Ono Family. Before preparing for this treasure hunt, Ono Koji had used his connections to plant them into the team. No one knew of their relationship with the family until they were activated now. If they hadn't encountered an attack, he wouldn't have had the guts to do this; at most, he would have used his power to secretly transfer a portion of the goods. But this attack also created an opportunity for him. He wouldn't dare silence hundreds of people, but now there were only a dozen or so. After silencing them, he could completely push the blame onto that group of attackers. He could even use this to embezzle some of the wealth on the inventory. No one would know the truth, and after returning, he could fabricate whatever he wanted. The lives of a dozen people were nothing compared to this wealth; he didn't hesitate at all when giving the order to silence them, nor would he have to pay any price for it. As long as this wealth was retrieved, those above wouldn't care about anything else; at most, they would give a handsome pension, and he wouldn't even have to pay for it out of his own pocket. Therefore, he had no psychological burden.

After the three had cleaned up and buried the corpses, Ono Koji warmly handed them mineral water. On ordinary days, Ono Koji, as the master, was high and mighty and didn't treat them like humans. Now that he had suddenly become warm, they thought it was simply because he had obtained a massive fortune and was in such a good mood that he was treating his subordinates with such courtesy. The three didn't suspect anything, thanked him, took the water, and gulped it down.

*Gurgle!*

"It's poison!"

"Why?"

The next scene was not so heartwarming. The three death soldiers suddenly began to twitch uncontrollably, clutching their throats as black blood spewed from their mouths. Their expressions were exceptionally painful, and they looked at the evil smile on Ono Koji's face with complete disbelief.

Ono Koji's mood was now better than ever. Facing the dying men, he vented his emotions happily: "Why? What belongs to the family belongs to the family, but what is mine is mine. My dear brother thinks he's incredibly clever; even though I'm exceptionally obedient in front of him, he still doesn't trust me. The reason he dared to let me come this time was simply because he had you to monitor my every move at all times, not giving me any chance to turn the tables. I imagine the order he gave you was to make me disappear after this success! Hahaha! Striking first is better; you were too stupid to think that I couldn't deal with you so-called elite soldiers alone. But I really have to thank those attackers! If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have had such an opportunity. Now that only I am alive, I only need to hand over a small portion, and all the wealth will be mine! No one will ever know! Go in peace! It won't be long before I let my dear big brother come to accompany you! Hahahaha!"