58: Chapter 58 Good Deeds Reward

As the detection range continued to expand, Cao Xiao finally discovered a massive underground space inside a small hill three hundred meters away.

It was no wonder the Japanese couldn't find it; this underground space was fifty meters deep, and the passages leading to the surface had completely collapsed. Coupled with the dense vegetation, not a single trace could be seen from the outside. The metal detectors he had found in that Electronic Equipment Processing Plant were likely intended for this place. However, although those metal detectors were the latest models, they were only small-scale devices with limited detection depth. It was normal that they couldn't find this place, so they hadn't been useful. They could only delineate a general location and search aimlessly.

This underground space was likely an underground military base from the period of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Xiangnan City had also fallen into the hands of the Japanese Army back then. Later, after the war was won and the Japanese withdrew from the country, it was normal for this place to be abandoned. As for why the passage was buried, it might be because important materials were stored here. Such underground military bases were occasionally discovered domestically after the war, mostly containing munitions left by the Japanese Army or wealth plundered from within the country that couldn't be transported away in time.

Judging by the importance the Japanese placed on it, there should be a vast amount of wealth left here. If it were just military supplies, it wouldn't be worth such attention from them. This wealth belonged to Huaxia. After so many years, these Japanese people still harbored delusions of taking it away; how could Cao Xiao let them have their way?

He didn't yet know what was inside. If there were lethal bacteria or poisonous gas, he couldn't guarantee he could retreat unscathed. Regardless, he could see inside without even entering, and he wouldn't leave any traces.

Circling the underground space, Cao Xiao felt an indescribable shock. It wasn't because the wealth inside was particularly staggering, but because there were countless skeletal remains. Judging by the clothes that hadn't yet rotted, these deceased were all Japanese soldiers. Moreover, the surface passage hadn't been buried from the outside but had been blown up from within. These skeletons were concentrated in a large hall at the entrance, numbering about a thousand. They were arranged neatly, most still maintaining a sitting posture, with a bayonet in the abdomen of each skeleton. The conclusion Cao Xiao drew was that after learning the news of their defeat, these soldiers had gathered in this underground base, blown up the passage to the surface, and committed mass suicide. It was a chilling thought—nearly a thousand people committing suicide to be buried with the base; it was simply madness.

Cao Xiao now knew all the supplies in this military base like the back of his hand. As he expected, a vast amount of wealth was indeed stored here. There were antiques, gold, silver, jewelry, jade, and currency, as well as many metals, such as refined Tungsten Powder and steel. Besides the valuables, there were military supplies: guns, cannons, trucks, tanks, and even a few airplanes. Other items like clothing, canned goods, and grain were piled up like mountains.

Estimating these items by their value at the time, they would probably have been worth tens of millions of Silver Dollars. This was an incredibly massive fortune back then, as currency was very valuable in that era. However, decades later, many things had lost their value. The food and clothing had all rotted away, and the currency from that time was no longer usable today. Because there was so much of it, its collection value wasn't high, and metals weren't as valuable either. As for the military supplies, after decades without maintenance, they could only be sold as scrap metal.

The only things truly valuable were the antiques, gold, and jade jewelry. Cao Xiao didn't want to touch the antiques; these things had a clear lineage of inheritance. He liked them, but he wouldn't just take good things whenever he saw them. These items couldn't be brought into the light, and taking them out would be a major headache. There were more than ten types of metals here that he urgently needed, so Cao Xiao collected enough and ignored the rest.

What truly moved Cao Xiao's heart was the gold. It consisted of gold bricks and bars with a purity of around 20K, all packed in large wooden crates. Altogether, there were over two hundred and sixty tons. The current spot price of gold was roughly between two hundred and sixty to two hundred and eighty yuan per gram. Two hundred and sixty tons of 20K purity gold converted to 24K gold would be two hundred and sixteen tons. Thus, the value of this gold was nearly sixty billion huaxia currency. How ruthlessly had these Japanese people plundered back then!

When he calculated the value of this gold, Cao Xiao began to doubt whether fate truly existed. Could this be the legendary 'good deeds are rewarded'? To help Hao Linger, he had come to Xiangnan City to find someone without hesitation. Now, not only had he found her, but he had also gained such a massive harvest. Cao Xiao decided he must go to a temple to burn some incense when he returned.

Two hundred-plus tons of gold only took up about a dozen cubic meters in volume. Storing them in his personal space along with the wooden crates wouldn't take up much room. Cao Xiao turned his gaze toward the silver. Besides being used for jewelry, silver also had extensive industrial applications. Metallic silver has excellent ductility, and its electrical and thermal conductivity are the highest among all metals. Cao Xiao needed at least ten tons of metallic silver to manufacture the atomic energy reactor. There wasn't as much silver here as gold—only one hundred and eighty tons—but it was more than enough for Cao Xiao's needs. Although silver wasn't as valuable as gold, it was still sold by the gram, at a dozen or twenty yuan per gram. One hundred and eighty tons could also be worth nearly four hundred million huaxia currency.

However, Cao Xiao didn't plan to sell this gold and silver for money. Gold had always been a symbol of wealth; two hundred-plus tons of gold were enough to influence international gold futures prices. Holding so much gold in his hands was a form of invisible deterrence. He didn't plan to sell the silver either; for no other reason than its industrial uses being too extensive. He might use a large amount of it at any time, so keeping it in the industrial mother machine space as a metal reserve was a good idea.

With the metals refined from the titanium concentrate plus those obtained here, he was only missing a few types of metallic materials to build the atomic energy reactor. Moreover, the quantities needed weren't large and were relatively easy to buy on the market. He only needed to purchase some non-metallic materials to begin manufacturing. The corn he had ordered for one hundred and twenty million had all been converted into energy. Refining all the titanium concentrate had only cost eight percent of the energy, leaving nine percent remaining. This should be enough to manufacture the atomic energy reactor.

After collecting all the silver, only the jewelry and jade remained. These were packed in over thirty wooden crates of various sizes. Cao Xiao didn't look closely, sweeping them all into his space. Then, he carefully covered the spots where the crates had been with dust. This way, if anyone entered, they wouldn't notice that things had been stacked there. After finishing this, he wasn't done yet; he searched the entire underground space, found the inventory list of supplies, and destroyed it directly.

Finally, he cleared most of the passage leading to the surface, leaving only the entrance part. From the munitions, he selected a few still-usable Pineapple Grenades and detonated them directly at the entrance.

With a loud boom, the grass, trees, and soil on the ground were blown into the air, while also exposing some traces of the passage.

The people from the Mechanical Processing Plant were all drawn by the sound of the explosion and quickly gathered toward the area. When they discovered the brickwork of the passage, they didn't even stop to consider what the loud noise was about. One by one, they were exceptionally excited, hugging each other and weeping with joy. After the excitement, these Japanese people began to mobilize excavation tools to dig, including the people from the factory basement. Nearly a hundred people from the entire mechanical plant had all come here.

Cao Xiao breathed a sigh of relief; his goal had been achieved. Rescuing the hostages wasn't that simple. He couldn't act himself; otherwise, even if there were many of them, he would kill them all quietly in an instant. If the police came to rescue them, the safety of the hostages would become a major issue. These Japanese people wouldn't just surrender. While risking their own lives, they would kill the hostages immediately and simultaneously detonate a large amount of explosives placed in the basement to destroy all evidence. Therefore, Cao Xiao came up with this plan to lure the tiger away from the mountain while also catching them red-handed with the loot. He would quietly step in to help the police when necessary. The surface passage of that underground military base would also be opened when the police arrived. This way, even if the important supplies in the base were found to have vanished, the police's suspects would be those Japanese people.