Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The machinery of the engineering team went into the sea, and the clear water was stirred and became muddy. Many pebbles were washed ash.o.r.e along with the sand.
Li Du walked around the construction area with his hands behind his back. The engineer and the head of the engineering team showed him the blueprint and the construction plan. He nodded in approval and then walked back to the villa, which was down the hill, again with his hands behind his back.
Sophie was filming a video, and Ali was holding up a signboard with a moody face. On the signboard was a line of advertis.e.m.e.nt. They were making an advertis.e.m.e.nt for a company.
Seeing Li Du, Ali instantly threw away the signboard and jumped over towards him, hiding behind him and not willing to pop out his head.
Sophie glared at him, then turned to look at the other little ones. "Come on, Ah Ow, you are the most obedient. Come and cooperate with Mama."
Ah Ow suddenly ran into the grape forest beside the villa with a swish and disappeared without a trace.
They were familiar with the camera and the lens, and they all knew that once these things pointed at them, they would have to perform according to Sophie's arrangement and do what Sophie asked them to, which was very difficult and boring!
Li Du laughed. Sophie angrily threw aside the video camera and pulled him over. "Why didn't you cooperate with me? They have your support, which is why they are so arrogant!"
This made Li Du feel wronged. "Don't they listen to you the most? If they don't listen to you, how would they listen to me?"
Sophie was still angry, so Li Du took her away and said, "Come on, let's go to the hot spring. The weather will be cold soon. Soaking in the hot spring will be good for you."
The bowl-shaped mountain on Seagull Island was a small volcano that might have erupted millions of years ago. The island was the result of a volcanic eruption.
Now the volcano has become dormant, but there was still plenty of geothermal energy in it. There were several hot springs on the top of the mountain. When the weather would turn cold, there would be mist on top of all the hot springs and it would make the small island looks like a fairyland.
These hot springs have been artificially decorated and now had their own customs.
Li Du sat in the hot spring. It was late March, and winter was about to start in the southern hemisphere. When the air outside turned cooler, it would make people more comfortable sitting in the hot spring.
The little ones followed Li Du up the hill and saw him enter the hot spring. Ah Fei, who was flying in the air, folded its wings and came down, tossing a white seabird to Li Du.
This seabird was not dead. It was very unlucky to be caught by Ah Fei because the Andean condor was a scavenging bird and generally did not eat living things, so although Ah Fei was large in size, it rarely attacked other birds.
The white bird's eyes were wide and stiff as if it was paralyzed.
Li Du knew it was in a sort of shock and believed the white bird would recover if left alone.
Therefore, he pushed Ah Fei away and put the white bird in a bush of gra.s.s so that it could recover.
Just as the white bird was about to relax, it turned its head and saw two big yellow bright eyes s.h.i.+ning right at it. This scared the soul out of it. Even though it was in shock, it could not help crying out shrilly, "Ga!"
Li Du shouted, "Ah Meow! Come back! Don't scare it!"
Ah Meow left the place reluctantly. He did not want to frighten the bird; he was really planning to eat the unlucky creature. Birds were a regular part of his menu.
Ah Ow jumped out of the woods and into the hot spring. Li Du pushed her behind him and leaned on her. The wolf's skin was more comfortable than the back of a chair.
He was resting when his cell phone rang suddenly.
Li Du answered the phone lazily. Pierre, the engineer, said in an excited voice, "Mr. Li, where are you? Please come to the dock site, we have made a discovery, a big discovery!"
"What did you discover?" Li Du suppressed the restless feeling in his heart and went on with his lazy tone, but from Pierre's voice, he could guess that they had discovered the black opal mine!
Sure enough, Pierre went on, "We have found gems, Mr. Li. We have found gems among the rocks under the sea."
From this point of view, the engineers and the engineering team had very professional ethics. Otherwise, they could secretly pack away the black opals when they found them and it would be difficult for Li Du to detect it.
Li Du said, "You must have judged wrongly," and then got up, dried himself, changed his clothes and walked down.
On the dock site, everyone stopped working and was digging through the piles of rubble.
They were Australians and knew the value of black opals.
When he arrived, Pierre presented him with a stone as if handling a great treasure.
The stone was ordinary seafloor granite, polished to reveal a face of black crystal the size of a baby's hand. When it was held up to the light, the black crystal glowed with color.
"It is a black opal, Mr. Li. I swear this is a piece of black opal!" said Pierre excitedly.
Li Du turned, looked at the stone and asked, "How did you find it?"
Pierre said, "It was found by Hugh Sack, in a heap of stones that was dug up in the morning. There was a big crab in it. Sack wanted to take out the crab from the stones and then he found this stone."
"He did not realize it was a black opal at first. He just thought it looked nice and polished it with a grater. When the face of the stone was visible, he recognized that this was a gem and reported to me.
Li Du nodded and said, "Yes, you are right. This is a black opal. I own a jewelry company and have seen stones like these before."
Then he whistled and called to the other workers, "Guys, stop the construction here. You will each get a $50,000 reward. Hugh Sack will get a $100,000 reward. We will move the construction of the dock to the other location."
Pierre said cheerfully, "That is very well indeed. The seafloor here is not really suitable for building a dock. There are reefs in many places, and s.h.i.+ps of a larger size are liable to run into them. I have chosen a good place, Mr. Li. Come with me and look at the blueprint…"
Here, too, work had to continue, not to build a dock, but to mine.
From the bottom of the sea, the opal vein appeared. It went deep into the island, and it was a very large and valuable vein.
As the Lightning Ridge opal mine has been exhausted after more than two years, Li Du was too lazy to look for ore veins, and directly transferred Audrey and the group of people to the island, to let them continue to dig for the opals there.
Mining in water was much more dangerous than mining on land. One couldn't excavate mines in the sea, only dig up everything and then find the ore.
However, Li Du took control of the excavation team. He gave the mining plan, which consisted of mining entirely along the vein and would increase efficiency.
So Li Du started to get busy again. First, he had to be in charge of gem development, second, he had to carry out the promotion of Seagull Island to attract tourists. He was so busy that he had no time for rest.
Sophie was understanding and did not insist on a honeymoon just then. She thought she was having a good time on Seagull Island anyway, having a battle of wits with the little ones all day long. She was very busy too.
