Chapter 1549: Chapter 1549: Tracing the Source
Liu Bo’s life is actually quite legendary. In his youth, his mother passed away, and unable to endure his stepmother’s abuse, he ran away from home, so he only has a primary school education.
The runaway youth suffered a lot, later becoming an apprentice at a car repair company, where he was noticed by a benefactor who sent him to join the military. After being discharged, he worked for the benefactor, accumulated some wealth, and then contracted a coal mine, starting to prosper.
Now, he’s only just over fifty, with an estimated wealth of seven to eight hundred million yuan. However, with the nationalization over privatization trend in the energy sector, his business is facing closure. Nonetheless, he hasn’t squandered his money excessively and invested in real estate and other assets to preserve value.
Feng Jun investigated for a long time but couldn’t find any unusual events in his life, realizing he needed to take a different approach.
The treatment period for this batch of patients was already more than halfway through; only eleven days were left. Among these patients, two couldn’t be cured with one treatment course, plus Liu Bo made it three people.
Because Hua Hua’s treatments are always targeted, it’s rare to find a single patient who can’t be cured in a course, let alone three at once; it truly is quite rare.
Therefore, Liu Yuting received Feng Jun’s instructions to investigate the life experiences of the three in detail—everyone else got cured, but you three are problematic, so you must cooperate with the nursing center for the corresponding investigation.
If you are willing to cooperate, the center can offer another treatment course for free. If not, then sorry, your illness won’t be cured, and the center even won’t allow you to line up again!
This demand is evidently somewhat domineering, but Liu Yuting has the right to make such a request—because your concealment has prevented us from curing you, which greatly damages our reputation!
The two of them immediately complied with the center’s requirements, answering every question asked, even disclosing matters they previously kept secret.
Liu Bo, on the other hand, was initially more resistant.
However, as a child who ran away from home, managing to achieve his current status, he’s certainly not lacking emotional intelligence. After probing for two days and realizing that Luohua only wanted to understand experiences and promised to protect client privacy, he eventually decided to cooperate.
Liu Bo suffered greatly in his youth, relying primarily on his ability to read the room and serve others to rise. Therefore, he didn’t carry much guilt. Nevertheless, to repay the benefactor who supported him, he did do a few unspeakable things.
However, to Liu Yuting, these matters were truly trivial; although they were enough to send Liu Bo to jail for a dozen years, what relation did they have with the center?
She reported her investigative findings to Feng Jun, who finally discovered a suspicious detail.
This detail occurred shortly after Liu Bo contracted the coal mine, when a cave-in incident happened at the mine.
It was the mid-1990s, the coal market was bleak, and although Liu Bo was the boss, he often went down into the mine, and besides supervising, he even personally repaired various equipment.
Almost all first-generation wealthy individuals have particularly strong pioneering abilities.
During the collapse, Boss Liu was trapped underground with a total of sixteen people, stuck there for a full thirteen days.
Fortunately, Liu Bo’s wife was very determined, spending a large sum of money to hire people to dig, and finally, four out of the sixteen came out alive.
Liu Bo took over half a month to recover before returning to the mine, but he was terrified and never dared to go underground again.
The other three resignees left the coal mine after recovering, for whom Boss Liu prepared a generous hush fee.
As for the twelve dead victims’ families, Liu Bo compensated them. Even though he fought alone, he had enough money to contract a coal mine, and in the eyes of ordinary people, he was seen as a "capable person," so the victims’ families could only accept it, and the matter quietly passed.
Liu Bo always believed that he got lung cancer likely from working underground for too long and inhaling too much dust.
However, what Feng Jun focused on was: during those thirteen days, Liu Bo survived by drinking sewage from the coal seam.
Moreover, after escaping, Liu Bo sealed the collapsed pit directly.
Firstly, since it had collapsed once, the structure was unstable and it was very likely to collapse again, making it unsafe. Secondly, twelve people died there; the notion of luck aside, it was vital to cover it up—who dared to report such an accident?
He publicly stated that the pit was an old one with an exhausted coal seam, hence it was sealed.
Anyway, in Liu Bo’s rise to power, he could hardly be seen as pure, but even if such matters were exposed, at worst, he’d pay a fine and serve a few more years.
The matters he was unwilling to confess were all similar in nature, not deadly, but they invited unnecessary trouble if revealed.
However, this time, with Luohua pressing tightly, he confessed—besides, the mine would soon no longer be his, so the aftermath wouldn’t be too severe.
Feng Jun pondered for a long time, thinking this was the most suspicious part.
Of course, he couldn’t possibly ask for more details, so he simply set sail on the Flash Star Boat that night, heading straight for Alxa League.
Alxa League is located in Beijiang, with vast and sparsely populated territory. Even though the Flash Star Boat is incredibly fast, it’s still difficult to cover such a large area... Feng Jun spent two whole days to roughly explore the places where Liu Bo had worked.
After searching repeatedly, the most suspicious place was still that coal mine, so on the third night, he directly entered the sealed mine shaft.
The mine shaft was indeed closed, poured over with reinforced concrete, but this posed no problem to him. He simply opened a side entrance to get in. Back when he was at Mount Zhige, he had to use explosives to create an opening, but now... he could use the technique "Turn Stone to Mud".
After walking about ten miles in the tunnel, he finally reached a collapsed area. Feng Jun used his Divine Sense to sense it, and indeed discovered a trace of escaping Spiritual Energy — extremely faint.
The source of the escaping Spiritual Energy was a very narrow crack on the ground, approximately a palm’s length and a finger’s width, appearing like an inconspicuous fissure.
But Feng Jun was sure that this fissure was definitely deep enough, so he pulled out his mobile phone and started searching for "nearby Spirit Stones".
There were no Spirit Stones; within 1.2 kilometers around — including underground, there were no Spirit Stones.
This unsettled Feng Jun, prompting him to use the "Turn Stone to Mud" technique directly, following the fissure path.
The "Turn Stone to Mud" technique actually has some pitfalls; turning stone into mud makes Feng Jun feel like he’s plunging into a swamp.
Previously when he came in, he also used "Turn Stone to Mud", but he knew the direction he was heading. Usually after traveling one or two hundred meters, he could always find a space to breathe comfortably.
The air in the tunnel wasn’t rich in oxygen, but it was sufficient for Feng Jun. He cautiously expelled carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
However, once he entered this ground fissure, the air truly became insufficient. Feng Jun struggled to capture that trace of Spiritual Energy while arduously moving through the mire.
Unfortunately, being at the Intermediate Level doesn’t make one omnipotent, and his "Turn Stone to Mud" technique has range limitations. Continually using the technique while proceeding with difficulty posed a significant challenge for Feng Jun — the key issue being that he didn’t know how far he still needed to go.
After walking approximately three hundred meters, he felt the need to take a break — not that he couldn’t continue, but he couldn’t last much longer. To guard against possible unexpected situations, he had to maintain a certain reserve.
Thus, he activated the Spiritual Qi Shield, pulled out his mobile phone, and directly entered the phone realm, breathing the fresh air delightfully before returning to Earth, while the Spiritual Qi Shield in front of him continued to be maintained.
After flipping back and forth seven times this way, he finally arrived at an open area where the Spiritual Energy was quite abundant, almost at the level of the Intermediate Spirit Gathering Array for Qi Refinement.
This was a ten-square-meter-sized stone chamber, with a height of about two meters, a very standard ancient Qi Refiner’s cave.
Feng Jun hadn’t been on the Cultivation Path for long, but... perhaps because his initial level was quite high, he truly had learned a lot about ancient Qi Refiners, having even seen many various relics.
True Qi Refiners have always been ascetics, cultivating themselves without paying attention to external objects — no matter how good external objects are, what use are they to me?
He looked around and found that apart from a Luminous Pearl dimmed to near ineffectiveness on the ceiling, the entire stone chamber was clean, showing no signs of any treasures.
Unwilling to give up, he released his Divine Sense to scan again, still discovering nothing.
That shouldn’t be the case. Feng Jun carefully sensed for a while, still finding nothing, so he pulled out his mobile phone to continue investigating.
This investigation really uncovered something; there was an extremely strong energy field underground, five hundred meters below him — now he was over twelve hundred meters from the surface, yet the energy field was still beneath his feet.
Going further down, wouldn’t there be magma? Feng Jun couldn’t help but want to complain.
But strangely, this energy field was incredibly powerful; even with the mobile phone’s scanning capabilities, the contents of the energy field remained unknown — logically, this should be at the Nascent Soul Stage level of energy.
Though Feng Jun was used to being cautious, he still possessed an adventurous spirit at heart, so he pondered for a moment and directly "Turned Stone to Mud" to sink downwards, clutching his mobile phone, ready to escape at any moment.
Previously, he thought the mobile phone’s function was already very convenient, his escape tool, as long as he encountered danger, he could silently chant to quit. Now he realized that if he encountered deadly danger in the Earth Realm, he would still need to tap the mobile phone — this operation wastes too much time.
However, now wasn’t the time to complain; he just silently made up his mind — there are not many places in the Earth Realm that pose a deadly threat to me, but I can’t be careless because of this. It’s still better to prepare for unexpected situations.
After descending a little over two hundred meters, he went to the phone realm to change air. Then he descended another two hundred meters and went to the phone realm once more.
Coming back, he searched with his mobile phone and confirmed he was only a hundred meters away from that powerful energy field. He took a deep breath and slowly sank further down.