"Although we are merely miners, doing the heavy preliminary work, and perhaps in your eyes just considered rough people, we have principles! We’ve been working for so long thinking we were mining for the country. Until one time, by chance, we overheard that this was actually an illegal black mine, and the resources were being smuggled and exported abroad. This made us uneasy! We, a group of people, negotiated with the management, protested, and even proposed to strike. However, there were few who supported us, and after the management divided us, there were only a dozen of us left, which was essentially useless. Instead, they imprisoned us..."

That’s when Li Yan understood why they were dressed in tattered clothes like vagrants. Their original intention, surprisingly, was to prevent the loss of strategic resources like rare earths, which moved him slightly.

"After you escaped, have you been hiding in the mountains all along?"

Old Kang and the other three people all became dispirited. After a while, Old Kang sighed and said, "This happened this year (lunar year)... The resort has already been established, with a lot of the fundamental infrastructure completed, and the mining has become even more low-key. They couldn’t arrange too many security guards, so with the help of other workers, we managed to escape. Then we split into two groups: a few of us hid in the mountains, and another group stole a speedboat from the resort at night, attempting to escape to the shore, but..."

The result was, of course, not good. Simply manipulating a speedboat is not nearly as challenging as traversing the ocean. Besides professional skills, various factors like direction, weather, and fuel can lead them to disaster at sea.

"Later, the workers who brought us food said they found the speedboat; there was no one on board; they probably all died at sea. And it was precisely because of this result that they did not doubt or search the mountain, allowing us to hide until now. These days, besides the workers still at the mines, who have the chance to save some food for us, we mostly rely on luck to encounter wild game or take risks at night to steal leftover meals from the resort restaurant. We can barely manage food this way, but it’s much harder to steal clothing. The workers can’t help us with that either..."

"So, you decided to rob tourists?" Li Yan couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. "What kind of lousy plan is this? Even stealing from the resort is less risky than what you’re doing now! And you’re even digging traps!"

One person couldn’t help but defend, "We can’t go down the mountain during the day at all, and now that the resort on the island is open, there are more security guards on night shifts, making it difficult to steal anything. Recently, we’ve been looking for food solely in trash heaps! Look at us, we’re on the verge of freezing to death!"

Old Kang added, "A few tourists have started coming; some have come to climb the mountain. We haven’t robbed anyone before, but now we’re left with no options... We noticed several tourists came here to take photos from this rock and jump down from it. So we dug a trap underneath... When we saw you heading down the mountain today, we waited here, later all six of them ran up here. You know the rest... This really is our first time!"

Li Yan smiled wryly, realising they were a group of clumsy thieves, yet driven by desperation, still having admirable traits! Old Kang laid everything bare, hoping he could help expose the situation!

(Thanks for yesterday’s reward: If, at that time ~ Snow, Reader 100711080135281, dongmin8061, Deep Love in the Celestial River, Cp Pampas, Illusion Breaker, Yagami Light II) (To be continued, for more, please visit www.qidian.com, more Chapters available, support the author, support legitimate reading!)