Drip…
Drip…
In the dimly lit mine tunnel, sweat slid down Yuhran's temples.
The air was stifling and damp, carrying a mixed stench of metal and sulfur.
The blue glow of his phone screen reflected on his face, displaying the interface of a translation app.
"Up ahead… how much farther is it?"
Yuhran asked, panting.
The young man walking in front stopped and turned around.
He had olive-colored skin and curly black hair, his body wrapped in nothing but a coarse piece of linen.
The young man rattled off a string of words Yuhran couldn't understand, but almost at the same time, the phone emitted a mechanical female voice:
"The Land of Gems is just ahead, outsider. You won't go back on your promise of more gems, will you?"
Yuhran reached into his pocket and touched the few remaining glass marbles inside—children's toys he'd bought for two yuan at a discount shop near his apartment complex.
"Of course. Of course,"
he said, forcing a smile, even as his back was already soaked through with sweat.
Three days ago, Yuhran had still been an ordinary programmer who had just been "optimized out."
Twenty-six years old, owning a car but no house, with bank savings that weren't even enough to cover the next quarter's rent.
That day, carrying a cardboard box, he walked out of the office building and returned home, only to find an unmarked package lying quietly at his doorstep.
Inside the package was a door—more precisely, a doorframe.
When he first touched that ice-cold metal frame, a vision of another world suddenly appeared before his eyes.
And now, he was following a guide he'd hired with three glass marbles, venturing deep into a gold mine in that world.
Carefully stepping around the jagged rocks on the ground, Yuhran thought this was probably the craziest thing he'd ever done in his life.
"We're here," the young man's voice came through the translation app.
Yuhran looked up. The tunnel suddenly opened up, forming a natural cavern.
On the rock walls, specks of golden light shimmered. Golden veins were embedded in the gray stone, glittering under the torchlight like stars in the night sky.
His heart began to pound violently.
—Real gold ore!
"I need…"
Yuhran pointed at the rock wall, trying to keep his voice from sounding too eager.
"Can you help me dig some of it out?"
The young man frowned and said a few words. The phone translated:
"These stones are useless to us. They can't be made into tools or weapons."
"But if you want them, I can help you extract some. However, you'll need to pay the other half of the gems first."
Yuhran let out a sigh of relief and took out the remaining five glass marbles.
Under the light, these colorful glass balls really did look just like gemstones—especially to a world that was still roughly at the level of ancient Greek civilization.
The young man took the "gems," examined them carefully, and his eyes lit up. He immediately pulled out an iron tool from his waist and began striking the rock wall.
Taking the opportunity, Yuhran memorized the layout of the entire cavern, his body trembling slightly with excitement.
If he could bring all of this ore back…
Half an hour later, the young man had dug out a small pile of ore, wrapped it in a piece of animal hide, and handed it to Yuhran.
"Is this enough, outsider?"
Yuhran nodded.
As he estimated the value of this ore back in his own world, his heartbeat accelerated once more.
"Thank you very much. I might… come back again."
The young man shrugged, clearly accustomed to the strange behavior of outsiders.
"If you bring more gems like these, I'd be happy to guide you again."
...
It was already late at night when Yuhran returned to his rented apartment.
He carefully placed the ore on the coffee table in the living room, then collapsed onto the sofa.
The fatigue from traveling between two worlds washed over him like a tide, but he didn't dare rest. He immediately turned on his computer and searched for "home gold extraction methods."
The various experimental procedures that popped up on the screen made his head spin.
Rubbing his temples, he thought that there was no helping it.
In the past, he'd never imagined that one day he'd be bringing this kind of thing home.
But now, this was his only hope.
...
Early the next morning, Yuhran drove back to his hometown.
In the age of big data, online shopping could hide nothing from anyone.
So, to conceal this as much as possible, he had no choice but to purchase the experimental equipment offline, in batches.
The more remote the place, the better.
Nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and borax, along with a simple alcohol lamp and a ceramic crucible.
Once everything was ready and the workbench set up, he began the extraction process.
First, he crushed the ore into powder, then used aqua regia—a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid—to dissolve the gold particles.
The pungent fumes made him cough repeatedly, his eyes stinging red.
"Damn, this smell…"
Fortunately, he was working on the rooftop. Cool breezes kept blowing through, so the impact wasn't too severe.
Before long, the solution gradually turned orange-yellow. Yuhran carefully added the reducing agent.
As the chemical reaction took place, fine black sediment began to appear at the bottom of the solution.
When those tiny gold particles gathered together, Yuhran took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and thought:
"It worked!"
It was a nugget of gold about the size of a fingernail.
Though there were still impurities on the surface, and though it was sponge gold that required further smelting, it was at least real gold!
The exact value was unclear, but the profit would definitely be substantial—after all, this was a business with no capital cost.
And what he'd seen in that mine in the other world was enough for him to dig for decades…
His phone suddenly vibrated. The screen showed an incoming call: "Mom."
Yuhran's smile froze. He took a deep breath and pressed the answer button.
"Xiao Yuan, have you eaten yet?" his mother's familiar voice came through.
"Not yet, Mom. I was just busy…"
Yuhran glanced at the mess scattered across the rooftop. His old family home had long been unoccupied.
"Takeout again, right? If you keep this up, how can your body handle it…"
His mother nagged for a bit, then abruptly changed the subject.
"Oh right, Aunt Wang introduced a girl to you. She works at a bank, great qualifications. How about meeting her for lunch tomorrow?"
A wave of irritation rose in Yuhran's chest.
He wanted to refuse outright, but when he thought of that door, that world…
After some consideration, he agreed for the time being.
After all, he hadn't struck it rich through mining yet—he wasn't in any position to be picky.
It would be a good chance to go back and buy some equipment, so he could explore more effectively.
Thinking back to yesterday's experience, he narrowed his eyes.
"I need weapons. Real weapons. Just carrying a kitchen knife for self-defense is nowhere near enough. If I run into more people…"
He let out a heavy breath. Just as he was pondering where he might be able to buy a crossbow, his phone rang again—this time, a text notification.
Yuhran swiped open the screen and saw it was a push notification from the translation app:
"New language variant detected. Updating lexicon…"
Yuhran frowned.
This app had cost him most of his savings to commission from a college classmate, and it claimed to be able to translate the vast majority of known languages offline.
But that other world had nothing to do with Earth—so why could the app translate their language?
And why was the young man's speech being identified as a variant of Japanese?
There were no answers to these questions for now.
But he believed—
As he ventured deeper and deeper into that world, everything would eventually come to light.