Chapter 638: Being Monitored
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After jumping out of the truck, Li Du looked at the familiar crushed rocks. He stomped his feet vigorously and bellowed, "Hey yo! Fire opals, here I come."
Godzilla waved his fists and beat his chest forcefully, roaring, "Hey yo! Hey yo! Hey yo!"
Ah Ow stretched her neck towards the sky. "Ah woo! Ah woo!"
Ah Meow also began shrieking, "Meow, meow!"
As raccoons were not adept at barking, Crispy Noodles looked at them, shocked, before gazing sideways at Brother Wolf, who also looked shocked.
After the shouting was over, Brother Wolf was silent for a while. He walked over to Godzilla and whispered, "Mate, why did you shout?"
As he was currently under probation, he wanted to integrate into the team and hoped to become a formal member soon so he could get his million dollar salary.
Godzilla, with an innocent look on his face, said, "I don't know."
Brother Wolf was speechless.
Having stayed at the national park a few times, Li Du realized that he loved this type of environment with its natural wilderness, starlit sky and vast land. The petrified forest here was much more comfortable compared to the steel jungle in the city.
Of course, the profits here were also much greater. After all, this was still the place that enabled him to earn money at a faster rate.
With a wave of Li Du's hand, Godzilla brought Brother Wolf to divide the piece of land. Godzilla, with ropes in hand, instructed Brother Wolf to help in deploying them.
Ivana wore a black veil and followed behind her father like a small tail. She mimicked him doing work.
Li Du beckoned to her. "Hey, little girl. The terrain here is very uneven. Be careful not to fall. You don't have to do work. Just staying here will do."
The little girl looked back at him and walked even faster, as if she had seen a big gray wolf.
Li Du whistled and Ah Meow, Ah Ow and Crispy Noodles ran towards him. They threw themselves onto him and played with him.
As the three small furry animals had an irresistible appeal to children, the sight caught Ivana's attention.
After Godzilla and Brother Wolf had marked out an area, Li Du released the little bug while waving his hand. "Start work, children!"
In addition to the Petrified Forest National Park being located on an opal deposit, the gemstones had been forced out of the ground as a result of the constant movement of tectonic plates for millions of years.
During the past few days, Li Du had been assessing the fire opal situation. Although there were a few regions with rich gemstone deposits in Mexico, the gemstones closer to the surface of the ground were already completely excavated by the locals and Native American Indians.
Currently, to find fire opals in Mexico, a mine had to be dug to search for the ore vein in the ground. The use of this method to find gemstones in the earth's surface at the National Park was completely unimaginable.
In fact, if not for the US and Arizona governments' hard stance on not allowing machinery to be used for excavating the ore vein in the National Park, the fire opals in the National Park would have already been completely dug out.
For the past 10 plus years, fire opals were constantly being unearthed in the National Park and, from time to time, top-grade fire opals would appear. Due to prudent management, the search for fire opals could last a long time.
Despite that, after Li Du's activities, the fire opals here were no longer sustainable. Through the use of the little bug, Li Du was able to search out all the gemstones before taking away those that could be dug out using manual labor.
It was possible that after he had searched through the place once, the gem hunter profession could be lost due to fewer people coming there due to no yield.
Li Du's greed was not to be blamed for this. When Americans plundered lands all over the world, they did not care about the natives and even started wars.
Li Du was just taking gemstones away in a legitimate manner, not stealing them. Compared to Americans who were starting wars in various parts of the world and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, Li Du was considered a man of noble character.
This time around, the little bug's ability was much more powerful. After being strengthened twice by the kidnapping and at the old goods market, the little bug could see further as well as fly faster.
Li Du immediately started work after they arrived at the National Park that afternoon. After an hour, the little bug had already searched approximately one-quarter of the area, which was much more efficient than the previous time.
Li Du went about the search speedily while feeling extremely uninhibited and gratified.
In just an hour, he found 24 pieces of fire opal that could be dug out. Of course, not all were high-quality opals and some were cloudy.
As only high-quality fire opals were valuable, Li Du only searched for high-quality opals during the previous two visits. If the opal's color was not good or the size was too small, he would immediately give up and not waste energy searching for it.
Since the little bug's field of view was wider and its vision sharper, the number of fire opals which could be discovered was greater. As such, even if the opals were cloudy, he was also willing to dig them out.
A piece of high-quality opal could be worth as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although a cloudy opal was not as valuable, it could also be sold for a few thousand dollars.
After an hour of work, he had marked out the locations of all the gemstones and came back to rest.
Godzilla inquired, "Boss, what do you want to eat?"
Li Du answered, "Give me some fruit and also a bottle of soda."
Godzilla, who was scratching his fluffy hair, said, "What do you want to eat at night? I will prepare and you cook."
Li Du became gloomy. He had overlooked this problem and should have brought Big Quinn along since his culinary skills were decent.
He asked Brother Wolf, "Do you know how to cook?"
Brother Wolf, with his head tilted back, said blandly, "Yes."
Li Du inquired further, "What are you adept at cooking? Is it good?"
Brother Wolf, like before, replied blandly with his head tilted back, "Proficient in a lot. Not delicious but edible."
Li Du was helpless and frowned. "Could you talk normally? Why is your head tilted back?"
He hated people who acted pretentiously in front of him and Brother Wolf was currently putting on a pretentious look.
Brother Wolf lowered his head, looked at him and said, "Someone is monitoring us in the sky."
Li Du looked up in astonishment and asked, "What's that?"
Sure enough, there was a small dark spot in the sky. He had spotted it earlier and thought it was a bird since the National Park was the habitat of many wild birds.
Brother Wolf remarked, "It's a drone with a remote surveillance camera attached, which can spy from 100 yards up. Our actions have been monitored."
Li Du became anxious. "What? You sure? You can see clearly?"
Brother Wolf replied, "Can see clearly that it's a drone. The rest was inferred."
Li Du responded in a dispirited manner, "Who's monitoring us? The military? FBI? The local police?"
Brother Wolf replied, "It's a civilian drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle from Amazon that costs 1,000 dollars."
Having a reliable bodyguard was useful. Li Du did not realize earlier that someone was actually monitoring him. Godzilla was also unable to detect such a thing.
Li Du became extremely frustrated from looking at the drone above him. Not only did he not feel good being monitored by other people, he also did not know when they had begun monitoring him and how many secrets of his had been discovered.
He recalled the earlier conversation with Owen regarding "treasure seeking pets." Indeed, he had created the illusion of Crispy Noodles being able to find fire opals. However, he did so to fool Godzilla, Sophie and the others, and it was not shown to the public.
Although he was previously uncertain who it was that let this matter out, he knew the answer now.