"Let’s talk about something more cheerful."
"The Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver exhibit in Yandu is now open."
"The first group of invited tourists has already visited, and they’ve released videos and photos."
"Huh?"
Gu Zhao looked at the phone Jiang Shishi handed him. A short video from a news network was playing on the screen.
The video showed an indoor scene, likely a specially designed and renovated exhibition hall. Pictures and text hung on the surrounding walls, though it was unclear what they described.
In the central display area of the hall, the floor was covered with a thick layer of silver ingots arranged to look like the sea with crashing waves.
A Golden Mountain stood proudly upon this Silver Sea. Although it was made entirely of rectangular gold ingots, anyone native of the country could recognize its shape as East Mountain at a glance.
Mountain of Gold, Silver Sea; shaped like East Mountain and the East Sea. It symbolized the great eastern nation.
’Perfect!’
Not far from the display was a walkway for tourists to pass through in an orderly fashion.
On camera, a crowd of men and women, old and young, all dressed differently, held up their phones, furiously snapping pictures of the Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver.
It certainly looked approachable and down-to-earth.
It didn’t look at all like they were standing before tens of trillions of Huaxia Coins’ worth of treasure.
Gu Zhao casually opened the comment section, where the first batch of tourists and various netizens had left messages.
"I signed up the second reservations opened! I can’t believe I was actually chosen. My life is complete!"
"There was an old guy there who actually asked a security guard if he could go grab a piece for him so he could bite it to test the gold’s purity. I’m dying laughing."
"The exhibition hall is in a small, specially designated building inside the central bank. The security is crazy strict."
"The Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver is just one exhibit. Other areas introduce the history of Celestial Xia’s gold and silver mines, the development of gold and silver currency, and ancient gold and silver ornaments."
"For example, it explains what ’a reward of ten thousand gold’ meant in ancient times, how much silver flowed into the Great Ming, and how much flowed out during the Qing Dynasty."
"They really don’t miss any opportunity to educate people."
After scrolling through a few comments, Gu Zhao handed the phone back to Jiang Shishi. "I didn’t expect the system to move so fast."
"Once they get serious, of course the system moves fast," Xiao Ya said with a smile.
No one in the group doubted that.
Zhang Hang asked Gu Zhao, "Do you know those Daoists who delivered the Golden Mountain?"
"I do!" Gu Zhao nodded. "Didn’t you see that Jing Chun Taoist, who delivered the gold, also showed up at the scam compound in Shan Country?"
Zhang Hang’s eyes lit up. "Then you must also know where they found that underwater gold mine, right?"
Gu Zhao shot Zhang Hang a sidelong glance. "You’re not thinking of going to get some gold for yourself, are you?"
"Man! We wouldn’t even need to get that much!" Zhang Hang exclaimed in amazement. "That’s over fifty thousand tons of gold! At current prices, that’s more than forty trillion Celestial Xia Coins!"
"And what they brought up was extremely high-purity dog head gold, which means there’s probably even more, slightly lower-purity gold that they haven’t retrieved yet."
Zhang Hang started counting on his fingers. "Let’s not even count in tons; my heart can’t take it. Let’s talk in pounds. Even if you brought up just a hundred of them, that’s still over forty million. You’d be set for life."
Song Qiuqiu couldn’t help but swallow. The numbers were indeed staggering.
Erin’s eyes began to sparkle. Even though she was a member of the Lawrence Clan and had some wealth of her own, over forty million Celestial Xia Coins was enough to make her heart race.
Gu Zhao couldn’t help but laugh. "Are you short on cash?"
"Not at all!" Zhang Hang replied. "But who wouldn’t want to be a little richer?"
"Me." Gu Zhao pointed to himself. "This is why I can succeed in my cultivation, while you can only come to me for help."
Zhang Hang was speechless. "..."
The group fell silent for a moment, then could only offer Gu Zhao their utmost admiration.
None of them were actually desperate for money. The talk of getting gold was just a fleeting moment of greed sparked by the discussion of the Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver. Once the topic passed, it was forgotten.
However, seeing the Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver exhibit reminded Gu Zhao of an idea he’d had before.
So, after dinner, they said their goodbyes. When Gu Zhao got home and finished his exercises, he sent a message to the security captain from the Taoist Research Institute, whom he had added as a friend.
"Ask the Taoist Office which locations on the Moon have soil with research value. I’m planning to take a trip around the Moon and can bring back some Moon Soil on the way."
The security captain: ???
The security captain, who had been lying in his dorm room scrolling through videos of girls dancing, shot straight up, startling the young guard next to him, who was drowsily reading the Great Cave Scripture.
"What’s wrong, Captain?"
"Mr. Gu contacted me!"
"What is it?" The young guard decisively set his Tao Scripture aside and asked with an excited expression, "Who are we dealing with this time?"
"Dealing with jack squat!" the captain cursed. "Why is your mind always on dealing with people?"
"We just brought back hundreds of thousands of criminals. What do you expect me to think about?" the young guard retorted. "The great unity of the world’s people?"
"It might not be the great unity of the world’s people, but it’s enough to shock them." The security captain immediately replied to Gu Zhao, then forwarded his message to the Taoist Office.
The young guard asked, full of envy and curiosity, "So what is it?"
The security captain looked at the young guard. "Mr. Gu is going to take a trip around the Moon."
...
"Why does he want to take a trip around the Moon?"
Late at night, the staff of the Taoist Office held an online meeting via their internal communication channel.
"Could there really be aliens on the Moon?"
"Or is the Spiritual Qi in space more abundant?"
"It’s not like there’s a portal to an Otherworld there, right?"
They all looked at each other, completely baffled as to why Gu Zhao wanted to go to the Moon.
They would never in a million years have guessed that Gu Zhao was simply inspired by the Mountain of Gold and Sea of Silver exhibit and a whim he’d had while watching the Spring Festival Gala.
They discussed it for a long time but couldn’t come to any conclusion. By then, however, the Science Academy had already sent over the locations of the most valuable Moon Soil.
Zheng Hongsheng stared at the dense list on the display screen, momentarily speechless.
"You guys really don’t hold back, do you!"
"It’s a rare opportunity," a bespectacled, middle-aged man in a video window said with a shy smile. "The importance of the research sites on this list decreases from top to bottom. It’s not absolutely necessary to bring samples back from all of them."
Zheng Hongsheng gave a dry laugh. "Have Specialist Li forward it to Mr. Gu."
Specialist Li was the security captain of the Taoist Research Institute.
After the Shu Province airplane incident, Gu Zhao had only added the security captain as a friend. As a result, "Captain Li" became "Specialist Li," gaining the additional role of a specialist for direct contact with Gu Zhao on top of his position as security captain.
He even got to collect two salaries.
...
「The next morning.」
Gu Zhao extracted his arm from the tangle of Xiao Ya’s and Jiang Shishi’s pale arms and jade-like legs—the two of them were still sleeping soundly, exhausted from their second round—and saw the list the security captain had sent him.
Along with the list, there was also a chart of lunar coordinates.
Although the list was a bit long, Gu Zhao didn’t mind at all. Instead, he nodded in satisfaction. ’Now this is what I call professional!’