At four o'clock in the morning, we moved all kinds of equipment and supplies for prospecting into the mountains to the back of the pickup truck, including the gold washing barrels that Wei Yiyun and I bought in Kumasi, as well as four local machetes, three large axes, two large saws, a bucket of sulfur, a bundle of rope, two shovels, a portable solar equipment, a large tent, and five boxes of mineral water. Wei Ergou wore a labor protection suit, like an army uniform in the seventies and eighties; Wei Yiyun and I wore jeans and leather shoes on the lower body, and long-sleeved cloth clothes on the upper body. This is all based on Wei Ergou's experience, and we carefully prepared a day to go to the mountains to prospect for minerals.

We drove to the chief's house to pick up Erica, who was wearing a leather jacket and pants and a pair of sunglasses, and it seemed that he was well equipped to enter the mountains, and Erica also brought one of his black men, Done, who introduced that Donai was more experienced in the mountainous area we were going to, and he knew the general situation of the road into the mountain and the mining area. After Erica and Donai got into the car, Wei Ergou drove to a road to pick up four black workers, which was the original Huang Jianjun mine into the mountains and opened the road Wei Ergou's four black workers, Wei Ergou specially arranged for them to go with us today, Wei Ergou's English is not very good, and gave these four black workers a simple and clear name - "front army", "rear army", "left army" and "right army", just like the army classification of the war march.

Since the pickup truck was already full, and there was basically a lot of equipment and supplies in the back, the four black men could only sit next to each other in the back of the car. There are a lot of potholes on the road, although Wei Ergou is not driving fast, but the car has to slow down and cross the pit when passing through the pit, and the four black people behind are very skilled. We drove for about three hours, all the way through a small village, about four or five kilometers into the mountains behind the village, and we parked under a big mango tree.

Wei Ergou asked me to translate and arrange for the black workers to work, and the three black men of the front army, the left army and the right army, had machetes in their hands and axes on their backs, and Donai also gave him a machete; Let Donai command the three black workers to open the road in front, and when they encounter bushes and branches, they use knives and axes to open a road, Wei Ergou and Wei Yiyun each have a shovel, and the black man in the rear army continues to look at the car and the rest of the things in the car under the tree, and Erijia and I each carry half a box of mineral water in our backpacks.

In this way, the four black men walked in front, Erijia and I were in the middle, Wei Yiyun and Wei Ergou walked behind, and the eight of us went into the mountain along the mountain road. Donai first led us through a wild mango forest, which took half an hour to cross, no wonder it is said that the black people eat on the tree, this tree is densely packed with mangoes, each tree is estimated to produce tons of mangoes, not to worry about eating, if you starve to death, you can only say that you are lazy to death. The mango forest is relatively flat, and there are grass paths formed by people walking on the ground, and the so-called grass path is that the grass has been trampled on, which is relatively short, unlike other places under the trees where the grass is longer. To tell the truth, I don't know if there are snakes in the grass, I was worried in my mind during the process, because I was most afraid of snakes, the four black bodies in front of me were more powerful, walking very fast, when I passed through the mango forest, it was almost a hundred meters away from me and Erijia, Wei Ergou and Wei Yiyun followed us very closely, and we were separated by about ten meters.

As I chatted with Erica as I walked to the place where the four negroes stood in front of me, I saw that they were standing on a high ground, which was a hundred or so square, and it was a small rocky slope, and there was no vegetation on the rocky slope, and it was bare, and it was very suitable for sitting on it. Standing on it, you can see the trunk of the mango tree where we parked in the distance, and in front of you is a low valley, and deep in the valley is a dense and dense bush, and there are no tall trees.

Wei Ergou and Wei Yiyun also arrived at this high slope, we all sat down, and I took out mineral water for everyone to drink. Then Donai said to Erica, "Master, I can lead the way here, it is said that after passing through this bush is a depression, and there is a gold mine on the other side of the depression, I have heard the locals say before, but I don't know exactly which direction to go." “

"Boss, look at what we should do, I'll open the way ahead of the brothers." The former army also stood behind Donai and said.

The word master is a bit strange, so I'm going to popularize the difference between black people and their superiors. Generally speaking, the family hired such as security guards, housekeepers, nannies, cooks, etc. will call the employer "sir" or "master", the former is more ordinary, and the latter shows that he has special respect for you, and Donai calls Erica the owner, it can be seen that Donai is a worker-like doorman hired by Erica's family, and he has great respect and awe for Erica. The former army called us bosses, and this title is the name used by the vast majority of blacks to refer to foreigners, especially Chinese, which illustrates a relationship of interest and subordination. The question of this title is very important in Africa, and it was only later that I came to realize that the black people have a strong sense of hierarchy, and how to use these concepts is a great artistic science, and it is also directly related to whether or not they can be mixed into the upper class in Africa.

I translated the words of the black man to Wei Ergou, Wei Ergou first drank a sip of water, took out a monocular from his pocket, looked into the depths of the mountain range in front of him, and watched for half an hour, at this time the sun also rose relatively high, whether there is a sun in Africa The temperature is completely different, just this little effort, the temperature has risen by at least ten degrees, from twenty degrees in the early morning to now it is estimated to be thirty degrees, Wei Yiyun and I are already sweating profusely, Erica and a few black people seem to have changed little, It seems that dark skin is not afraid of the sun, and I can't get hot anymore and retreat to the bottom of the mango tree. Wei Ergou was still looking at the mountains in front of him, gesturing with the shovel in his hand from time to time, and Erica was also standing next to him and looking at the mountains in front of him.

Wei Yiyun couldn't stand the heat and came down the stone slope to the mango tree on my side, and Erijia also came to me and said, "Xiaosheng, I just looked at the mountain in front of me, we should go in the direction of the rising sun, which is where the gold mine is located." I looked at Erica with wide eyes and asked him why. He tore a branch from the mango tree, gestured to the ground, and said, "You see there are three peaks in front, and the gold mine is generally in the middle of the mountain, and the three peaks and two valleys in front should be the gold mine, which is exactly where the sun rises." That's how we Ghanaians judge placer gold mines. “

Before Wei Yiyun and I could speak, Wei Ergou on the stone slope shouted three times, "Fuck your mother." Everyone was surprised by Wei Ergou's behavior, and in the midst of the surprise, he suddenly saw him pull out a pistol from his clothes and aim ahead, and we saw from a distance that the four people who were sitting in front of Wei Ergou were all frightened by this action, holding their heads to dodge, and the left army and the right army were directly frightened and rolled down the stone slope and fell to the bushes at that end, fortunately the stone slope was relatively gentle, and there were still many bushes. All of us just watched Wei Ergou raise his pistol and look left and right in front of him, for about ten minutes, and I didn't know what he was aiming at, when we suddenly heard a gunshot, and many birds were startled out of the bushes in front of us, and the rest of us looked at him blankly and didn't know what he was doing, just like that, after another two minutes he fired two more shots in a row.