“You idiot, you bastard, how could you go on a business trip without telling me? Do you know I’m about to die of anger because of you? Your attitude right now is a real problem, it’s been so long since I gave you a wake-up call…” Confirming it was Edward Baker sitting on the other side of the screen, Grace Clark’s voice immediately became fierce again, scolding him for several minutes without repeating herself once.

Unfortunately, the internet quality in Degulamo was so poor that Grace Clark’s voice kept cutting in and out, and her angry tone didn’t sound intimidating at all.

“The boss decided on the business trip at the last minute, and then decided at the last minute to stay. There was nothing I could do—my internet here is really slow, so speak slower, or I won’t be able to hear what you’re saying—if I can’t hear you, there’s no point in you scolding me, right?” Edward Baker said lazily, hands behind his head.

Grace Clark had looked up online that Kanem’s public security was chaotic, so to keep her from worrying, Edward Baker always reported only good news, never bad.

He didn’t dare mention being robbed at gunpoint by a taxi driver just after arriving in Degulamo, and he certainly wouldn’t bring up the near-death experience in Yibogu Village this time.

“The company has a project in a suburban county near Degulamo, and we might have to be stationed there long-term. There’s no cell signal or internet there, so it might not be easy for me to contact you. If you need anything, email me, and if I get time off to return to Degulamo, I’ll reply…” Edward Baker said, just in case.

“I don’t have anything to say to you, I’m still mad,” Grace Clark said. “Tomorrow I’m going to introduce a boyfriend to Henry Clark sis, just to piss you off.”

Edward Baker could only give a bitter smile.

He and Henry Clark had been classmates since they were kids, and were very close, even planning to apply to the same university before the college entrance exam.

To be honest, it would be self-deception to say he didn’t have any feelings back then.

There were a few times when they were out together that he secretly wanted to hold her hand, but he was too timid at the time. Looking back now, he just wants to slap himself.

After so much happened at home, he didn’t repeat his senior year, but went straight to work as a technical repairman at Dongsheng’s workshop, and it was he who took the initiative to cool off his relationship with Henry Clark.

The internet quality was really bad, so Edward Baker cut off the voice call, chatted with Grace Clark for a bit, then urged her to go to bed. He was pressed for time and still needed to check and download materials overnight.

Xinhai City had already popularized fiber broadband three or four years ago, but Degulamo’s internet speed was still stuck in the dial-up era, and it was especially expensive.

The only lucky thing was that for Dongsheng’s dispatched employees in Degulamo, all normal expenses including food and lodging were covered by the company.

In addition to salary and subsidies, Edward Baker and the others also received an extra thirty thousand local currency (one hundred US dollars) in pocket money each month, which was quite a good deal—if it weren’t for John Foster wanting to completely lord it over him, and the unavoidable conflict with John Foster, he would have wanted to stick it out for another year or two, save up more, and not have to worry about Grace Clark and his grandma’s living expenses anymore.

But now, at the very least, he had to regain some initiative.

Edward Baker’s thoughts were a bit scattered, but he also felt an uncontrollable excitement.

He couldn’t hear John Foster and Emily Carter talking outside anymore, and didn’t know if they’d gone back to their rooms, or if Emily Carter had been persuaded by John Foster and the two of them had gone somewhere else to discuss things in private.

Edward Baker didn’t care about any of that. He opened a webpage and searched for information on simple methods for extracting lode gold and placer gold, especially the equipment involved.

The internet really is a wonderful thing.

As long as it doesn’t involve large-scale lode gold mining, the process for extracting shallow or open-pit lode gold and riverbed placer gold isn’t complicated.

At least for someone like Edward Baker, who only finished part of high school, there were no technical barriers he couldn’t overcome—there was plenty of information online.

There were also many articles online describing how domestic gold prospectors had been mining placer gold in Xinjiang, the Northeast, and other places in recent years.

The mining of lode gold in China was basically monopolized by large and medium-sized state-owned gold mining companies; as for riverbed placer gold mining, the environmental damage was too great, so it was now strictly cracked down on and banned domestically.

Many solo gold prospectors and small-scale mining teams had either disbanded in the past two years and started other businesses, or shifted their focus abroad.

North Korea, Myanmar, and other neighboring countries had become the first choices for Chinese gold prospectors looking overseas, and there were not yet any reports online of Chinese people mining gold in Africa.

However, sub-Saharan Africa had always been famous for its gold deposits. Western gold mining companies had been working this land since colonial times, and the gold resources still showed no signs of being exhausted.

Edward Baker suspected that as more and more Chinese merchants and Chinese-funded enterprises entered Africa, there would also be gold prospecting and mining teams of all sizes coming to this continent.

After a whole night of research, Edward Baker became even more certain that when John Foster returned to Degulamo City earlier, he hadn’t cared about his well-being at all.

It was true that even a small-scale gold mining team required a basic equipment investment of over a million RMB—John Foster being able to quote this figure accurately showed that he had seriously searched and studied the relevant information online before.

And an investment of over a million RMB didn’t even include the daily operating costs for things like diesel to run generators and excavators.

They’d also need to prepare one or two vehicles to transport diesel and other supplies from nearby towns to Yibogu Village.