The funds he could mobilize were far too limited. Edward Baker spent the whole night studying and realized that it wasn’t impossible to make do with what he had and cut down on investment.

Normally, for a gold mining team extracting open-pit rock gold, drilling equipment is absolutely essential, while for riverbed sand mining, an excavator is indispensable.

Both of these are huge machines, and each purchase in China costs several hundred thousand yuan.

Kanem’s industry is extremely backward. Not to mention engineering equipment—even most daily necessities have to be imported. If he were to import a rock drill or excavator, even a second-hand one, the cost would be very high, far beyond what he could afford right now.

If, in the early stages, he didn’t consider mining riverbed placer gold and only continued using traditional methods at the existing gold mining site in Yibogu Village—drilling holes and placing explosives to break the rock—there was nothing wrong with that.

Manually using a steel drill to bore holes one or two meters deep into the rock face is extremely laborious, but each blast yields a considerable amount of rock. The real bottleneck in early-stage efficiency still lay in the subsequent processes: crushing, sand making, gold sand separation, and smelting.

The subsequent steps only required a small crusher, sand maker, and oxygen lance smelting equipment, which would cost much less. Add a small diesel engine—considering buying second-hand—the total should come to no more than twenty thousand dollars.

Even if there wasn’t enough money left to buy a pickup truck, it wouldn’t be shameful to find a donkey in Yibogu to transport diesel and other supplies.

……

……

As dawn broke, Edward Baker printed out all the materials he would need—a thick stack that used up the entire ink cartridge—before he finally felt sleepy.

Hearing the sound of a car downstairs, Edward Baker, who hadn’t slept long, woke up. He opened the window and saw Walter Baker had just parked the car in front of the building; Lucy Clark had gotten up early and was now walking out of the villa, standing on the lawn talking to Walter Baker.

Edward Baker rubbed his face, took the materials he had just printed at dawn, and went downstairs without bothering to wash up.

There was no one else in the living room or dining room. He didn’t know whether John Foster and Emily Carter were still in their rooms or had already gone out.

“Mr. Baker, you’re up…” Walter Baker and Lucy Clark came in and greeted him.

“Just call me Eddie Baker from now on,” Edward Baker said, handing the materials he had printed last night to Walter Baker and Lucy Clark.

Walter Baker and Lucy Clark hadn’t been studying Chinese for long and might not fully understand everything, but with only one night, Edward Baker hadn’t had time to translate all the materials into English. He figured they could just make do for now, and he’d explain things in detail after he washed up.

When Walter Baker took the materials, there was a hint of hesitation in his eyes.

Edward Baker glanced upstairs and sensed that Walter Baker’s hesitation was even more obvious at this moment.

“What’s wrong, did John Foster talk to you?” Edward Baker asked.

Walter Baker had no idea how Edward Baker guessed this. He hesitated for a moment but decided to tell the truth: “I had just driven over when Manager Foster was standing at the intersection, probably waiting for me on purpose. He stopped me and said a few things.”

Edward Baker had thought that, given John Foster’s personality and his wariness toward local employees, after last night’s events he would only try to get Walter Baker and Lucy Clark fired from the branch. He hadn’t expected to underestimate John Foster.

Or perhaps, John Foster had already told David Sullivan everything that happened last night over the phone, and this was all David Sullivan’s idea?

“Lucy Clark, did John Foster say anything to you this morning?” Edward Baker asked, turning to Lucy Clark.

“John Foster didn’t say anything to me. I saw Manager Foster go out early this morning, and I thought it was strange,” Lucy Clark shook her head, looking a bit puzzled.

“Mr. Foster stopped me and said that he and Mr. Sullivan are going to register a new company in Degulamo in their own names, and want me to be the manager of the new company, to go to Chief Felician and contract the gold mine in Yibogu Village. He also said he’d help me keep my position at Dongsheng West Africa branch, and even promote me to branch supervisor. But if I didn’t agree, he’d fire me. I didn’t agree, but I didn’t refuse him outright either, I…” Walter Baker felt ashamed for not having refused John Foster on the spot.

To be honest, the hardest thing between people is trust.

Especially in a place like Degulamo, where public security is so chaotic, and dispatched staff and local workers are so out of place, wary of each other, and distant—it’s extremely difficult to gain someone’s trust, or to trust others with peace of mind.

More often than not, trust that has taken years to build can be sold out for temptation, or collapse in an instant due to unintentional disagreements or misunderstandings.

In the past, if Lucy Clark said John Foster hadn’t talked to her in the morning, but then stopped Walter Baker at the intersection with both threats and promises, Edward Baker would have had some doubts.

He would have wondered if Lucy Clark had other intentions and wasn’t telling him the truth.

Logically, John Foster had no reason to only try to win over Walter Baker and leave out Lucy Clark.

Both he and John Foster knew that Lucy Clark wasn’t just a simple cook. Her education wasn’t much lower than Walter Baker’s, and she even had management experience at local companies. She had only switched to the West Africa branch from Tuxi because of a “high salary.”

When Lucy Clark was in charge of purchasing food and daily necessities, she would sometimes skim a little off the top.