North Slope of the mountain wall, Xia Hong followed behind Chen Ying, squeezing through the passage into the cavern of the former Chen Ye Camp, and after walking about three hundred meters deep into the cave, they immediately saw the firelight and silhouettes ahead.

"The captain is here, and there are people following behind, must be from the Camp Supply Department."

"Captain, Lord... Lord... Greetings to the Lord!"

The He Yuanfeng brothers were the first to hear the commotion, and immediately came up, were surprised upon seeing the person behind Chen Ying, and hurriedly bowed in greeting.

Behind them, Chen Shang and others also reacted, quickly stepping forward to greet Xia Hong.

"Greetings to the Lord!"

"Greetings to the Lord!"

......

"No need for formalities, stand up!"

Xia Hong gestured to everyone to rise, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, finally resting on the younger Chen Shang, and smiled, "I remember Chen Ying has two sons, called Chen Shang and Chen Ping. You must be the eldest, Chen Shang, right?"

Apparently surprised that Xia Hong actually remembered him, Chen Shang became excited, nodding emphatically, "I am Chen Shang, my brother is Chen Ping."

"Indeed, like father, like son. Well done!"

Seeing Chen Shang so excited, Xia Hong smiled and praised him. Chen Shang looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, with a Basic Strength of twenty-one thousand, which was indeed commendable in the Great Xia.

However, Xia Hong mainly remembered the brothers because of his younger brother, Chen Ping.

During the first Great Xia Martial Arts Competition last year, among the top hundred in the Logging Realm division, only three hadn't broken through to the Earth-digging Realm, and one of them was fifteen-year-old Chen Ping.

At fifteen, not having broken through to the Earth-digging Realm, Chen Ping's cultivation aptitude wasn't outstanding, but for him to rank among the top hundred with a Logging Realm cultivation, his combat talent obviously surpassed ordinary people, which left a deep impression on Xia Hong.

"Chen Ying, lead the way ahead, the rest of you stay here and keep watch."

At this moment, Xia Hong was eager to see the silver mine and had little interest in talking further. He directly called Chen Ying from behind, indicating him to continue leading the way.

"Lord, please follow me!"

Chen Ying nodded and immediately squeezed into the hidden passage in the stone wall, Xia Hong following closely.

Just as Chen Ying previously mentioned, this tunnel extended into the body of the Twin Dragon Mountain. Xia Hong followed him for nearly four kilometers before they finally saw the signs of a newly-excavated tunnel.

"Lord, as you can see, the first four kilometers were basically underground passageways dug by rodents, initially not as passable as they are now. I spent more than a month clearing them. From this point onward, the tunnel is what we excavated in the past nine days."

There was really no need for Chen Ying to explain. The new tunnel his team excavated was conspicuously narrow, with a diameter of just about a meter, forcing both to stoop as they progressed; while the previous four-kilometer passage had a diameter of at least two meters, clearly not in the same league.

However, the tunnel wasn't uniformly narrow throughout its length; there were broader sections, and Xia Hong noticed that approximately every hundred meters, the tunnel's diameter would expand to resemble that of the initial passage.

He quickly realized that these suddenly wider regions were indeed the handiwork of rodents, but as they were not interconnected, Chen Ying's task over this period clearly involved linking them together.

"These rodents are indeed natural burrowers. I often wondered about the hard Ice Abyss mountain body and how those caves we lived in were formed. Now it seems they were probably the work of rodents."

Hearing this, Chen Ying immediately nodded, "Exactly, I've noticed it too; these rodents have a natural penchant for burrowing. The tunnels they dig in the mountains are countless, collapsing if you're not paying attention. Over the past nine days, I've spent a major portion of my time reinforcing the tunnel structure."

Continuing with Chen Ying for another two kilometers, Xia Hong finally caught a faint silver glow in the distance, his eyes lighting up instantly.

Bear in mind, it was nighttime now, and according to Chen Ying's prior indication, the tunnel's end was another mountain valley rock wall, which shouldn't have emitted any light.

Could this silver glow possibly be...?

"Lord, we have arrived. Please look!"

Reaching the end of the tunnel, upon hearing Chen Ying's cue, Xia Hong inhaled slightly, walked a few steps ahead, peering out of the cave to look down at the rock wall below.

What he saw instantly made his expression exceedingly excited, his eyes overflowing with uncontainable delight and thrill.

Just as Chen Ying mentioned, below was a valley roughly two kilometers in circumference.

Within the valley, over two thousand rodents resided densely, with more than half of them burrowed underground, only a flesh-toned long tail swaying on the surface. Only a small number still scurried outside.

At the center of the valley, eighteen rodents, just over half a meter long, with fur evolved to a golden hue, considered advanced, formed the core and were surrounded by over a hundred intermediate rodents, each over four meters long.

Of course, merely a group of rodents wasn't enough to bring out such excitement in Xia Hong. The key was the valley floor on which these rodents dwelled, with hundreds of clearly visible silver glows.

Indeed, the faint silver light seen earlier was emitted by silver.

Underneath this valley turned out to indeed be a silver mine.

Moreover, the silver in the vein was already exposed on the surface!

This was truly a great blessing, an extraordinary blessing...

Suppressing his inner exhilaration, Xia Hong scanned the valley, then looked up, the joyful expression on his face growing even brighter.

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