Axolotl Translations

Two official vehicles from Kunshan Group pulled up outside Jinjian’s office building. Li Ping and the evaluation team stepped out.

“This heat is going to be the death of me,” one of the team members grumbled.

Their pants and shoes were caked in mine dust. Li Ping took off his helmet, sweat mingling with lime, leaving streaks of white clay on his face.

Nearby, an evaluator wiped his dripping forehead. “Leader Li, didn’t a group of experts from Guangdong already conduct a thorough assessment of the Nanpan mining area? They said the reserves were enough to qualify it as a large-scale gold mine. The project’s been fully documented, and the report laid everything out clearly. So why are we still here running another assessment?”

What was the point of all this? It wasn’t as if a bunch of junior employees dispatched from regional branches could overturn the geological survey done by those seasoned experts from Guangdong. Each of them had decades of experience.

Li Ping replied calmly, “We still have to go through the motions of evaluation and acceptance. Otherwise, how would we explain it when the inspection team comes?”

Seeing the young man’s frustration, Li Ping offered him a bit of “career advice”: “You should count your blessings. You just graduated, and you’re already on a major project like this. The big names have already handled the tricky parts. All we have to do is check things over. At the very least, half the credit will still go on your record. Just think—when this is on your résumé, how many others will you leave behind in the competition?”

The young evaluator immediately perked up, suddenly feeling energized. “Brother Li, you really know how to think ahead!”

Li Ping straightened up, clearly enjoying the flattery. “We’ve all got no connections and no background. If we want to go far and rise high in Kunshan, we’ve got to help each other out.”

The evaluator nodded eagerly, and the team walked into the office together. Li Ping ducked into the restroom for a moment. When he returned, he grabbed his tea mug and took a long drink. A female evaluator handed him the field survey data from earlier that day. He flipped through it briefly and placed it on the desk.

“Where’s Qin Weidong? Didn’t he have Jinjian’s geological report? Get him to bring it over.”

The woman looked around the office. “Brother Li, he’s not here.”

“Not here? Wasn’t he just with us on the way back?”

“He was, but he couldn’t find you a moment ago. Said he had something to take care of and went out. Should I bring the schematics over instead?”

“I even reminded him back at the mine. Is he off handling personal stuff again? Unbelievable.”

Deep down, Li Ping had always looked down on Qin Weidong’s basic education. Hearing him speak like that, the female evaluator kept her thoughts to herself. Li Ping was their temporary team leader on this assignment, and though he had little real authority over the formal staff, he bossed around the “unofficial” member, Qin Weidong, all day long.

He’d even make Qin Weidong fetch water or run pointless errands—who knew what kind of power trip he was on?

She glanced over at Qin Weidong’s desk. “Team Leader Li, the report is on his desk.”

Li Ping walked over. Qin Weidong’s desk was tucked away in a back corner. By then, the rest of the team had caught their breath and, hearing Li Ping raise his voice, began to gather around.

On the desk, beside the sealed manila envelope containing the survey report, sat a neat stack of seven or eight thick books.

Everything was tidily arranged, but what caught their eyes was the subject matter of those books: all of them were about industrial mining, geological analysis, and quantitative assessment—dense technical material. A few were even books the team had used for their own graduation theses, books they’d once struggled to get through.

The evaluator who had flattered Li Ping earlier gave him a look, then smirked and said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “He really knows how to put on a show. With only a junior high school education, how could he possibly understand this kind of technical material?”

Li Ping considered it—exactly. Qin Weidong had only finished junior high. How could he comprehend any of this?

Then his eyes landed on a standard-issue work notebook on the desk. Li Ping picked it up and flipped it open. He had barely turned a few pages before the surrounding evaluators widened their eyes in shock.

Inside were hand-drawn geological grade maps and borehole diagrams—done entirely in pencil.

The sketches were rough, but one of the more detail-oriented evaluators quickly cross-referenced the figures with his own notes. To his astonishment, many of the data points and positional markers matched down to the decimal: “Team Leader Li, this is the mapping for the Nanpan mine!”

The others leaned in again and examined the sketches. The more they looked, the more it became clear—he was right!

But how had Qin Weidong drawn these?

“Who gave him the mapping data from Jinjian?”

The person responsible for safeguarding the data immediately responded, “Not me. Team Leader Li, you told us clearly these figures weren’t to be shared with outsiders. He was just supposed to help out around the team. I didn’t give him anything.”

Everyone stared again at the rough drawings in the notebook, and now noticed that even the scale bars were drawn according to proper ratios. Suddenly, no one thought they looked rough anymore.

You had to understand, they had been mapping as they went, and they had access to official blueprints where all the data could be logged on the spot. But Qin Weidong had no such advantage. Without any original drawings to rely on, he not only worked the same grueling eight or nine-hour shifts as everyone else—exhausted to the bone—he also helped carry the equipment while somehow memorizing large amounts of technical data and reproducing it with pinpoint accuracy afterward.

Did he really just glance at the readings on the equipment and then memorize them all? And draw them from memory later?

That was downright inhuman. The sheer volume of complex, precise data required for even one map—was that even something a human brain could process?

“Insane! He didn’t even have the original data, and he still drew this!”

“Who exactly is Qin Weidong? He’s been tagging along with us for two weeks, quiet as a shadow. Looks like he’s been playing dumb this whole time.”

“Has anyone talked to him before? Find out what his deal is. We’ve been using those diagrams from the Jinjian experts—tell him to make me a copy so I can write my report…”

“Enough!” Li Ping’s expression darkened.

The use of Jinjian’s survey diagrams was a sore spot for him. Back at Kunshan Group, they had money to spare. Their branch offices used digital mapping equipment brought in just last year.

But here in Yicheng, they couldn’t bring the equipment, and hand-drawing wasn’t ideal either—the data was too complicated, too easy to mess up, and any mistake would be an embarrassment.

Li Ping spoke gravely, “The stratigraphic and drilling maps for the Nanpan mine are confidential. Any leak could lead to a major national loss. He got in here through connections—what if this information gets out? All of us would be held accountable!”

Meanwhile, Qin Weidong was in the phone room outside, calling Fang Li. As he headed back to the office, he caught sight of a familiar face near the factory gate—someone from Jinjian picking up a few experts.

He had an excellent memory, almost photographic. Anything he’d seen once was locked into his mind. And just now, when that car door opened, he immediately recognized the man.

It was the secretary who had accompanied Liu Chongyue during that big meeting the other day.

Qin Weidong frowned. When he returned to the office, everyone was gathered around his desk.

Li Ping was the first to pounce: “Qin Weidong, you’ve been coming out with us to do field surveys, but who gave you permission to draw those maps on your own? That’s classified data! If there’s a leak, can you bear that responsibility?”

Qin Weidong stared at the opened notebook on his desk.

When Li Ping met Qin Weidong’s gaze, he was suddenly struck by a flicker of unease—it felt like being watched by a crouching wolf, ready to pounce.

“You—”

Li Ping didn’t get the words out before Qin Weidong stepped forward and calmly closed his notebook.

“Sorry, I wasn’t aware of that regulation.”

Li Ping’s expression eased a little. But with so many people gathered around, and recalling all the praise they had just lavished on those hand-drawn maps, a flush of anger surged back up in him. Once the Nanpan project was finalized, he, as the deputy lead of this assessment team, might get promoted to head of the office.

At that point, with so many well-connected people back at Kunshan, it would be hard to assert any authority. Better to seize this chance…

“If you were a formal employee of Kunshan, this would have been an official violation. Any private mapping or data copying must be reported to department leadership. But since you didn’t know, we won’t report you to the inspection team. However, those diagrams and data must be destroyed immediately.”

Some of the evaluators nearby felt he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Everyone copied data or sketched maps now and then—who took it this far?

Besides, Qin Weidong had used a company-issued work notebook—something collected after every project. They all had data in their notebooks. If every bit of data needed high-level approval, how could they even get their jobs done?

Still, others saw right through Li Ping’s game. He just wanted to assert dominance. But no one said anything—why speak up for someone they barely knew?

Qin Weidong picked up his notebook, tore out seven or eight sheets of rough sketches, and without hesitation, fed them into the shredder. The sound of shredding echoed as the carefully drawn diagrams turned to a spray of white confetti.

He showed no emotion. Lifting his head, he asked Li Ping, “Team Lead Li—is this acceptable?”

Li Ping was momentarily caught off guard. He hadn’t expected Qin Weidong to comply so easily.

“…Fine. Just don’t let it happen again.”

Qin Weidong gathered a few of his books from the desk and left. Li Ping watched him go. Qin Weidong hadn’t shown a trace of anger, yet for some reason, Li Ping was left with a deep and gnawing sense of frustration he had nowhere to put.

There had been no outburst, no resentment over the destroyed work—only a cold, wordless irritation, as though Qin Weidong simply couldn’t be bothered to waste any more time here.

Li Ping felt like a stone was lodged in his chest.

The evaluator who had wanted to borrow Qin Weidong’s notes earlier looked heartbroken, practically itching to dig through the shredder. If only I’d asked to see them sooner…

In the days that followed, Qin Weidong continued to accompany the team on their on-site inspections of the mines. But once they returned to the office, he disappeared without a trace. The team figured he and Li Ping had had a falling-out after the incident. Since no one really knew him well, no one asked questions.

Half a month later, the assessment and acceptance teams—both under Li Ping’s oversight—submitted their reports. The documents concluded that the Nanpan site was a stratabound large-scale gold deposit, with high-grade veins and an estimated reserve exceeding fifteen tons, aligning almost exactly with the previous findings of the Jinjian expert team.

As soon as the thick stack of reports was handed in, the news made its way to Xu Jianchuan. At the time, he was by the river, fishing with Wei Jianghe’s family.

It had been clear and sunny for several days in Yicheng. His sister, Xu Lan, had come from the provincial capital, Jinyang, with her daughter to visit her husband. She was holding her little girl, watching the fish swim in the bucket beside them.

“Jianchuan, what’s got you smiling like that?”

Xu Lan was thirty-eight, still in excellent shape.

Wei Jianghe smiled at his wife and said, “He’s got a nose for good news, that’s for sure.”

“All thanks to my brother-in-law’s connections,” Xu Jianchuan said modestly. “Otherwise, who would I be to Kunshan? Brother-in-law, when is Kunshan planning to sign the contract with Jinjian?”

Wei Jianghe’s secretary was also present. “Mr. Xu, the signing ceremony will be held at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon, in the Jinjian conference room. Leaders from the provincial department, Yicheng officials, and Kunshan representatives will all be in attendance.”

“Perfect!” Xu Jianchuan’s grin stretched ear to ear. Just then, his cellphone rang, and in the distance, Qin Weidong was seen passing through security in his car.

“Oh, right, Sis—I got you a diamond necklace too.”

He waved over to Qin Weidong, who got out of the car and brought over an elegant jewelry bag. Xu Jianchuan handed it to his sister. “Here, take a look and see if you like it.”

Xu Lan gave him a playful scolding. “Why are you always buying such expensive things?”

“It’s nothing—just a few thousand. Money’s meant to be spent so you can earn more, right?”

Xu Jianchuan’s words carried a hidden meaning. Wei Jianghe smiled faintly but said nothing, his eyes never once shifting to Xu Jianchuan.

Women naturally love jewelry. Xu Lan, delighted with the diamond necklace, knew full well that her brother was using this gift as a way to curry favor with her husband. But if her husband could indeed lend her brother a helping hand, she certainly had no objections.

Seeing his sister so pleased, Xu Jianchuan felt confident everything was falling into place. He turned to Qin Weidong and asked, “Didn’t Li Hong say the contract needed revising last time? Is it done yet? I need it this afternoon.”

Qin Weidong had just overheard in the office that the official signing ceremony would take place that afternoon. Given Xu Jianchuan’s impatient nature, he was sure Xu Jianchuan would want to get Kunshan’s signature first.

He leaned in and said quietly, “Boss Xu, I need to speak with you urgently.”

Xu Jianchuan looked surprised. “What’s so urgent? Something wrong with Old Fu? If it’s something you can handle, just take care of it. If not, save it for later. I’m busy right now.”

Once Kunshan secured the Nanpan mining site, and with the current policies still allowing private mining operations, they planned to use their relationship with Wei Jianghe to acquire private mining rights for the surrounding areas. Kunshan would surely agree to such a request—making this a golden opportunity. Compared to this, the Xiahe mine was nothing.

Having followed Xu Jianchuan for so long, Qin Weidong could tell exactly what he was thinking.

“Boss Xu, we can’t sign the contract with Kunshan.”

“What did you just say?”

Xu Jianchuan realized his voice had risen. He quickly pulled Qin Weidong aside. After Qin Weidong finished speaking, Xu Jianchuan’s face twisted into a look of utter disgust—like he’d just stepped in dog shit.

“Are you serious? But the experts from Jinjian were brought in all the way from Guangdong, and Kunshan’s people also said there were no issues. What makes you think there’s something wrong with the survey report? You must be mistaken! I’m telling you, I’ve already got the money ready—we have to sign this contract with Kunshan!”

Talking sense into Xu Jianchuan was always a hassle.

Qin Weidong said firmly, “Boss Xu, if you’re set on signing it, then you’ll need to find someone else. I can’t be part of it.”

Xu Jianchuan stared at him in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea how much money you’d make if I gave you this project?”

Their argument was loud enough to draw attention. Xu Lan turned her head and asked, “Jianchuan, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing!”

Xu Jianchuan looked back at Qin Weidong. “You’re really backing out?”

Qin Weidong replied calmly, “There’s something wrong with the survey report. If we sign, it’ll all blow up in our faces.”

A curse was on the tip of Xu Jianchuan’s tongue, but he suddenly froze.

If what Qin Weidong said was true and they really got stuck with a worthless mine—what about Kunshan Group, who was about to invest nearly thirty million?

And what about Wei Jianghe, the official listed as the primary supervisor of the project?

A chill ran down Xu Jianchuan’s spine. He knew Qin Weidong was competent, and he wasn’t the kind of person to speak without evidence. Most of all, he knew Qin Weidong desperately needed money. Who in his shoes would turn down such a payout—unless he believed it truly wasn’t worth it? That it would be better to walk away than to get caught in the mess?

Glancing over at Wei Jianghe still fishing by the riverbank, Xu Jianchuan asked, “Do you have proof? I mean right now—can you show it and explain it?”

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