Road to becoming the wealthiest: Starting From Treasure Hunting in the Cabinets
Chapter 264 - 227: Pulling the Wool Over One’s Eyes

Chapter 264: Chapter 227: Pulling the Wool Over One’s Eyes

Mongolia covers an area of nearly 1.6 million square kilometers, almost the same size as China’s frontier province.

The majority of the population belongs to the Kalkha Mongol ethnic group. Due to the popularity of Chinese dramas in recent years, many people are familiar with the Kalkha Mongols.

With a population of over 3 million people, Mongolia has one-seventh or one-eighth the population of China’s similarly sized frontier province.

This is a land of vast, sparse terrain, mostly covered by grasslands and the Gobi Desert, with many places devoid of human presence for hundreds of kilometers.

Upon arriving in Ulan Bator, Sean Knight and others received a warm welcome - of course, the main person being welcomed was Professor Grant, and Sean Knight and Elijah Hastings were just accompanying him.

However, Sean was more than happy to keep a low profile, preferring to be treated as an invisible man.

After staying in Ulan Bator for a day, they found vehicles and loaded their supplies. The group followed the highway south, heading in the direction Sean Knight had provided.

Eight people in total, they rented two off-road vehicles and one pickup truck. Sean Knight and Lincoln Harrington took the first vehicle, while Elijah Hastings and Douglas Cooper were in the last pickup truck. Professor Grant and the other three were in the middle off-road vehicle.

Once they left the city and found a convenient spot, Sean quietly distributed weapons to Elijah and two others.

Seeing the weapons, the three men had great admiration for Sean - he really brought them!

"Better to be prepared than caught off guard. Don’t take them out unless necessary, or it could cause trouble," Sean reminded them.

All three agreed that they understood the point.

Initially, local authorities wanted to assign two guides, but at Sean’s prompting, Professor Grant declined. However, Professor Grant also told the local officials that if they found dinosaur fossils, they would hire locals to do the work, and the authorities provided the necessary permits.

The convoy didn’t drive continuously; they made several stops along the way.

Professor Grant was very dedicated. He questioned Sean’s plan to drive straight through:

"Mr. Knight, our primary goal in coming here is to find dinosaurs. I’m not very familiar with the geology of Mongolia, so I suggest we study and move forward at the same time."

Since Sean was providing the funding, Professor Grant spoke courteously and diplomatically.

Sean agreed, so the plan was to travel a bit and then pause for a while.

When they stayed in a town, Professor Grant would send his students out to ask locals for information while he went to study the terrain outside the town.

Sean often accompanied him, observing him as he knocked and tapped on the hills and small piles of rocks.

Nothing was found in the first or second day, but Sean noticed that Professor Grant was still very excited.

On the third day, while passing through a small town, Professor Grant suddenly called for the convoy to stop via the walkie-talkie.

Before the vehicle stopped, Professor Grant rushed out with his tools and went to a pile of rubble next to the road. After observing for a while, he began knocking and tapping on the rocks.

Sean got out of the car and followed him. Professor Grant exclaimed excitedly:

"Mr. Knight, we’ve made a significant discovery! The rock layer here has fossils of cycads and ferns! Look!"

Sean saw the piece of stone that Professor Grant immediately held up to his eyes and could indeed see plant fossils on it.

He could recognize the ferns, but he wasn’t sure about the cycads.

The stones here, whether due to weathering or geological reasons, were layered.

Professor Grant’s students were examining the other stones for fossils.

"What does this mean?" Sean asked.

"It means the geological environment here is precisely from the era when dinosaurs lived, which is the well-known Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. There’s a high likelihood that we’ll find dinosaur fossils!"

Sean Knight activated the Sky Eye and scanned around, finding no dinosaur fossils beneath.

"So, we’ll stay here for a day. If we find something, we’ll continue to dig. If not, we’ll proceed according to the planned route."

Sean’s open-minded attitude delighted Grant, who immediately called on his students to unload their equipment and set up camp, preparing to start digging.

Elijah Hastings quietly approached and asked:

"Boss, are we stopping here?"

Sean Knight whispered in reply:

"Our journey is bound to attract some attention. Digging now can confuse some people’s sightlines. Once they’ve relaxed, we’ll proceed with our official operation."

Since their convoy wasn’t far from the small town, within a short time, town residents came to see what was happening.

A little later, the town’s officials also arrived. Sean let Willow Taylor handle the paperwork with the relevant departments, and the townspeople were very warmhearted, not only asking if they needed help but also sending over a sheep.

This was unexpected for Sean and his team. However, since it was offered, they didn’t stand on ceremony and processed the sheep that night, boiling and roasting it, and invited locals to join them for a picnic.

The second day, Grant left the small hill with a regretful expression, proceeding according to the route designated by Sean.

After traveling south for several dozen kilometers, they turned west.

The Karakorum Ruins were more than 300 kilometers west of Ulan Bator, and their destination was about 100 kilometers south of Karakorum.

With Sean’s intentional adjustments, they reached a mountain just a few kilometers away from their destination three days later.

By this point, there were no more human settlements, but some undulating stone mountains could be seen nearby.

Earlier stops had been near towns or villages, and today was the first day of camping out in the wilderness. Willow Taylor set up tents after getting out of the car and specifically came to Sean to say:

"Mr. Knight, this place is far from human habitation, and there are Gobi bears and wolves in the wilderness. Should we be concerned at night...?"

"Don’t worry, we have brought weapons, and there are professionals among the people I brought. There won’t be any danger."

Actually, along the way, Grant and his team had doubted the identities of Elijah Hastings and the others.

After all, although Elijah and his team had left the army for one or two years, the military quality in their disposition was still evident.

Fortunately, on the way, Sean Knight had not stopped Grant and the others from making excavations and was very accommodating and easy-going.

This didn’t make Grant’s group particularly suspicious of Sean Knight and his team having hidden motives.

Now that they’d reached the mountain, this kind of place was even more advantageous for judging the geological age, carrying out scientific investigations and excavations. So after Sean declared their destination had been reached, Grant and the others didn’t suspect anything else and began working diligently to set up tents and divide tasks.

Grant and Jenny went to the mountain’s edge to study, while Willow Taylor and Webb Crete started preparing food.

They basically wouldn’t ask Sean and his crew to do any work and were very self-disciplined.

Although Elijah Hastings and his team were mainly providing the food, Grant and the others never actively asked them to do anything specific.

Everyone had a clear and rightful position.

Sean took out his hunting rifle and looked around.

This area was a mix of semi-Gobi and semi-grasslands, where the ground was dry, the grass was low, and occasional jerboas and marmots could be seen.

Just as he was considering hunting for a bit, he heard a startled scream from Jenny on Grant’s side:

"Help!"