Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 844 - 90: Abandoned Oilfield

Hearing the monk say this, Sun Hang’s eyes lit up: "Are there still many slots for the curse? Is it that only one person can endure the curse at a time, or can many people ’share’ this curse together?"

Looking at Sun Hang’s excited face, the monk shook his head with a look of compassion: "If you wish to use the power of the curse to obtain immortality, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. This is not immortality in the true sense of the word, but rather a process by which one’s personality is gradually devoured by that thing... first the memory, then the emotions, and finally the self-awareness... When these things are completely consumed, I will only be left with a zombified shell."

"No, you’ve misunderstood. I’ve never thought immortality was a good thing. Quite the opposite, I believe there’s nothing worse for humans than immortality," Sun Hang said. "I just wanted to use this method to deal with those who aren’t even afraid of death. For them, dying is just a matter of closing their eyes and gritting their teeth... But if their consciousness were trapped in a body that will never decay, and always remain clear-minded..."

The monk’s gaze at Sun Hang changed instantly.

For a moment, he was somewhat grateful that the curse he bore was not the type of ’immortality’ Sun Hang mentioned... In a few decades at most, his consciousness could return to dust...

The Candle Dragon’s expression also subtly changed, and he murmured, "Just the thought of such a punishment is enough to send chills down the spine..."

"Unfortunately, it’s still a bit challenging to achieve on a technical level," Sun Hang said.

"Is it to this point, and you still won’t turn back?" the monk asked.

"Here I am," Sun Hang turned to look at the Candle Dragon, "Are you going back?"

The Candle Dragon looked at Sun Hang, said nothing, and did not turn to leave.

"Greed and such are considered negative emotions for humans, right?" Sun Hang asked again.

"Theoretically speaking, yes." The Candle Dragon nodded.

"Then there’s nothing to worry about."

With Xue Yue around, the emotional impact can be minimized—this is why Sun Hang didn’t leave her in the car.

"Sigh..." the monk sighed deeply.

...

The scale of Nanhua Town is not large. Even during the town’s most prosperous period, its population was less than five thousand people. The whole town has only one road running through its middle, which is the road Sun Hang and the others are now walking on.

Nanhua Town is located in the central area of the Gobi Desert, a place that’s neither here nor there. The main reason it became a settlement was the discovery of an oilfield less than five kilometers away, which is neither large nor small.

The earliest residents of Nanhua Town were members of the drilling engineering team. As the oilfield entered the extraction phase, more and more workers and technicians settled here with their families.

Trucks brought various living supplies here and transported the extracted oil to the refineries in Yumen. Markets, grocery stores, restaurants, supermarkets, bathhouses, and even dance halls... all sorts of supporting commercial facilities sprung up here like mushrooms after rain. In just over a year, this settlement, which originally had fewer than a hundred people, gradually developed into a small town with a population of a thousand.

The Federation Government began building roads and communication bases here. A dozen sheriffs deployed here established the Nanhua Town Police Substation. Because the Hexi Corridor Region had long been plagued by supernatural disturbances, Hunters and mercenaries also began frequently entering and leaving this town, which drove Nanhua Town’s business activities to become ’thriving’.

However, the good times didn’t last long. After only three years of extraction, the wells at Nanhua Town dried up due to some unknown reason.

According to prior exploration results, Nanhua Oilfield should have been exploitable for over forty years, but now not even a tenth of that estimate had passed before the oilfield was tapped out. This caused a panic among the institutions and companies that invested in the oilfield—if Nanhua Oilfield were thus abandoned, not only would their previous investments be in vain, but they might also face bankruptcy risks.

Under pressure from investors, the engineering teams had to drill deeper into the rock layers... But this led to a series of accidents during construction. At that time, drilling technology wasn’t as advanced as it is now, and the equipment couldn’t be fully automated. Many tasks required manual operation by workers... This resulted in casualties accompanying almost every construction accident.

When the death toll reached seventeen, the Federation Government shut down Nanhua Oilfield, and the growth momentum of Nanhua Town came to an abrupt halt.

The cost of living in Nanhua Town is quite high; there’s no groundwater or arable soil, so essential food and water for human survival must be transported by truck from far away. With the oilfield sealed, Nanhua Town has lost all its value...

The population dwindled rapidly, and a large number of houses were abandoned... Less than three months after the oilfield was shut down, Nanhua Town had only a third of its population left, with most of them being former Nanhua Oilfield employees and their families.

As companies went bankrupt, investors ran away, and high-ranking officials committed suicide, these employees who couldn’t get their wages were left to guard the shut-down oilfield, making futile efforts—they were like moths trapped under a glass, constantly hitting the transparent wall until bloody, yet never finding a way out.