Rebirth of the Mining Tycoon

Chapter 48: A 15-Billion-Yuan Gamble

After the executives left, the rest of the staff excitedly swarmed over to Team Six's desks, their faces full of curiosity and envy as they looked at Li Tang and the others.

"Open the envelope—let's see if there's really cash inside!"

"What if it's ghost money?"

"Holy crap, it's real! That's a lot of money!"

"Li Tang's stack of bills is bigger than half a year of my salary!"

The company's pay structure was very transparent: new employees made just over 700 yuan a month, while senior employees only earned a few dozen to a hundred yuan more, based on seniority.

Getting 5,000 yuan all at once—how could anyone not be jealous, when they were used to getting only a few hundred?

Li Tang only opened the envelope briefly to peek inside, then tucked it into his pocket. He smiled and said to the others, "I'll treat everyone to a meal later."

"If you say so, then we won't hold back!"

"Does Team Six have any openings? Can I transfer over?"

"Why don't we all just transfer to Team Six—they're the only ones getting special treatment!"

Everyone was excited, either joking or expressing their envy outright.

After stuffing his cash into his pants pocket, He Runqi clutched it tightly with both hands, his expression tense and fearful, like someone might snatch it away at any moment.

Thankfully, the excitement died down quickly, and everyone returned to their desks. On the surface, things looked like they had gone back to normal—everyone sitting idle as usual.

But a closer look would reveal a subtle change. Some people's eyes, once dull and lifeless, now glimmered with renewed interest.

At a corner of the office, Hu Yangyu had already moved back to Team One a few days earlier.

Technically speaking, that corner had always been his rightful place. He had only been away temporarily.

But his state of mind had undergone a major shift.

After Team Six returned from the Demen project, the others couldn't help but glance at Hu Yangyu. Some even felt a little schadenfreude.

What a missed opportunity.

He'd had the chance to join a winning team and thrown it away himself.

Had he stayed, he'd be holding a few thousand yuan in his hands right now.

Surprisingly, even though he didn't get a single cent of the 10,000 yuan bonus, he didn't seem to care. He sat slumped in the corner, blankly staring at his desk—not even reading his usual martial arts novels.

"You go buy some fruit and hand it out to everyone."

Li Tang pulled out two large bills and handed them to He Runqi, then walked to the computer room.

He turned on the computer and opened a blank document—but his thoughts were scattered.

He had too many ideas, but making them all happen would be difficult.

At the end of the day, it came down to one thing: money.

The 500,000 he had received wasn't nearly enough to support the scale of his ambitions.

If he followed the company's development path, playing by the rules, he was confident he could climb the ladder and reach the top one day.

He believed that—because he had access to advanced knowledge no one else knew.

But doing that would be a waste of time and talent.

He hadn't been given a second chance in life just to squander it.

After a long pause, he returned to the office and saw everyone eating fruit.

He didn't join them. Instead, he grabbed a national mineral resources distribution map.

Across the map, various mineral types were marked with triangles, circles, and squares.

Looking over it, one pattern quickly emerged: the eastern region was densely marked, while the west was sparse.

In the northwest, a vast expanse was completely blank!

Iron, bauxite, copper, gold, silver…

In Li Tang's mind, a whirlwind of fragmented data raced past.

Finally, he settled on copper!

Iron would no doubt be the most in-demand mineral over the next twenty years. The top five global mining companies all centered their business around it.

But in the domestic market, iron had been a loss-making sector since 1993 and would remain that way until 2001.

Copper, however, was different.

Its financial value often outweighed its resource value. Prices were profitable at this stage, and domestic interest was still high. Mining companies were eager to invest in copper exploration.

Moreover, Wukuang Group's Mining & Metallurgy Company already had some experience with copper.

The largest copper deposit in China belonged to Jiujiang Copper Industry, with a reserve of 7 million tons.

It was number one in the country—but didn't even rank globally.

In other words, China still didn't have a true super copper deposit.

But in the future, it would.

In that vast, blank region in the northwest.

It was a virgin land, untouched by geologists.

So alluring—like an unopened treasure chest waiting to be discovered.

Li Tang wanted to keep it all to himself, to gorge on it and become an overnight king.

But that was naive.

Later, someone would invest over 15 billion yuan into a mine there—only to lose everything and end up in prison for misappropriating funds from his listed company.

That man had once been the richest entrepreneur in his province.

The reasons for his failure were complicated.

Li Tang didn't even have the ticket to get into that kind of gamble—but he believed that this super copper deposit could still be leveraged.

His fingers flew across the keyboard. On the screen, the title appeared:

Feasibility Study Report on Copper Exploration in Tibet Province

When he placed the printed document on his desk, Qin Jianshe wasn't surprised. On top was the year-end summary, with the study report tucked underneath.

Team Six had only worked on the Demen Copper Mine project. Their summary was bound to be simple, so Li Tang handing it in first seemed perfectly normal.

But this document was thick!

"Sit down, let me take a look."

Qin Jianshe picked up the folder and flipped through it right in front of Li Tang. After a few pages of basic summary, he came to the second part—the research report.

"Hmm?" He raised his eyebrows.

No wonder the file was so thick. It contained a whole new project proposal.

His face lit up with a smile. "You really think differently. You're nothing like the others."

The Exploration Company was newly established and relied on assignments from group headquarters. Funding was tied to each task.

If they wanted higher profits, they had two options: compete for external market projects (a tough sell for a new firm) or proactively apply for new projects within the Group.

Every year, leadership encouraged teams to submit project proposals. But so far, this was the first one Qin Jianshe had received.

Feasibility Study Report on Copper Exploration in Tibet Province—now this is interesting.

He found himself liking Li Tang more and more—not just capable, but ambitious.

Naturally, this also made him take the report very seriously.

And the more he read, the more shocked he became. He read it all in one go, straight to the final page.

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