Daytime.

Su Tianbei, Su Tiannan, and Kong Zhenghui selected more than thirty experienced workers to accompany Liu Xiaohai to the Baolong Group's mining base in the city's suburbs.

The Lao Mo region is mountainous with abundant mineral resources, and the Baolong Group is a well-known large enterprise in Dragon City, so the approvals and land it obtained were of relatively high quality.

The mining area where Su Tiannan and others arrived was located on the east side of Dragon City, covering a large area. As they entered the work area, the workers looked at the construction barriers and couldn't see the end of them. Moreover, the area wasn't too far from Qiushan Temple, allowing them to see each other across the mountains.

Simple construction buildings had already been erected in the work area, with rows of small colored steel houses that could accommodate at least several thousand people. The courtyard was also bustling, with many new workers being assigned dormitories and vehicles with mining permits shuttling back and forth.

Su Tiannan and Kong Zhenghui were not very old, and they had no previous experience in mining. They didn't understand the industry, so for safety's sake, they sought out experienced veteran workers from the association to take a look at the job.

"Da Ming!"

Inside the courtyard, Liu Xiaohai stood next to a car, protruding his large belly and shouting.

Not far away, a young man heard the call, turned around, and quickly walked over: "Brother Liu!"

"Brother, these are workers from the Tongji Association. They want to see the work area and the job content." Liu Xiaohai handed the young man a cigarette and said with a smile, "Take them for a tour."

"Alright," the young man nodded and said to the workers, "Come with me."

"Uncle Jiu, go with this brother and take a good look," Su Tiannan instructed the old worker from his family.

"Okay!"

With that, a group of workers followed the guide to the deeper parts of the work area.

"Let's go, let's find a place to sit for a while. I'll introduce you to the people from the Baolong Company," Liu Xiaohai said to the others, turning and heading towards the office building on the left side of the courtyard.

...

About ten minutes later, inside the third floor of the office building, Su Tiannan had just bent down to sit when he saw some familiar faces. They were all from the Changqing Company, some who had previously followed Li Hongze, and others who had followed Lu Feng.

Su Tianbei grinned and said to Liu Xiaohai in a low voice, "Changqing has a lot of people here too?"

"This is a big job, four work areas, with tens of thousands of people," Liu Xiaohai replied with a chuckle. "Not only them, but also people from the Shanghai Association and the dockworkers' union have come."

"Yeah, this job looks pretty big," Su Tianbei nodded.

"Are they all Chinese workers?" Su Tiannan asked casually.

"Of course." Liu Xiaohai took out a cigarette case. "There are no outsiders here, so we can say whatever we want. In District One, no major project's basic labor is done by the natives. If you're a white person with local hukou (household registration) in District One, you get forty dollars an hour for cleaning a sewer. What about our compatriots? Forty dollars a day! The difference in status makes a huge difference in price."

Su Tiannan nodded slowly, without replying.

"This job is tough, but the pay is good," Liu Xiaohai said, smoking a cigarette and patting Su Tianbei's thigh. "When the project is over, you can marry three wives by the end of the year, haha!"

Su Tianbei grinned. "Yeah, the price is pretty good."

After the group of leaders sat on the sofa and chatted for about twenty minutes, a woman in her thirties wearing work clothes walked over with four or five people.

"Director Liu!" the woman called out.

"Oh, Manager Zhang!" Liu Xiaohai stood up and shook hands with her. "Come, let me introduce you. This is Zhang Fang, the personnel manager of our District One project team. These are my friends, Su Tiannan, the vice president of the Tongji Association, and..."

Everyone stood up, shook hands, exchanged greetings, and then sat down again.

Although Manager Zhang was a woman, she was very direct. She took out contract templates, worker protection templates, and a series of written contracts from her briefcase.

Kong Zhenghui and Su Tiannan took them and carefully examined them.

After handing out the materials, Manager Zhang said to Liu Xiaohai, "You guys take a look first. I'll go talk over there; a lot of people are waiting."

"Hehe, you're busy!" Liu Xiaohai nodded with a smile.

As Manager Zhang left, Liu Xiaohai looked at her big butt and commented, "Nice ass."

"Hehe," Su Tianbei grinned. "Brother, you haven't changed your hobby."

"Change what? What's the point of making money? Isn't it to make yourself happy and make others happy?" Liu Xiaohai's answer was classic.

...

About half an hour later, all the workers who had gone to inspect the work area returned. Most of them stood in the courtyard waiting, while Uncle Jiu came upstairs and said to Su Tiannan, "We've seen it."

"How is it?" Su Tiannan asked.

"The work is heavy. You have to go down into the mine, smash tunnels, and manage equipment. You have to work at least twelve hours a day," Uncle Jiu sighed. "But if the money is right, we can do it. The work itself doesn't have any technical barriers. We old guys can each lead a group, and we can teach everyone in two days at most."

"Okay, then you go downstairs first, and we'll talk to them," Su Tiannan said, trusting his judgment.

"Okay," Uncle Jiu turned and left.

On the sofa, Su Tiannan put down the documents in his hand and said softly to Liu Xiaohai, "I took a look, and there's nothing wrong with the total project settlement amount, payment method, and deposit amount, but some of the details regarding the workers are a bit vague."

"What's vague?" Liu Xiaohai asked.

"How are special work type insurance and accident insurance paid for the workers? Does the Baolong Group pay for it, or do we pay for it ourselves?" Su Tiannan asked in succession. "And the workers' mining qualification certificates, do they need to be assessed? When will the certificates be issued? This must be clarified in advance, because if the workers don't have certificates, they won't have any protection if something happens."

"Hehe, you're looking at things very carefully," Liu Xiaohai replied with a smile.

"We're from the association, so we definitely care about this," Su Tiannan said softly. "Making money is a small matter; it's about gathering people now."

His older brother always did things steadily and had been leading the family's workers in the sanitation industry for many years, so he considered things very carefully.

After listening to Su Tiannan's words, Liu Xiaohai immediately stood up and said in a very jianghu (martial world) way, "It's okay, I'll take care of any problems for you, brother. You wait, I'll go ask."

And so, the group was busy in the work area until evening.

...

District One, New York City.

Su Tianyu's mood was a bit down, because An Qiqi hadn't called him since she was taken back last night.

This reaction made Su Tianyu feel that his relationship with her was facing a crisis. Could it be that her mother had objections, or didn't agree with An Qiqi playing with this group of people?!

Thinking of this, Su Tianyu didn't even have the mood to go to the beach for vacation, because the main reason he came to New York City was to hook up with Xiao An...

"Ring ring ring!" A sudden phone ring rang, and Su Tianyu saw that the caller ID was An Qiqi, so he immediately answered it.

"My mom asked you to come to our house for dinner," An Qiqi's crisp voice came from the phone.

"Holy crap!" Gou Liuzi was so excited that he sat up.