rural miners make robot

I was speechless.

‘Aside mine, there’re other families.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Others living in the same mountain. You see, we run a mine of our own.’

My eyes grew wide. ‘Do you have someone who’ve learned mining science?’

‘No.’ Lu again shook his head. ‘Just dig. No need to learn mining.’ And before I answered, he added, ‘Don’t mind the mine.’

I should have known he was just one of the rural homemade miners. Family business. And instead of mining they now came to making robots. Chinese people couldn’t be that naive. Populism. It may hurt.

‘Yeah, maybe we are affected by past history, that we believe we can make steel from ore just by burning a big fire.’ Lu showed his wit of reflection.

‘Do you think it’s plausible?’

‘Possible?’ He nodded, ‘Only if you have faith.’

I tried to disagree but, just by looking at his face, I knew I could hurt this fellow by saying so. After all, he now took me as the future being that visited him. Then I resisted my own reaction.