Chapter 254

The sudden heavy rain hit the rusty iron gate of the air-raid shelter, the voice-activated lights flickered, and the scene was eerie.

Gu Changzheng wiped the rain off his face, and the flashlight beam cut through the darkness—stacks of chemical raw material barrels were piled into a twisted phalanx, and the smell of mold was mixed with a faint almond smell.

"Ten years ago, this was still the office of the Quality Inspection Section." The old gatekeeper leading the way coughed, and the heavy key ring rattled in his trembling hands, "After Quality Inspector Sun disappeared, Boss Zhou turned the basement into a warehouse."

Luo Fei covered his nose with one hand, kicked away the mouse carcass blocking the way with disgust, and his tactical boots crushed a tile with abnormal color on the ground. The moment the crowbar was inserted into the gap, the rust fell off with a rustle, revealing a well-preserved kraft paper bag inside.

On the yellowed cover were the big words "2005 Raw Material Quality Inspection Report", and a black and white group photo was clipped inside. In the photo, 20-year-old Sun Xiaojuan was wearing a white coat, and her work badge on her chest was heavily crossed out with a red pen!

On the back of the photo, it was scribbled with a ballpoint pen: "When they added sodium cyanide to the No. 3 reaction kettle, I secretly took a photo." Gu Changzheng's fingertips touched the indentation of the handwriting and suddenly discovered that Sun Xiaojuan's right little finger had a strange bend—completely matching the fingerprint on a beaker in a photo in Chen Guodong's laboratory.

"Check Sun Xiaojuan's social relations immediately!" When Gu Changzheng rushed out of the air-raid shelter, a bolt of lightning split the dark clouds, and the glass curtain wall of the Huasheng Building was like a huge mirror in the thunder light.

———

Old Zheng held an ultraviolet lamp in the autopsy room, and the ink stains on Chen Guodong's right tiger's mouth glowed with strange blue spots under the cold light. He suddenly grabbed the phone and said: "Let the technical department scan all the deceased's written materials!"

———

The archive room in the early morning was filled with the smell of old ink. Luo Fei turned to the "Zizhen Evening News" in November 2005. In the corner of the social section, there was a 100-word news: "A female right palm bone was found downstream of Longhu, and the forensic doctor determined it was drowning." The accompanying picture was a bloated right hand, with the second joint of the little finger unnaturally twisted.

At this time, the computer suddenly popped up a prompt sound. Xiao Sun cracked Sun Xiaojuan's old blog. The last update stopped on September 28, 2005: "Today when sampling at the No. 3 kettle, Director Wang suddenly snatched my camera..."

Gu Changzheng's mobile phone vibrated at this time, and the physical evidence department sent the ink test report of Chen Guodong's laboratory—besides potassium ferricyanide, there were trace amounts of calcium carbonate.

"Lime powder." Gu Changzheng gripped the steering wheel tightly, "Go to the old Longhu wharf!"

The abandoned cargo wharf was soaked in the night fog, and the crane wreckage looked like a dinosaur skeleton, appearing eerie and terrifying.

When Ye Lin's metal detector scanned the third pile of rubble, the buzzing sound became sharp. She immediately greeted other team members, and after a few shovels, a rusted safe was revealed from the rubble, and the keyhole of the safe was sealed with cement.

The documents in the box were well preserved, and the moldy account book recorded shocking numbers: from August to October 2005, the actual consumption of sodium cyanide exceeded the declared amount by 47 tons. In the interlayer, there was a blurry photo of three people wearing gas masks pouring white powder into the reaction kettle, one of whom was wearing a platinum tail ring on his left hand.

"Zhou Shichang has had the habit of wearing a tail ring for twenty-five years." Old Zheng enlarged the details of the photo, "But where is the original photo Sun Xiaojuan took?"

———

When Gao Ye found the dark compartment in the attic of the Sun family's old house, the wall clock was striking the third time. The dusty Sony camera memory card lay quietly on a stack of award certificates. The video screen shook violently: Zhou Shichang in his youth was directing workers to move iron barrels with skull signs, and Wang Zhen was recording the codes on the side.

"August 6, 2005, this batch of goods didn't enter the inventory at all!" Xiao Sun compared the account book data, his voice trembling, "47 tons of sodium cyanide were discharged directly into the old Longhu river channel."

Gu Changzheng suddenly straightened up! The clues intertwined on the whiteboard were reorganized in his eyes. The floodgate where Chen Guodong drowned, the place where Sun Xiaojuan's remains were found, and the dark red sewage pipe, the center of the triangle formed by the three points, was exactly the earliest underground liquid storage pool of the Huasheng Chemical Plant.

When Zhou Shichang's lawyer requested bail again, Gu Changzheng was splicing two photos from different eras.

The interrogation light projected his shadow onto the superimposed images: Zhou Shichang's tail ring in 2005 and the burn on Chen Guodong's palm in 2015 formed a perfect bite at the overlap of light and shadow.

"Sun Xiaojuan's camera contains more than just sodium cyanide." Gu Changzheng pressed the projection remote control, and the video froze on a close-up of an iron barrel label, "This Russian logo represents radioactive waste!"

Zhou Shichang's cigar ash fell on his custom-made suit pants, but this time, he didn't go to brush off the ash...

"When Professor Chen improved the water treatment agent, he discovered that you were secretly disposing of overseas nuclear waste." Gu Changzheng approached the isolation glass, "Those 'wastewater' were not industrial products at all, but diluted nuclear pollution solutions—Sun Xiaojuan disappeared because she discovered this."

The latest test report on Longhu sediment was delivered in the middle of the night. Old Zheng circled a certain piece of data with a red marker: "Thorium-232 content is 3000 times the normal value, these substances have been deposited for at least twenty years."

Gu Changzheng stood in front of the 3D model of the Water Affairs Bureau, his fingertips sliding across the old Longhu river channel along the virtual water flow. On the engineering blueprint for the diversion project ten years ago, Chen Guodong's name in the approval signature column suddenly pierced his eyes.

The mobile phone suddenly received an encrypted email, and an anonymous sender sent an audio clip. In the current noise, Chen Guodong's voice had a metallic texture: "...... had to compromise, but the backup data is in Sun......" The recording ended in a violent cough.

Luo Fei suddenly pointed to a place on the model: "When the old river channel was renovated, the position of this observation well was not right."

The heavy rain poured down again, and the manhole cover shook in the thunder, as if something was about to break through the ground.