Chapter 254: The Old Ledger

Sudden rain hammered against the rusted iron door of the air raid shelter, the motion-activated light flickering erratically, the scene steeped in unease.

Gu Changzheng wiped rain from his face; the flashlight beam sliced through the darkness—stacks of chemical raw material drums formed a twisted formation, the stench of mold mingling with a faint almond scent.

“Ten years ago, this was still the Quality Inspection Department’s office,” said the old gatekeeper leading the way, coughing as his heavy keychain jingled in his trembling hand. “After Inspector Sun went missing, Boss Zhou turned the basement into a warehouse.”

Luo Fei covered his nose, kicked aside a dead rat blocking his path, and crushed a tile with an unusual color under his tactical boot. The moment the crowbar slipped into the crack, rust flakes fell away, revealing a sealed leather-bound envelope inside.

On the yellowed cover were the bold characters: “2005 Raw Material Inspection Report.” Inside was a black-and-white photo: twenty-year-old Sun Xiaojuan, wearing a white lab coat, her employee badge heavily crossed out in red ink.

On the back of the photo, written in ballpoint pen in messy script: “When they added sodium cyanide to Reactor No. 3, I took a photo.” Gu Changzheng’s fingertip traced the indented letters and suddenly noticed Sun Xiaojuan’s right pinky was bent oddly—exactly matching a fingerprint on a beaker in Chen Guodong’s lab photo.

“Immediately investigate Sun Xiaojuan’s social connections!” As Gu Changzheng burst out of the air raid shelter, lightning split the clouds, and the glass facade of Huasheng Tower flashed like a giant mirror in the thunder’s glare.

———

Zheng in the autopsy room held up a UV lamp; the ink stain on Chen Guodong’s right palm glowed with an eerie blue under the cold light. He suddenly grabbed the phone: “Have the Tech Division scan all of the victim’s written materials!”

———

The archive room at dawn smelled of aged ink. Luo Fei flipped to the November 2005 issue of Zizhen Evening News: a hundred-word article in the society section read: “Female right palm bones found downstream of Longhu; forensic analysis confirms drowning.” The accompanying photo showed a swollen right hand, the second joint of the pinky unnaturally bent.

At that moment, the computer beeped—a notification popped up: Xiao Sun had cracked Sun Xiaojuan’s old blog. The final update, dated September 28, 2005: “Today while sampling from Reactor No. 3, Director Wang snatched my camera...”

Gu Changzheng’s phone vibrated—the Forensics Division sent the ink analysis report from Chen Guodong’s lab: besides potassium ferricyanide, trace amounts of calcium carbonate were detected.

“Lime powder.” Gu Changzheng gripped the steering wheel. “Head to the old Longhu dock!”

The abandoned freight dock was submerged in night mist; the crane wreckage loomed like a dinosaur skeleton, sinister and terrifying.

Ye Lin’s metal detector screamed as it passed over the third pile of rubble. She immediately called the team over; after a few shovelfuls, a rusted safe emerged from the debris, its lockhole sealed with cement.

The documents inside were intact. The mold-stained ledger recorded shocking figures: from August to October 2005, actual sodium cyanide usage exceeded declared amounts by forty-seven tons. Inside a hidden layer was a blurred photo: three figures in gas masks pouring white powder into a reactor, one of them wearing a platinum ring on his left pinky.

“Zhou Shichang has worn pinky rings since twenty-five years ago,” Zheng magnified the photo’s details. “But where is Sun Xiaojuan’s original photo?”

———

When Gao Ye found the hidden compartment in Sun family’s attic, the wall clock struck three. A dusty Sony camera memory card lay quietly atop a stack of awards. The video footage shook violently: a young Zhou Shichang directed workers hauling iron drums marked with skull symbols, while Wang Zhen recorded the codes.

“On August 6, 2005, this shipment was never logged into inventory!” Xiao Sun’s voice trembled as he compared ledger data. “Forty-seven tons of sodium cyanide were dumped directly into the old Longhu riverbed.”

Gu Changzheng suddenly stood up! The tangled clues on the whiteboard reorganized in his mind: Chen Guodong’s drowning site at the floodgate, the location where Sun Xiaojuan’s remains were found, the dark red discharge pipe—these three points formed a triangle whose center was precisely the original underground storage tank of Huasheng Chemical Plant.

As Zhou Shichang’s lawyer once again requested bail, Gu Changzheng was piecing together two photos from different eras.

The interrogation lamp cast his shadow onto the side-by-side images: Zhou Shichang’s pinky ring from 2005 and Chen Guodong’s palm burn from 2015 aligned perfectly where the light overlapped.

“Sun Xiaojuan’s camera didn’t just capture sodium cyanide,” Gu Changzheng pressed the projector remote, freezing the video on a close-up of a drum label. “This Cyrillic marking indicates radioactive waste!”

Ash from Zhou Shichang’s cigar fell onto his tailored trousers—but this time, he didn’t brush it off.

“When Professor Chen improved the water treatment agent, he discovered you were secretly disposing of overseas nuclear waste,” Gu Changzheng pressed against the glass partition. “Those ‘wastewater’ weren’t industrial byproducts—they were diluted nuclear-contaminated solution. Sun Xiaojuan vanished because she found out.”

The latest sediment test report from Longhu arrived late at night. Zheng circled a data point in red marker: “Thorium-232 levels are three thousand times above normal—these substances have been deposited for at least twenty years.”

Gu Changzheng stood before the Water Bureau’s 3D model, tracing the virtual flow of the old Longhu riverbed with his fingertip. On the 2013 river diversion blueprint, Chen Guodong’s signature suddenly stabbed his eyes in the approval column.

His phone suddenly received an encrypted email—an anonymous sender sent an audio clip. Amid static, Chen Guodong’s voice carried a metallic edge: “...had to compromise, but the backup files are with Sun...” The recording ended in violent coughing.

Luo Fei suddenly pointed at a spot on the model: “During the old riverbed renovation, the location of this observation well doesn’t make sense.”

Rain poured again in torrents; the manhole cover trembled under the thunder, as if something beneath were about to break through the earth.