Chapter 352

The two words "awaken" were like two cold stones thrown into the heart lake of the Project Team, sending ripples that quickly spread, disturbing the seemingly tranquil investigation progress.

Surveillance and investigation of Su Xiulan were raised to an unprecedented priority; every person who had contacted her, every borrowing record that passed through her hands, and even the types and quantities of vegetables she bought daily were placed under a magnifying glass for repeated scrutiny.

Yet Su Xiulan's life trajectory remained as precisely drawn as with the most accurate compass, from home to library and back, so regular it was suffocating, yet so ordinary as to leave no opening.

She was like a forgotten bookmark tucked in the corner of time, quietly clamped between yellowed pages, as if the appointment to "listen to rain" at the teahouse had truly been merely a chance, meaningless solitude.

But this kind of "perfect" calm, in the eyes of the veteran members of the Project Team, was itself the greatest abnormality.

The more carefully the facade is maintained, the more turbulent the hidden currents beneath it tend to be.

Sun and Li Ping'an both understood that beneath this still water, something must be quietly surging, perhaps merely waiting for an opportunity, an order, or... a mistake.

The opportunity, however, was first triggered in an unexpected way inside the Steel Rolling Mill.

Xu Damao's steps these past few days felt as if springs were installed under his feet.

The report he submitted proposing the establishment of a "Material Supervision and Inspection Team" and self-nominating for a key post, though not yet formally approved, gave him a keen sense of tacit approval from the occasional glances and ambiguously encouraging words of Vice Factory Director Li Huaide.

He felt that his long-dormant giant mythical bird would finally, on the wind of "strengthened management," spread its wings to soar to the heavens!

When a person gets proud, they easily become conceited. Xu Damao now looks upon the Logistics Department's "Yang faction" squad leaders and storekeepers with eyes that have gained a few degrees of condescending scrutiny and the dignity of a "future leader."

He felt it was time to get ahead in "familiarizing himself with the business," and even to "give a few warnings" to certain people who lacked tact.

That afternoon he wandered over to the secondary tool warehouse of the Second Workshop. The keeper was an old worker surnamed Zhao, skilled and stubborn, a confidant of the workshop chief, who usually took no liking to Xu Damao's kind of "smooth-talking" cadres.

Xu Damao walked into the tool warehouse with his hands behind his back, his critical gaze sweeping over the rows of shelves and logbooks. "Old Zhao, busy?"

Old Zhao was squatting on the floor counting a pile of newly received drill bits, not lifting his head, and gave a muffled "uh."

Dissatisfied with his attitude, Xu Damao stepped closer, picked up the usage log on the table, flipped through it casually, and deliberately found fault: "I say, Old Zhao, why is your tool scrap-and-recovery record so brief? Just 'severe wear, unusable'? What about the specific wear condition, whether repair was attempted, the scrap approval process? This doesn't meet the requirements of refined management!"

Only then did Old Zhao raise his head, his face lined like knife-carved, his eyes cloudy yet showing impatience: "Officer Xu, tools are scrapped when they can't be used—that's just common sense. We workers just know how to work; we don't have all those fancy intestines to write essays. If you want details, go to the Engineering Department; they have the standards."

"What kind of attitude is this?" Xu Damao choked a little, his face flushing, his voice rising: "I am now acting as the liaison of the Factory Supervision Team, conducting an inspection! Finding management loopholes and proposing improvements is being responsible for the work and for you! Don't use the Engineering Department as a shield!"

"Responsible?"

Old Zhao slowly rose, brushed off the dust on his hands, and stared at Xu Damao: "Xu Damao, you're a film projector operator—do you understand lathes or milling cutters? We who handle the tools every day know whether they're usable; do we really need to draw flowers on paper to call that management? You're taking off your pants to fart—pointless!"

A few other workers in the tool warehouse who had come to collect tools couldn't help but chuckle softly at Old Zhao's words.

Xu Damao's face instantly turned the color of pig's liver, he pointed at Old Zhao, his fingers trembling with anger: "You... you're vulgar! You're resisting inspection! I see you as an unfit storekeeper! I will report you to the Logistics Department and to the factory!"

"Go ahead and report!"

Old Zhao stuck out his neck, refusing to yield: "I, Old Zhao, walk upright and sit straight, earning my living by skill, not by flattery! If you're capable, get the factory to dismiss me!"

The two began arguing in the tool warehouse, their voices growing louder, drawing a crowd of onlooking workers.

Xu Damao had intended to flex his authority, but instead ran into a tough nut, being shouted down until he had no face to save; in his anger he lashed out, slapping one label after another—"backward thinking," "hindering the factory's management progress"—while Old Zhao stood firm, insisting that Xu Damao, an outsider, was meddling in affairs he didn't understand, just stirring up trouble.

The argument quickly spread like a gust of wind through the Second Workshop and then to other workshops.

Workers murmured in disagreement; most felt Old Zhao made sense, seeing Xu Damao as a bully throwing his weight around looking for trouble, while some worried, sensing that Xu Damao had Vice Factory Director Li at his back, that such stubbornness might invite trouble.

The news naturally reached Li Ping'an's ears. He was reviewing a newly revised factory area patrol plan in the Security Department when Chen Jianghe came in to quietly report it.

Li Ping'an set down his steel pen, rubbed his forehead. Xu Damao, that fool, is all failure and no success.

Wanting to climb on the coattails of the east wind is understandable, but this impatient, enemy-making approach is not only foolish but dangerous. He is artificially creating conflict, intensifying the antagonistic feelings between the workers and the so-called management reform.

Such antagonism is especially harmful at this juncture, when the spy shadow has not yet lifted and the entire factory needs to unite in cooperation.

"Tell the Second Workshop chief to soothe Old Zhao's emotions, handle things factually, and not let it escalate. If there are aspects of the tool management process that can be improved, suggestions may be submitted through normal channels, but attention must be paid to manner and method."

Li Ping'an instructed Chen Jianghe in a calm tone that brooked no argument: "Also, remind our people that lately various 'minor reports' and 'minor friction' in the factory may increase; distinguish their nature, do not lightly intervene in the normal management disagreements of business departments, but also guard against anyone exploiting the situation to stir up trouble and disrupt production order."

"Understood." Chen Jianghe nodded, then asked, "And what about Xu Damao's side..."

"Him?" Li Ping'an's eyes flashed with a hint of coldness: "Someone will take care of him. The higher he jumps, the harder he falls. Our main focus right now is not on this."

Li Ping'an's premonition was correct. Xu Damao's "defeat" in the tool warehouse not only failed to make him restrain himself, but instead made him more obstinately convinced that it was Yang Weiguo's side deliberately giving him a show of force to thwart Factory Director Li's "new policies."

He felt he must counter more firmly and forcefully in order to stand his ground.

He spent the night drafting another "situation report," portraying the tool warehouse clash as "open resistance by backward conservative forces to the factory's strengthened management reform," describing Old Zhao as "a typical case of leaning on one's age, rigid thinking, and obstructing progress," and strongly urging the factory to "handle it seriously as a warning to others."

This report, brimming with personal emotion and exaggeration, was slipped by him the next morning into the gap of Vice Factory Director Li Huaide's office door.

Yet Xu Damao did not realize that, while he was racking his brains to fabricate charges and trying to ignite a small spark of internal personnel strife, a truly dangerous fire had already been quietly lit elsewhere.

The Project Team's investigation into Su Xiulan's social connections had yielded a minor but potentially crucial discovery.

While screening her recent borrowing records, the investigators noticed that about half a month earlier she had checked out a copy of *Collected Materials on Geological Survey of North China (1956-1958)*, an extremely specialized and obscure volume wholly unrelated to her work in the ancient texts reading room.

More importantly, the borrowing record for this book showed that, before and after Su Xiulan's checkout, there was another borrower—an assistant engineer from the Steel Rolling Mill's Engineering Department named Wu Jianguo.

Wu Jianguo's borrowing of professional books was normal in itself, but the temporal coincidence, together with the anomaly of an ancient-texts administrator like Su Xiulan suddenly checking out such material, raised the Project Team's alert.

"Investigate Wu Jianguo immediately! His background, social ties, recent movements—especially whether he has had direct or indirect contact with Su Xiulan!" Sun ordered.

Upon receiving the cooperative investigation notice, Li Ping'an's heart sank. The Engineering Department of the Steel Rolling Mill? Geological survey data? The implication was all too clear.

If the spy organization's aim was not merely to steal one or two special parts, but to gather broader industrial intelligence, especially information of strategic value about resources or technology distribution…

Then, as an important heavy-industry base, the Steel Rolling Mill's engineering department being infiltrated poses a far greater risk than a warehouse guard named Wang Youfu!

Wu Jianguo, this name is quite ordinary, yet at this moment it seemed to carry a heavy, ominous weight.

Li Ping'an immediately pulled up Wu Jianguo's file: twenty-eight years old, a Tsinghua University graduate, assigned to the Steel Rolling Mill's Engineering Department for three years, with average performance, an introverted personality, unmarried, living in the factory's bachelor dormitory. The file appeared clean.

But the file was merely surface. Li Ping'an knew the real investigation was just beginning. He arranged for Chen Jianghe to, without alerting the subject, conduct a covert background check and movement surveillance on Wu Jianguo.

At the same time, he himself went to the Engineering Department under the pretense of learning about recent confidentiality management of technical materials, spoke with the department head, and, "incidentally," observed Wu Jianguo from afar as he sat at his desk drawing.

Wu Jianguo wore glasses, was slim, and indeed looked like a typical technical worker, sitting there very quietly.

Yet beneath Li Ping'an's powerful Divine Perception, he could sense a thread of extremely concealed tension deep in the other's aura, slightly out of sync with the surrounding environment.

It was not the panic of a guilty thief, but rather… a habitual reaction stemming from long-term pressure or vigilance.

Could it be that the mission of the "sparrowhawk" Su Xiulan was to meet with this Wu Jianguo? To transmit or obtain some intelligence? Was that geological material a medium or the target?

The clues seemed to begin winding inward within the Steel Rolling Mill. What Xu Damao had ignited was a wildfire of personnel disputes; what the spy organization sought to light might be a dark fire threatening the nation's industrial lifeline.

Li Ping'an stood at the window of the Engineering Department corridor, gazing down at the bustling factory scene below, his heart surging with waves.

On one side is the internal friction stirred up by Xu Damao and his ilk for personal gain; on the other side is the long-term infiltration and intelligence gathering conducted by covert enemy agents for a larger plot.

Their natures are worlds apart, yet they intertwine and collide within the same time and space.

They must be more vigilant. They must both prevent Xu Damao's spark from igniting unnecessary internal strife that disrupts production, and strictly guard against letting the agents' reach actually touch the factory's core technology and secrets.

Su Xiulan and Wu Jianguo, regardless of who is the initiator and who is the responder, have already become people on the edge of the whirlpool.

The investigation sparked by the cipher in an old magazine is now pushing ever deeper ripples toward the hull of the giant vessel that is the Steel Rolling Mill.

The wind and rain are about to come, and the eye of the storm seems to be slowly moving toward the center of this steel-and-iron fortress.