Chapter 325: This Is a Supply Chain!

"On our side there's an industrial district. It originally formed spontaneously from various kinds of factories," Hong Liuwen answered.

"Later it developed a certain industrial scale and clustering effect, gathering nearly a hundred factories and enterprises."

So that's how it is… Yu Dazhang finally understood why the other side had gone to such lengths to control Hong Liuwen.

With so many factories gathered there, finding someone inside the system who could tip them off would solve a lot of unnecessary trouble.

The industrial district happened to fall within the police station's jurisdiction.

Any whiff of trouble, and the police station would definitely be the first to know.

So they didn't need any so-called "protective umbrella" at all — just getting advance warning was enough to dodge inspections.

That incident with Fang Peng was purely an accident, and those genuinely intellectually disabled people had no ability to run either.

To keep Hong Liuwen under control, the other side really had emptied their minds of ideas, not even begrudging the expense of hiring gangsters to do their dirty work.

But thinking it over carefully, Hong Liuwen really was worth all that effort to them.

"Did the other side tell you about all these factories?" Yu Dazhang asked.

He had grounds for asking this.

Hong Liuwen had already been scared out of his wits — how would he dare go investigate on his own?

"Yes," Hong Liuwen nodded in reply.

"Every factory's name and address was phoned in to me by that person. Although I never actively investigated anything, I have been inside those factories."

"The intellectually disabled people inside all do heavy physical labor."

"They eat separately from the regular workers too — even inside the factory, no one can come into contact with them."

That's just too damn heartless… The more Yu Dazhang listened, the angrier he got.

This is basically no different from those illegal brick kilns.

And what these people do is even more vicious than the brick kilns.

They specifically target the intellectually disabled — they zeroed in on this group because they're easy to control and won't resist.

Viewed this way, that underground prison is essentially a training base.

The intellectually disabled are sent there first for pre-job training; even those who want to resist get thoroughly broken in there.

Then they're sorted into grades based on IQ — this is so they can be priced accordingly.

The higher the IQ, the higher the price, naturally.

This is practically a complete supply chain… A sudden chill crept over Yu Dazhang from the crown of his head.

Compared with other supply chains, the commodity this supply chain provides…

Is people!

Whoever came up with this scheme and worked out such a complete process must have done similar work before.

Yu Dazhang glanced up at Lu Zhongxin and found his master staring back at him with a heavy, solemn expression.

That's right — his master was thinking the same thing he was.

It was clearly illegal activity, yet the other side had run it like a legitimate operation.

Take an example.

Do you think that once a criminal is sentenced, they go straight from the detention center to prison?

No.

There's a transfer station in between: the intake team.

They have to undergo three months of intake training at the intake team before they can enter the prison to serve their sentence.

Those three months of intensive training include training in standing posture, squatting, marching in step, and the like.

It's no exaggeration.

No matter how unruly a person is, at the intake team they still obediently undergo three months of intensive training — once their edges are smoothed off, then they come to the prison.

Of course, this is also to make prison management easier.

Now look at that underground prison again — isn't the model a bit similar to the intake team?

Recruit training used to be three months too, but later, because the post-2000s kids are so lively, it was changed to the current half-year.

"Everything was phoned in to you?" When Yu Dazhang asked this, a flicker of doubt crossed his eyes.

Since the other side dared to call Hong Liuwen directly, why did they still send the photos and videos by courier?

Adding him on a messaging app and sending them over would have been far more convenient.

"Yes," Hong Liuwen replied.

"He not only used a voice changer, even the phone number was processed — it was one of those randomly displayed numbers, probably made through an internet phone service."

Careful enough… Yu Dazhang sighed inwardly.

This also explains why the other side didn't use messaging apps to transfer files.

Because of the risk of exposure.

The technical department could easily lock down the other party's IP and pull up basic information and location.

Tracking internet phone calls is far more complicated — these calls might use overseas routes, making the tracking cost extremely high.

When you see 'arbitrary number' displayed, it's basically a software dial — no SIM card needed at all.

If it's then routed through an IP, it becomes even more impossible to trace.

Clearly the other side had long anticipated that one day Hong Liuwen would turn himself in, which was why they had prepared so thoroughly.

"How often do those people go to that industrial district?" Yu Dazhang asked.

If possible, he planned to lie in wait and catch those responsible for transporting them.

If lucky, they could find the underground prison directly through those people.

"I'm not sure about that," Hong Liuwen shook his head.

"I have to go to work every day too, I don't have time to keep an eye on that side, and even if they send new people over, that side won't tell me about it."

It seemed there was no pattern to speak of… Yu Dazhang could read that meaning from his words as well.

The other side couldn't possibly drag trained intellectually disabled people out in broad daylight to peddle them in the industrial district.

This kind of illegal criminal activity is usually arranged in advance — the number of people and the price are set first, and only then are the people delivered over.

Yu Dazhang thought for a moment, then asked:

"If those intellectually disabled people doing heavy physical labor get sick or die, how do they handle it?"

He had been mulling over this question the whole time, only he had never found an answer.

"I'm not clear on that either." Hong Liuwen answered with some helplessness:

"While I was there, I never saw anyone fall ill, let alone die."

So they were just hauled away… Yu Dazhang could tell Hong Liuwen had reasoned it out; the reason he hadn't said it aloud was that he was afraid of swaying other people's judgment.

In other words, that supply chain even came with returns and exchanges.

Yu Dazhang now almost didn't dare imagine what scale the other side had already reached.

Just one Yancheng had around three hundred intellectually disabled people working as slave laborers, and that was only within one police station's jurisdiction.

It was very likely that factories elsewhere in Yancheng had the same situation.

What about the whole province?

The whole country?

Yu Dazhang didn't even dare think carefully about the total number of victims ultimately involved.

Moreover, he could almost be certain that the other side had long ago begun supplying on a nationwide scale.

This meant that the scale of this criminal organization was far larger than he had previously imagined; their tentacles had already reached into every corner of the country.

Back then, Fang Peng was abducted in Province D, and only after being locked up for a full year was he sent to Yancheng in Province N.

This showed that those people had already begun operating across provinces five years ago.

Was there a possibility…

That that underground prison wasn't the only one?

When this hypothesis popped into Yu Dazhang's mind, he felt a chill run through his entire body.

This possibility was very high!

If they really were supplying slave laborers nationwide, that single underground prison alone wouldn't be nearly enough.

(End of this chapter)