Chapter 84 - 83: Jia City Construction Site
In a supermarket, a tiny figure pushed a shopping cart much larger than himself, zipping through the aisles at high speed.
"Red dates, red dates, good for the blood, good for the blood~~"
RUSTLE, RUSTLE. Several large bags of red dates were swept into the shopping cart.
"The rest is all for snacks!!"
With a shout, the cart went WHOOSH as it sped toward the snack aisle.
Tao Xingzhi watched in some surprise as Doudou zipped past him.
’Whose kid is that, running wild in a supermarket...?’
He looked around but saw no adult, guessing the child must be from a nearby family. ’It takes a lot of guts to let a kid that young go shopping alone,’ he thought.
But Tao Xingzhi had neither the mood nor the energy to think about cases like child abduction. Compared to the pressure he was currently under, such "minor incidents" weren’t even worth mentioning.
He put a few packs of chewing gum and cigarettes into his shopping basket, then turned to pay at the checkout counter.
This was his third time coming to Yue City in a short period, but this time he was just passing through to get a feel for the situation.
The golden window for solving the river channel incident had long passed. And although the phone booth destroyed in the explosion had been found, no valuable clues could be extracted from it.
Right now, the only useful thing they had was the recording of that emergency call.
But that was like finding fingerprints at a crime scene. With such a large population, establishing comprehensive fingerprint and voiceprint databases was a distant dream. You couldn’t just test everyone; it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Normally, samples were only collected and tested when a "criminal suspect" had been identified. Currently, the national fingerprint database only included convicted criminals. As for a voiceprint database? ’Get real.’
Moreover, voiceprint analysis was even more complex. There were only a few labs in the country that could do it. Relying solely on the naked ear and a recording from an old, shoddy telephone receiver, it would be easy to miss the caller even if they were speaking right in front of someone who had heard the recording.
Unless the caller had a very distinct speech pattern, which was clearly not the case here.
Of course, there was another way—one that relied purely on luck.
That would be for another significant abnormal event to occur in or near Yue City, prompting the mysterious existence to act again. That might lead to a more effective investigation than the last one. But that was just wishful thinking. Tao Xingzhi prayed that no abnormal events would happen anywhere in the country.
After leaving the supermarket and getting into the car, his colleague in the driver’s seat took the pack of gum Tao Xingzhi handed him.
Chewing helped relieve stress and fatigue.
"Chief, are we still heading to the Yue City Municipal Committee?"
Tao Xingzhi hesitated. A visit there would surely take up half the day, and this time, he had only planned to take a quick look around the original "crime scene."
"No, let’s head straight to Jia City to see the construction site."
"Alright!"
The car started, revealing Doudou standing there, holding two large shopping bags. The bottom of one bag held some red dates, while the other bag and a half were filled almost entirely with snacks—a reward from his older cousin.
"That man just now, his smell... ’Whatever!’"
Doudou twitched his nose.
Tao Xingzhi’s long-term exposure to the sites of abnormal events, and to the people and objects involved in them, had left a special, hard-to-wash-off scent on him.
It might not have been a big deal in Magson or other worlds, but on Earth World, it was especially prominent. This was not a good sign.
But Doudou, adhering to the principle of "none of my damn business," chose not to go up and warn him.
Two hours later, the ordinary Passat arrived at a construction site on the outskirts of Jia City, enclosed by large construction walls.
There were even armed police sentry posts around the perimeter, which certainly made it stand out from other construction sites.
The car stopped at the visitor entrance.
An armed police officer came out of the guard post and saluted the car.
"Sirs, please show me your identification!"
Tao Xingzhi and the driver, Xiaoliu, habitually returned the salute and each took out their identification to hand over.
Although the sentry didn’t recognize the department named on the IDs, he could tell at a glance that they were one of the highest-level credentials he had seen during this inspection assignment.
The armed police officer handed back the IDs, then signaled to someone behind him with both his hand and voice.
"Let them through!"
...
Once inside the construction site, without the obstruction of the special soundproof walls, the din of construction was many times louder than it had been outside.
The RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE of heavy machinery was everywhere.
Dump trucks passed by one after another, as did material transport vehicles.
A massive section of alloy pipe wall, large enough to fit several heavy trucks inside, was being slowly lowered by three large tower cranes.
Below was a gigantic pit of unknown depth.
It was completely different from looking at blueprints and videos. Only by being on-site could one truly appreciate the violent aesthetics of these steel machines.
The two of them stood there watching for a good while.
Their car was parked in a special parking area.
They walked straight toward the temporary building that housed the construction personnel and the resident design team leaders.
Huang Jiutian was reviewing blueprints with the general manager.
As one of the main design and construction firms, it was impossible for Huang Jiutian’s company not to have a designer stationed on-site.
Jiutian volunteering for the post had earned him the immense gratitude of everyone in the design department.
After signing a thin non-disclosure agreement, Huang Jiutian became one of the resident designers at the Jia City construction site.
The agreement may have been thin, but its power was extraordinary. Huang Jiutian knew that if he didn’t have a mysterious, supernatural force backing him, leaking any information would result in a fate far worse than just life in prison.
During his time on-site, all his personal communication devices and social media accounts were briefly confiscated before being quickly returned.
But pretty much all the internal staff knew that these devices were now under surveillance.
Industry insiders with sharp instincts, like Huang Jiutian, all understood that this so-called "civil defense project" was anything but ordinary. Both its scale and its intended purpose far exceeded the norm.
A facility of this magnitude was the kind of thing one would only expect to see built during the Cold War.
But to the ordinary construction workers, it was just a high-paying job. A civil defense project was just a civil defense project.
"At this angle, I suggest installing a sliding frame underneath. This would prevent further excavation of the upper soil layer, improve precision, and free up the tower cranes’ workspace."
"But if we use a sliding frame, installing the support structure underground is itself a very difficult task. It’s more labor-intensive and time-consuming. Have you considered that?"
Jiutian pointed to a note at the bottom of the blueprint.
"That’s true, but a prerequisite of this project is to ensure the integrity of the surrounding geology as much as possible. It was also made clear that cost is no object. I believe that when it comes to the quality of the project, being labor-intensive and time-consuming is not an issue."
A few other designers also joined the discussion.
This group had definitely seen Tao Xingzhi and Xiaoliu, but no one paid them any mind, leaving the two awkwardly standing off to the side.
Tao Xingzhi and Xiaoliu exchanged a look and, taking the hint, stayed put without saying anything.
Although the two were laymen, they had gone over the project materials so many times that they could actually understand some of what was being said.
The discussion only ended when a high-ranking leader from the construction site heard that special envoys had arrived and came into the office.
Only then did everyone realize that the two men who had been sitting there smoking by themselves were actually important special envoys from the central authorities.
PS: Thank you to my reader, Phantom Thief, for the 1,000 coin donation; to Master 73 for the 300 coin donation; and to Blood Race Night Blade for the 100 coin donation~~
I had a bit of a headache last night and rushed to bed, so I might not have published the second Chapter. It’s been sitting in my drafts, so I’m posting it now...