Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

The production date printed on the mineral water bottle was also from last month.

These supplies could not have been left over from before the mine shut down; someone was regularly sending things here.

"Director Jiang, look at this."

Lu Zheng's voice came from the other side of the chamber. His flashlight shone on an inconspicuous corner of the stone wall, where a few lines of words had been written in chalk.

The handwriting is messy but forceful, written by the same hand at different times.

"Old Cat came by on July 12th, bringing food."

"On July 15th, the rain was too heavy, the east entrance was flooded, so we went through the north entrance."

"On July 18th, I heard that Brother Shan had collapsed, but I don't know if it's true. Old Cat said it really is. I don't know whether to be happy or scared."

"The old cat died on July 20th."

The strokes of the last line were noticeably more forceful than the previous lines, with the chalk pausing several times on the character for "death," leaving deep marks on the stone wall.

The person who wrote this must have had a trembling hand when they wrote it.

"This is a diary."

Lu Zheng lowered his voice and said, "This person has been hiding here for at least ten days. Tang Yuanqing delivers supplies to him every few days, the last time being on July 18th."

On July 20, he wrote "The Old Cat is Dead"—that day happened to be the day we rounded up Tang Yuanqing.

He heard the news at the chicken farm behind Shiqiao, or perhaps Tang Yuanqing told him in some way before he died.

"He is much more perceptive than we imagined."

Jiang Ruolan gently touched the chalk writing with her finger; the writing was already dry. "He knew Tang Yuanqing was dead, and that his supply lines had been cut off."

But he hasn't left—at least not yet. What's the reason he hasn't left?

"Perhaps he has nowhere else to go," Zhao Rui said.

"Anyone who can associate with Tang Yuanqing is at least a minor leader in Fengmao's system. After Shen Wangshan fell, the whole city was cracking down on people from Fengmao, and he would be arrested as soon as he showed his face."

"Maybe he's waiting for something."

Jiang Ruolan stood up, the beam of her flashlight sweeping across several other alleyways deep within the chamber, "Or—waiting for someone."

Behind the chamber, three tunnels extend in different directions.

Jiang Ruolan walked to the entrance of each alleyway to examine the marks on the ground.

The mine dust on the ground of the left tunnel was even and smooth, with no trace of anyone having walked on it.

There were several sets of footprints going back and forth in the middle of the alley, which should be the route to fetch water or to transport supplies to other areas.

The right-hand alley—the narrow, well-ventilated alleyway that only allows one person to pass at a time—has a large number of fresh footprints on the ground, coming and going, far more densely than the other two.

Just as she was about to walk down the alleyway on the right, Zhao Rui suddenly called out to her.

"Director Jiang, wait a moment."

Zhao Rui stood in a recessed area in the northeast corner of the chamber, holding the gas detector in mid-air, the readings on the screen jumping rapidly.

His expression turned unusually serious. "The temperature of the rock wall behind this location is significantly higher than the surrounding area. Infrared thermal imaging shows that there is a hollow cavity inside, with a temperature about ten degrees higher than the outside. The heat source signal is very strong."

"Heat source?"

"A heat source with living activity."

Zhao Rui turned the detector toward her, and a blurry thermal image appeared on the screen—a human figure radiating body heat, curled up in a cavity behind the rock wall.

The air in the alleyway seemed to freeze for a moment.

Jiang Ruolan made a shushing gesture, and everyone quieted down.

She turned off her flashlight, gestured for the others to turn off their lights as well, and then, in the darkness, whispered to Zhao Rui:

"Are there any other exits here?"

"According to the drawings, the tunnel in that direction should lead to ventilation shaft number two, but the drawings mark it as 'closed'."

If the people inside are still alive, it means the seal wasn't completely closed, and there was air circulation.

"Is the ventilation shaft located on the back hill?"

"Yes. The emergency exit on the back hill was converted from the original No. 2 ventilation shaft, but that person is not in the ventilation shaft—he is in a cavity in the lower side wall of the ventilation shaft."

Jiang Ruolan's mind raced. Feng Mao had illegally dug so many mine shafts in the Chenjiagou mining area, and some of these shafts were connected to abandoned ventilation shafts.

The fact that this person chose to hide in a secluded cavity that required infrared temperature detection to locate indicates that his familiarity with the mine far exceeded that of ordinary miners.

He knew where people could hide, where the road led to the surface, and how to survive underground for a long time.

He was not an ordinary employee of Fengmao; he was someone who knew Fengmao's core secrets.

"Zhao Rui, you take two men down the ventilation shaft from the back of the mountain and block his retreat. Lu Zheng and I will approach from the front."

Jiang Ruolan turned the flashlight back on, dimmed the brightness, leaving only a faint yellow halo. "Remember, capture alive is the priority."

If he has a weapon or tries to escape, force can be used, but try not to fire—firing a gun underground is too dangerous; if it hits the rock wall and causes a collapse, no one will be able to get out.

Zhao Rui responded and led the two police officers back along the slope, circling around to the back of the mountain.

Jiang Ruolan and Lu Zheng then ventured deeper into the narrow, well-ventilated alleyway. The alley was so narrow that her shoulders were practically brushing against the rock walls on either side as she walked, the gravel under her feet crunching loudly.

After walking about fifty meters, the beam of the flashlight shone on a brick wall at the end of the alley.

The brick wall was hastily built with ordinary red bricks, and a hole was chiseled in the middle, just big enough for one person to climb through.

The broken bricks at the edge of the hole are fresh, indicating that it was recently chiseled open.

Jiang Ruolan took out a small endoscope probe from the equipment bag at her waist and inserted the probe into the hole.

The images transmitted by the probe showed that behind the brick wall was a natural cavity of about six or seven square meters, about two meters high, with a thin crack at the top leading to the ground. A sliver of sunlight leaked through the crack, which was probably the source of the air circulation.

In the corner of the cavity, there was a moisture-proof mat, on which were piled several old cotton quilts. Next to it were an open toolbox, several mineral water bottles, and two unopened cans.

A person sat on the moisture-proof mat, with his back to the cave entrance, holding an old radio and tuning it. The radio emitted a piercing static.

Hearing the noise, the person turned around abruptly.

The endoscope screen reflected a face—a man around fifty years old, with gray hair, a thin face, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes.

He had an old scar on his chin that stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear, like a centipede crawling on his face.

He stared at the direction of the cave entrance, his eyes showing no panic, but rather an almost numb calm.

"Stop hiding, I can see your camera."

His voice was hoarse and deep, with a strong local accent, "You're a cop, right? To be able to track me all the way to this cave, you guys are more capable than I thought."

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