Anti-gang campaign: Female bureau chief

A rustling sound came from the cave entrance.

A few minutes later, Liao Guangcheng crawled out of the narrow hole, his back bent.

He looked even thinner than he appeared in the endoscopic lens—his clothes hung loosely on his skeleton, his cheeks were sunken like two pits, and only his deep-set eyes still retained a trace of the shrewdness and stubbornness of the old mine foreman.

He straightened up, looked up at the light filtering through the crack in the ceiling, and squinted, as if stung by the faint light.

"I haven't seen the sun for two months."

He said that, and then he took the initiative to extend his hands and put them together.

Lu Zheng stepped forward and handcuffed him. The moment the handcuffs tightened, Liao Guangcheng glanced down at his wrists, his lips twitching as if in a bitter smile:

"I've been mining in this mountain for twenty years, and I never imagined that I would end up being handcuffed and forced to leave the mountain."

It was already 2 PM when we got back to the ground.

Jiang Ruolan squinted to adjust to the glaring sunlight outside, then took a deep breath of the clean air, free of mineral dust and musty smell.

Liao Guangcheng was put into a police car, and his notebook was put into an evidence bag. Along with his toolbox, moisture-proof mat, and other physical evidence, it was sent to the provincial technical center for further identification.

Zhao Rui stood in the open space at the entrance of the mining area, watching police cars drive out one by one, a complex expression on his face. He walked to Jiang Ruolan's side and said:

"Director Jiang, I have worked in Shiqiao for more than ten years and I have been to this mine countless times."

Every time I come here, I smell something wrong, but I've never actually opened it up like I did today.

Those buried behind Qingshipu Mountain, those miners who died in mining accidents and whose deaths were concealed—their families have been waiting for an answer all these years. Today, they finally have one.

"One last answer is needed."

Jiang Ruolan said, "Liao Guangcheng's diary mentions the illegal dumping of radioactive tailings in Fengmao."

He said the tailings were dumped near the water source in Shiqiao County, and only he and Shen Wangshan knew the exact location.

If those tailings are still there, the drinking water safety of hundreds of thousands of people in Shiqiao County is a ticking time bomb. This matter must be thoroughly investigated.

Zhao Rui's expression changed slightly:

"You mean you're looking for those tailings?"

"It's not just about finding it. After finding it, we need to take samples for testing, assess the environmental risks, and if pollution is indeed found, we need to initiate emergency treatment."

This is not just a matter for our public security department alone; it requires coordination among multiple departments, including environmental protection, land resources, and water resources, to take joint action.

But before that, we need to pinpoint the location. Liao Guangcheng is now in custody; let him lead the way.

At 4 p.m., guided by Liao Guangcheng, the search team found the buried tailings dumping site in a ravine about five kilometers northwest of the Chenjiagou mining area.

On the surface, it was just an ordinary gravel slope, overgrown with weeds and shrubs, with nothing unusual about it.

But when the engineers used excavators to remove the surface gravel and soil, they discovered a layer of grayish-white tailings several meters thick, which gleamed with an eerie metallic luster in the sunlight.

The accompanying environmental technicians used a portable detector to measure the surface of the tailings slag, and the instrument reading immediately soared to the red alert zone—the radioactivity level was more than a hundred times the normal background value.

"These tailings are washed into the streams downstream of the mountain valley when it rains, and those streams flow directly into a section of the river less than three kilometers upstream of the water intake of the Shiqiao County waterworks."

The environmental technician's voice trembled as he said, "This source of pollution has existed for at least a decade. Every drop of the water that hundreds of thousands of people in Shiqiao County drink may have been contaminated."

Jiang Ruolan stood in front of the excavated gray slag heap and remained silent for a long time.

Liao Guangcheng’s diary states that Shen Wangshan dared to dump radioactive tailings directly into an open ravine because Liu Changhe, the then director of the Environmental Protection Bureau, accepted his money and approved Fengmao’s environmental impact assessment report and pollution monitoring data.

Liu Changhe—one of the nine people on Qian Shouyi's list—has been placed under investigation by the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.

But the money he accepted was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the polluted landscape.

"Take samples and send them to the Provincial Environmental Monitoring Center for comprehensive testing. At the same time, notify the Shiqiao County Government and recommend that it immediately activate the emergency plan for drinking water safety."

Jiang Ruolan's voice sounded particularly calm in the mountain wind, "In addition, the records of tailings pollution in Liao Guangcheng's diary should be transferred to the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Procuratorate as evidence to investigate Shen Wangshan, Liu Changhe and others for environmental pollution crimes."

It was already late at night when I got back to Yi'an.

Jiang Ruolan spent the entire day in her office organizing materials, archiving Liao Guangcheng's diary, the exploration records of the Chenjiagou mining area, and the detection data of the tailings dumping point one by one.

When she turned to the last page of Liao Guangcheng's diary again, she saw this passage—

"I've kept these records for twenty years, every single detail written in a notebook. I dare not show them to anyone, nor do I dare destroy them."

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel like this notebook is a red-hot piece of iron, so hot that I can't sleep.

But I kept them. Because I know that one day these things will see the light of day. I just don't know if I'll still be around when that day comes.

She closed the notebook and locked it in the safe.

Outside the window, stars appeared in the night sky of Yi'an, a rare sight.

This city, once shrouded in black smoke and fear, is being cleaned up at a visible pace.

The streetlights are brighter, the night market is more vibrant, and those who once chose to remain silent are now walking into the city bureau one by one, speaking out what they've kept bottled up for over a decade.

But her days in Yi'an were not over yet—the bones buried under the stone slabs behind Qingshipu were still waiting for final justice, the people of Shiqiao who had been drinking polluted water for more than ten years were still waiting for an explanation, and the fish that had escaped the net were still lingering in the darkness.

But what happened these past few days made her certain of one thing:

No matter how deeply it is hidden, no matter how much time has passed, the truth will eventually be revealed.

Like the bones buried under the bluestone slabs, like the old foreman who hid in the mine and kept notes for twenty years, all secrets are no match for the power of time.

She turned on her computer and began writing her work report for the day.

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