Chapter 163 Traces
"It's him! It's him!"
After the subordinate left with the copied notice, Zhao Wencai came in covered in snow.
"Are you settled?"
Zhang Chongguang watched him come in rubbing his hands and poured him a cup of hot tea from the stove next to him.
Ever since Zhang Chongguang came here, he has been in charge of the construction of the base at City A Airport as an official dispatched person.
As locals, Zhao Wen and Zhao Wu are familiar with the surrounding conditions and are also known among the local villagers. Zhang Chongguang asked the two brothers to be his deputies, responsible for settling the relocated people.
Over the past six months, the brothers Zhao Wen and Zhao Wu have indeed done a good job, especially Zhao Wen, who is smart and intelligent and has saved him a lot of worries.
"alright."
Zhao Wen took the teacup, but didn't rush to drink it. He first told him what he was going to do outside.
"During this period, the people who moved here from Xishan have all been settled. The first batch of coal briquettes has been made from the last batch of coal delivered, and the newly made briquettes have also been distributed."
As the first station to be built, the airport, while not part of the city, has accommodated a significant number of people from outside. The current population is now a vast base, nearly 50,000 people, a far cry from the small villages surrounding it.
Although having more people has its advantages, it is not an easy task for their temporary base which was built in just half a year to accommodate so many people in the cold winter.
People in the city's safe areas could hide in underground parking lots, where the entrances and exits were sealed and it wasn't that cold. But their area was full of low-rise rural houses, and their thermal insulation wasn't that good.
Even though a number of houses with better thermal insulation were built later, they had already been distributed. The people who urgently needed to be resettled this time could only be accommodated in the old houses that had been vacated earlier and had poor thermal insulation.
Although these old houses had been urgently repaired, they were still drafty. Zhao Wen could only give them some more coal briquettes and let them stay warm by the stove.
"But I think the batch of coal delivered last time is still not enough. I guess we need to ask P City to send some more." Zhao Wen said.
Zhang Chongguang had no way to deal with this situation.
"Let's do this for now! It's snowing so hard outside that we can't start construction. I heard that the city is already trying to provide central heating to the cleared areas. If that's successful, we can move some of our people there and reduce the pressure."
"I hope it will succeed!" Zhao Wen thought about the current situation and could only pin his hopes on this news.
The weather was cold, and even the tea cooled quickly. The tea that was just hot had already stopped emitting much steam in such a short time. Zhao Wen picked up the cup and took a sip. Only then did he notice the documents on Zhang Chongguang's desk.
"What's this?"
Zhang Chongguang followed his gaze, handed him the document with his right hand, and casually said, looking at the report in his left hand, "Oh, it says they're looking for someone from City A."
After they had known each other for a while and had become familiar with each other, Zhang Chongguang joked, "You're the 'local boss', do you recognize me?"
Since the incident, there has been chaos everywhere. As the head of a base, Zhang Chongguang has received many requests for help in finding people, and he has long been accustomed to it.
But this time the missing person document was issued by the highest leadership organization directly under him. Zhang Chongguang felt that this person was very important from the words, so he asked his subordinates to investigate as soon as he received the information.
"City A?"
Zhao Wen didn't care about Zhang Chongguang's joke; he was just curious. He picked up the notice and read it. "This is from Nanhe County, not far from here, but I don't recognize it."
Zhao Wen had no impression of the woman in the photo. While he was well-connected, it was only in Xiaozhao Village, where he was mostly known. Outside of his hometown, he didn't really know many people.
Zhao Wen just noticed that the man's surname was Jiang, and suddenly thought of something. "Not long after the incident, that is, before you came, some brothers in the village knew a few people from Nanhe County. They also seemed to have the surname Jiang. I'll ask them if they know him. Can you take this notice with me?"
Zhang Chongguang shook his head. "Our superiors have requested a secret investigation, and we want to do our best to not alert anyone. Bring your brother to our office later, and don't tell too many people about this."
"Okay." Zhao Wen put the notice down without hesitation. "He's out distributing coal briquettes. After work today, if I have the chance to meet him, I'll let him come."
…
The message Jiang Qian sent via email fell on deaf ears. After a whole day, she didn't receive any other messages except the automatic reply she received shortly after sending the message.
Afraid that the staff who managed the mailbox would not notice, Jiang Qian sent the message several times the next day as if flooding the screen with messages, only to receive a short "received" email that looked like it was edited by a human.
Knowing that someone had received the message, she felt relieved and continued to search for relevant information online. However, she didn't know that this piece of news, which she thought was very important, didn't cause much of a stir at all, because a more crucial person was found overseas.
After the last news came back, the leadership inspired foreign organizations to start with Edmund Smith's family and students. A week later, these seemingly unreliable foreigners actually found something.
They found traces of a student whom Edmund admired very much.
The original source of the information was a university colleague of Edmund.
"As far as I know, Edmund's wife died young, they had no children, and he never remarried. He spent most of his time in the laboratory, rarely attending parties, and had almost no regular colleagues... The only person he was somewhat close to was one of his students. I've met that child; he's very smart, and Edmund liked him very much and often brought him to the lab. Later, Edmund resigned, and not long after, that child dropped out of school..."
In the video call, the university professor with gray hair and looking unusually thin took off the necklace hanging around his neck. It was not until he plugged it into the computer that others realized it was a USB flash drive.
"I'm old and my memory is not good, so I hang all the information on my body, worried that I'll forget where I put it and find it later... Look, this is the student's information..."
The camera was focused on the old man's computer screen, and everyone could see what was displayed on it.
"Gis?"
"Yes." The old man nodded. "Although I have no news about Edmund, I suspect this student is still studying with Edmund after leaving school. Perhaps you can use this child to find Edmund's whereabouts. But I don't know where Keith is now."
The old man finished explaining what he knew and threw up his hands helplessly. After that, the communication was disconnected.
Although the clues were interrupted again, they excited those who wanted to find Edmund, both at home and abroad. After all, having clues proved that their search ideas were correct.
Afterwards, while various foreign organizations were looking for Edmund, they also began to follow this clue to look for Gis.
Compared to Edmund, who lived in seclusion, was always absorbed in his research, and perhaps his whereabouts were deliberately hidden by someone, it was much easier to find Guise.
Not long after, someone mentioned that they had seen someone who looked like Gis on a rescue ship. After receiving the news, foreign rescue organizations immediately took people to find the relevant rescue ship to find out more about the situation.
On the domestic side, the email sent by Jiang Qian was also delivered to the staff responsible for this matter.
However, the staff had no way of confirming whether the person standing at the bow was Edmund based on the blurry profile. They could only forward the email to foreign rescue organizations, asking them to see if they could find videos and news from other angles related to the explosion and wildfire on the island.
…
Because Jiang Qian's email contained the address of the island where the fire had occurred, relevant information was easy to find. Within a week, news came back from abroad.
They were lucky enough to find an Aboriginal person who was living on the island at the time and showed her the video.
The lady who had lived on the island before was now living in poverty. After learning that she could get some supplies by providing information, she became very motivated and wanted to tell everything she knew.
Although she did not have photos or videos taken at the time, and could not recognize whether the person in the video was Edmund, when the investigators put the photo of Gis in front of him, the woman screamed.
"It's him! That's him! I know this handsome young man with blue eyes. He often buys cigarettes for his teacher in my store!"
The woman named Mary was clearly impressed by Guise. "He's the same age as my son, yet so educated. I heard he's already a doctor at such a young age, following his teacher to serve wealthy individuals in a sanatorium on a small island in the middle of the lake. His weekly salary is more than my small shop makes in a year!"
"We only have one small shop on our island. Occasionally, my husband and I need to leave the island to buy supplies, and sometimes this young man will take our boat and leave with us. You know, he earns a lot of money and always gives us a lot of money. My family likes him very much, and I would never mistake him for someone else..."
"You mean the sanatorium? Oh no, we haven't been in there, and we don't know what's going on inside. That's not a place we should go to. The sanatorium was built in the middle of the lake, with only one road leading to the outside, and there were bodyguards guarding it with guns..."
"The entire island we're on belongs to that wealthy man, even the house we live in. He bought the island but still allowed us to live on it. But that's simply because the people working in the sanatorium also need to make a living, and it's more convenient for us to stay here than for them to frequently go out to buy things..."
"But we're only allowed to move around in the area outside the lake. If we cross the cordon, it would be considered illegal trespassing. Previously, the little girl next door mistakenly crossed the cordon and was shot and killed by the bodyguards. ..."
"Who has been to the sanatorium? I'm sorry, I really don't know that many important people. Every time they come, they drive a special yacht and are picked up by cars after getting off. We can hardly see anyone..."
"Oh, you mean the address of the island? I know that, but there's no one on that island anymore. For some reason, that sanatorium exploded and started a wildfire, so we had to move. Now it's just a ruin..."
Despite what Ms. Mary said, the rescue organization still followed the path indicated by the lady and found the island.
【Author’s words】
Lady Mary screamed: "It's him! It's him! It's him!"
The stupid author hummed unconsciously: Our friend, little Nezha!
Thank you all for your support! Countdown to the end, estimated to be 50,000 to 60,000 words away!
But I’ve been a bit stuck in writing recently. I hope I can code the ending before my stock of manuscripts runs out so that everyone can read the ending smoothly!
[Heart]
The next chapter will be updated before 6pm on Friday.
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