Chapter 18
It's bad, but not the worst.
During a tabletop exercise, a team at the ketone benzene unit fell from a vertical ladder. Fortunately, the person survived, but unfortunately, it's unclear how many days they would have survived.
Not dying instantly is a completely different matter for local authorities. With the help of modern medicine, anyone willing to spend money can prolong life for a few days. If it can be extended beyond seven days, it can even be exempted from the count of a production safety accident.
Song Mu briefly explained the situation while driving. When he heard that the person was still being rescued in the emergency center, Tang Ruxin immediately asked him to turn around and go to the emergency center.
Yu Lei protested, saying that he would not go to the hospital but to the scene.
So he was driven out of the car by Tang Ruxin, late in the winter night with the cold wind howling.
Yu Lei waited by the roadside for nearly an hour, biting his cheek as he watched the black Mercedes-Benz leaving in a cloud of dust. What greeted him was Chen Jingzhou's face, which was so distorted from trying so hard to hold back a smile.
The goalkeeper captain who usually acted so arrogantly was abandoned in the wilderness on a winter night. He couldn't even call a taxi and was so cold that he kept stamping his feet. It was difficult for Chen Jingzhou to hold back his laughter, even though he had received professional training.
Looking at Chen Jingzhou who was pouting, frowning and scratching his face, Yu Lei was furious.
"Are you a pig?"
Chen Jingzhou's facial features instantly returned to normal. He looked at Yu Lei in surprise, not understanding why he was suddenly scolded.
"You're on a police call, and you didn't even put on your flashing lights? No wonder it took you almost an hour. You might as well have just come on a bicycle."
Only then did Chen Jingzhou realize that he had forgotten to turn on the police lights. His attention was occupied by other things, so he had no time to think of such details. It was not like he was catching a fugitive.
Of course, he wouldn't say this even if you tore his mouth apart.
Yu Lei finally smoked the cigarette he had been holding back all night, and then he remembered his lucky blunder in finding Zhao Zheng's sister, and his mood improved a little. However, it wasn't much better. The sister repeatedly mocked him and then, without caring about his life or death, left him on the side of the road to freeze to the bone.
If it were someone else, the feud would have been created, but unfortunately it was Zhao Lan who did this, and he couldn't do anything about it.
"What did the police center report?" Yu Lei lowered the car window a crack, and cigarette ash flew out of the car.
"It didn't come to us originally. The center assigned it to the Donghe Town Police Station, and then transferred it from there. They said that our investigation team is stationed in the factory. If it is a safety accident, they will sign the confirmation letter. If not, they will investigate it together." Chen Jingzhou said while holding the steering wheel, looking straight ahead.
Yu Lei suddenly laughed out loud, "Those bastards from Donghe Subdistrict are starting to assign tasks to the Municipal Criminal Investigation Detachment, right? Okay, well done, we'll beat them during next year's training."
Chen Jingzhou's brows twitched, and his hands on the steering wheel began to go numb. The prerequisite for defeating others was to train even harder, so as not to injure the enemy by 800 and lose 1,000 of his own.
I don't quite understand what Yu Lei is upset about. Wherever there's a police investigation team stationed, it makes sense to assign cases involving the same unit to the same investigation team. You can't just send a few police officers to the same company every time something goes wrong. Even if there were more people, they wouldn't be able to handle that kind of deployment.
Of course, he wouldn't say this out loud. The goalkeeper was visibly in a bad mood tonight.
Arriving at the scene at 1 a.m., Chen Jingzhou concluded after a brief inspection that this incident was purely accidental. Unlike the previous incident, there were no witnesses, no valid footprints, and the victim had gone down the well without reason, raising numerous doubts and making it impossible to immediately determine whether it was an accident.
This time, the surveillance footage is clear, and the footprints are fully recovered. The victim climbed the more than ten-meter-long ladder alone, but before reaching the top platform, he missed a step and fell. Every injury from his fall is captured on the surveillance video at the moment of impact. Furthermore, the employee was on a normal inspection route during normal inspection hours, heading to a platform on the normal inspection route. His reasoning is impeccable.
If this wasn't an accident, Chen Jingzhou thought he could just write his name upside down. So he took the accident confirmation form, unrolled the gel pen, and was about to sign.
A hand reached out from the side and slowly pulled the pen away.
"Wait a minute, your captain is still questioning." Ding Xinqiao's face flushed slightly, and his eyes looked unclear.
Chen Jingzhou smelled alcohol.
"Brother, are you working after drinking?" he asked in a low voice.
Ding Xinqiao glanced at him helplessly. "It's the weekend today. Who would have thought I'd have to work? I'm not on call 24 hours a day."
In other words, if he hadn't been sitting at the same table with Yu Zhe, he definitely wouldn't have come today. Sun Chengze got drunk and was sent home by Lin Shuangjiang. He wasn't so lucky, and was directly brought to the scene by Yu Zhe based on the principle of proximity, which was considered a head of the emergency department.
Half an hour ago, the police, emergency services, firefighters, and medical personnel had all arrived. But now only two remained. The patient had been taken to the hospital for emergency treatment, and the fire department had nothing to do. In the end, it was just these few who had to endure the ordeal.
Ding Xinqiao was utterly fed up with this job, but he'd chosen this path himself and had weathered tougher times. The constant on-site work seemed like nothing. He lifted his head and let out a long breath, the mist from his mouth drifting away on the dying wind, vanishing in an instant.
Coming to Yu Lei's side, Ding Xinqiao followed his gaze and found that he was looking at the ladder.
"According to industry standards, the length of that ladder should exceed the standard. I'll ask Mr. Tang for the specific data later."
"Do you think it was an accident?" Yu Lei looked at him sideways.
Ding Xinqiao pondered for a moment, then narrowed his eyes and said, "That should be the case. From my point of view, there are indeed some irregularities at the scene, which can be considered as one of the causes of the accident."
"Look over there." Yu Lei leaned closer to Ding Xinqiao and pointed to the other side of the platform connected to the vertical ladder. "There's a steel corner staircase with handrails. If you were doing an inspection late at night on a windy winter's day, would you choose the stairs or the vertical ladder?"
Ding Xinqiao was startled, then replied, "Stairs."
He wasn't so lazy as to choose the riskier vertical staircase just to save a few steps. The staircase folds upward, and the journey is much longer than a straight staircase. However, the safety factor of a staircase with handrails and a straight staircase with only circular steel railings is not the same.
Seeing that Ding Xinqiao's answer was in line with his expectations, Yu Lei continued:
"There's a fixed inspection point on the top platform of the elevator, but it's perfectly accessible via stairs. I just asked, and few people use the elevator for inspections. Why did this person take the elevator? Was it because he's agile and loves a challenge, or was it simply because the straight line is the shortest? Neither of these reasons convinces me. What do you think?"
Ding Xinqiao pondered for a moment and found he couldn't find any reason to refute this point. But under the influence of alcohol, he, who rarely had a rebellious heart, suddenly felt unwilling to agree with others easily.
"Video surveillance clearly captured the entire process of him arriving at the elevator alone, climbing up step by step, and finally falling. There was no one else at the scene except him. He completed the notification process before leaving for his inspection, and everyone on the team was aware of his presence. His walkie-talkie also worked properly, and he reported to every inspection point. There were no procedural issues."
Ding Xinqiao did not answer the questions raised by Yu Lei, but only emphasized the existing facts.
Yu Lei sighed helplessly. This little doubt was indeed not enough to overturn the objective evidence. Otherwise, why would he be looking for a sense of identity here? He could just treat it as a criminal case.
"The most important thing is that he's not dead." Seeing that Yu Lei didn't refute, Ding Xinqiao continued, "If it was intentional homicide, would they choose such a random method?"
"Yes!" Chen Jingzhou listened attentively for a long time and finally couldn't help but interrupt, "The forensic lady said before that maybe he has an antisocial personality?"
Ding Xinqiao looked at him silently for a moment, then said with a straight face, "You almost signed it just now."
"It's a different time now." Chen Jingzhou was always easygoing and adaptable, having no psychological burden. He followed the leader's instructions. "Will you sign, Captain Yu?"
Yu Lei's brows were furrowed so tightly that they could kill a mosquito. Reason told him that he could sign the document because all objective evidence pointed to an accident, save for the one point that he subjectively considered suspicious.
—Sign or not? Yu Lei put one hand on his waist and patted the back of his head with the other, pacing in circles several times without making up his mind.
Once signed, it's no longer an accident, as no one will investigate the case criminally. This is unfair to the victim and a sign of police incompetence for the perpetrator.
But he won't sign—so what? If he doesn't sign for a few days, it'll be considered inefficiency at best. In more serious cases, he'll be assessed as inadequately performing his duties and have a few hundred bucks deducted. He's broke anyway, so a few hundred more or less won't make a difference.
Yu Lei raised his head and said to Chen Jingzhou with a relaxed expression:
"No."
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