"Report!" An Zhengbang and Li Meng led Xu Jianguo to a room on the third floor. After greeting the guard at the door, they shouted.
"Come in!" A slightly low voice came from inside the door.
An Zhengbang and Xu Jianguo walked in, while Li Meng and the guards stayed outside the door.
"Report to the commander, Xu Jianguo has been brought here!"
Xu Jianguo looked at the white-haired old man sitting at his desk, who was seriously looking at the documents in his hands, and said, "Commander, Xu Jianguo is here to report for duty at Binhai Base."
The old man didn't look up and said, "An Zhengbang, please go out first. I have something to say to Xu Jianguo."
"Yes!" An Zhengbang answered and left the room.
Xu Jianguo stood there and waited for a while. The old man put down the documents in his hand and looked up at the young man who was standing straight in front of him.
After a moment, he smiled and said, "Young man, you stand at attention very well!"
When Xu Jianguo heard the old man speak, he lowered his gaze to look at the old man and said, "Thank you for the compliment, Chief!"
"Please sit down!" Yang Shulin said.
"Yes." Xu Jianguo pulled out a chair and sat down, his back still straight, looking at the commander of the Chengdu base.
The old man had silver hair, a crew cut, and a square face, giving people a sense of awe without even being angry. There was a long scar from the left corner of his eye to his cheek, which made his face look a little hideous and full of murderous intent.
"Is it a little scary?" Yang Shulin asked.
"No!" Xu Jianguo shook his head.
"Did your commander Ma tell you?"
Xu Jianguo nodded and said, "He said it was inconvenient to talk on the phone, so he asked me to come to you and told me that you would tell me the whole story."
"Sign this first!" Yang Shulin opened the drawer of the desk, took out a document from it, and placed it in front of Xu Jianguo.
Xu Jianguo looked down and found that it was a confidentiality agreement with a top secret level. His pupils couldn't help but shrink slightly.
Without hesitation, he picked up a pen on the table, signed his name readily, and then handed the document to Yang Shulin.
After taking the document and looking through it, Yang Shulin said, "Xu Jianguo, I hope you can remember what I'm about to say to you. Don't mention it to anyone, not even your parents, wife, or children. If you leak it, you will be charged with treason. Do you understand?"
"I understand!" Xu Jianguo said.
"The story begins a month ago..." Yang Shulin said.
Ten minutes later, Xu Jianguo knew the whole story.
Last month, a 30-member scientific expedition team composed of the military and the Longxia National Geological Research Institute arrived at the Rongcheng base. Their mission this time was to search for a special mineral in the mountains of Bashu. This substance is very important for an experimental research currently being carried out in the desert.
Yang Shulin, as the person in charge of the Rongcheng base, received them warmly and arranged for a platoon of guards to accompany them into the mountains.
At the beginning, the entire mission went very smoothly. The Rongcheng base received information sent back by them every day. However, since the base received the last report from the scientific expedition team half a month ago, it has not received any news from them.
It is indeed unbelievable that a scientific expedition team of thirty people, plus a platoon of fully armed guards, a team of sixty or seventy people suddenly disappeared without a trace.
According to records, the location of the scientific expedition team before they disappeared was in a large canyon that the locals called Fairy Mountain. It is said that two professors from the Geological Research Institute found an underground cave and found the minerals they needed near the entrance of the cave. Therefore, the scientific expedition team prepared to go deep into the cave for a careful exploration, saying that they would contact each other after they came out. However, after waiting for five consecutive days, the Chengdu base did not receive any news from them.
After hearing the news, Yang Shulin immediately realized that something might have happened to the scientific expedition team, so he issued an emergency order, requiring the garrison closest to the scene to go for search and rescue. However, when a company of officers and soldiers of the garrison arrived at the scene, they did not find any clues, nor did they find the cave mentioned in the telegram.
Later, I also asked the villagers in the nearby villages, but they all said that they had never seen any scientific expedition team. After all, in an isolated village like theirs, if outsiders suddenly appeared, the villagers would definitely know about it.
When the garrison reported the news back to the Chengdu base, Yang Shulin suddenly felt his scalp tingling and immediately reported the situation to the capital.
The bigwigs within the red walls of Beijing were shocked but also immediately issued instructions, requiring Yang Shulin to find the missing scientific expedition team at all costs, and all bases must unconditionally support the Chengdu base.
As the highest commander of the Rongcheng base, Yang Shulin immediately issued a military order. In the next three days, he called his training staff and, based on the entire Bashu military map, began to look for other places called Fairy Mountain. He even marked out all the canyons and then sent garrisons to these places to search.
But more than ten days passed, and the search teams sent out could not find the whereabouts of the scientific expedition team. Those sixty or seventy people seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth, with no one known to them alive or dead.
Until today, when Yang Shulin was in a meeting, he received calls from his old comrades Ma Guoliang and Wu Dajiang. This should have been right after Xu Jianguo finished talking to them. The two recommended Xu Jianguo to Yang Shulin on the phone.
At first, Yang Shulin firmly disagreed, until the two of them said that the old leader valued Xu Jianguo very much, he relented and agreed to meet Xu Jianguo first.
Of course, this does not mean that Yang Shulin fully trusts this young man whom he has never met. When he asked his two comrades why they recommended Xu Jianguo, they gave almost the same answer: he is calm, good at analysis, skilled, and understands medical skills. Most importantly, he loves his country.
Of course, due to the principle of confidentiality, Ma Guoliang and Wu Dajiang did not tell Yang Shulin everything about Xu Jianguo. For example, during the time Xu Jianguo was in the Black Mountain Base, many people did not know about it except for some people who had direct contact with him.
Yang Shulin thought for a long time after hanging up the phone. It was not until he got confirmation from his old leader who was far away in Kyoto that he let down his guard and the conversation between the two of them just now took place.
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