National Forensic Doctor
Chapter 248 - 248 238 In Minute Detail

248: Chapter 238: In Minute Detail 248: Chapter 238: In Minute Detail Jiang Yuan and the others arrived early and found a small restaurant where they could claim a not-so-clean table, set up their tea cups, sip tea with air-conditioning, and wait for the dispatch from the front.

From his position, he could see Xu Taining’s white shirt standing out hundreds of meters away.

And the traffic on both sides of the road never seemed to lessen.

Most of the reinforcements and police officers usually waited only for tens of minutes before receiving their assignments, equipped with maps or seeking local guides, they would head to their destinations.

But as more vehicles, police officers, and local staff arrived, the roads inevitably became congested.

The people who came later had to park by the side of the road without tables to sit at, simply sitting down on the curb or finding a spot like the bed of a pickup truck to scroll through their phones and chat.

The merchants of Zi Feng Town quickly demonstrated a commercial sensitivity that was no less than that of first-tier cities.

They carried tables, chairs, benches, wooden stools, and anything that looked like it could serve as seating out of their stores, also selling their goods.

The officers who had been traveling were hungry too, clutching instant noodles, bread, or spicy strips to fill their stomachs until the chefs and restaurant owners began to get excited.

At the same time, support from the mining bureau and geological teams also arrived.

Although Zifeng Mountain is a big mountain, unlike Mount Wulong, it is purely cultivated land.

Whether it is the geological team or the coal miners, they have decades of experience measuring the area with their feet.

Farmers and workers who have lived here all year round also know a great deal about Zifeng Mountain.

This is even in the now-declining state of the coal mines.

If this were the prosperous 1980s and 90s of the coal industry, there would be no unvisited places within a hundred miles of Zi Feng Town.

Tens of thousands of people lived and worked here, traversing the mountain tops and foothills day and night, producing during the week and recreating on weekends.

The most difficult mountainous areas to climb were precisely where the two large coal mines and one small coal mine were located.

The mid-mountain area was the busiest section of the coal mines, home to the coal washing plants and coal storage yards.

Transport vehicles from nearby provinces converged here, hauling goods non-stop day and night.

At night, the headlights of the coal trucks waiting for loads shone like a dragon of light winding through the bare mountains, illuminating the main peak of Zifeng Mountain as if it had been inlaid with shining pearls.

Even on New Year’s Eve, the activity wouldn’t cease.

The coal from here would provide warmth to countless people.

Below the mountain, in the South Foothills, where everyone was gathered, was Zi Feng Town.

Here stood industrial plants such as the coal machinery factory, mechanical plants, repair shops, transport fleets, agricultural machinery factories, fertilizer plants, and other small businesses, as well as the mining bureau, hospitals, schools, and government offices.

Most of the family housing for coal mine employees was also concentrated here, with specialized marketplaces, vegetable markets, cinemas, and other commercial departments supporting the livelihood of tens of thousands.

In the less bustling North Foothills of Zifeng Mountain, the area wasn’t empty either.

For historical reasons, there was a concentration of small coal kilns.

Most of them were organized by townships, primitive enterprises that were established with simple methods, and there were also small coal kilns registered under the names of production teams or communes.

The workers of the small coal kilns in the North Foothills were mainly local farmers, transportation relied on mules and horses, mining relied on pickaxes, the environment was harsh, and both production and relationships were more complex.

The primary direction of the search was now at No.1 Mine in the South Foothills, officially called Zi Feng Mining Bureau No.1 Mine.

Although it sounded like a mine shaft, it was in fact a coal mine.

No.

1 Mine was the longest-operating and best-condition coal mine in Zifeng Mountain.

Before the resources were exhausted, the mine had over 3000 employees, with a thousand actually working.

With so many people using the advanced machinery that state-owned enterprises could purchase at the time and mining continuously for decades, one could imagine the complexity of the mine shafts.

To thoroughly investigate all of those inclined shafts would take resources that even the provincial department couldn’t support.

However, unless Liu Jinghui lost his senses, he probably wouldn’t enter these abandoned mine tunnels.

Conditions inside were unpredictable, practically amounting to a gamble with one’s own life.

Xu Taining’s goal certainly wasn’t to risk hundreds of people getting buried alive in a bid to save one individual.

Therefore, his arrangements were focused on various intersections, cave entrances, mountain villages, valleys, temples, and other places.

His trouble was not knowing Liu Jinghui’s intentions and direction, so he couldn’t focus solely on No.

1 Mine and had to allot substantial personnel to search No.

2 Mine, Unity Coal Mine, Temple Gully Coal Mine, and even the small coal kilns in the North Foothills.

The advantage was that the coal mines of Zifeng Mountain had all ceased production.

Even roads that had once been bustling were now reclaimed by the forest, and experienced police officers or prospectors could easily spot traces of human traffic.

Liu Jinghui, along with two other police officers, totaling three men, were unlikely to intentionally cover their tracks.

Conversely, this was another pressure.

Now with so many people ascending the mountain, if they couldn’t find traces of Liu Jinghui, it would become even more difficult to search later.

However, such an extensive on-site search was something Xu Taining was undeniably skilled at.

Jiang Yuan and Huang Qiangmin, among others, waited nearly three hours before their names were finally called.

Approaching Xu Taining, they waited another dozen minutes before coming face to face with him.

The senior police chief, clad in a white shirt, looked a bit tired by now, his square face slightly sagging, even his lips showing signs of cracking.

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