After a moment of stunned silence, Zhou Xuan suddenly grabbed the electronic voice recorder on the table, turned it on, and started listening again.
Fu Ying found Zhou Xuan's actions strange, but she didn't interrupt him.
Zhou Xuan listened to it once, then went back to listen a second time. On the third listen, when he heard Li Xinyuan's wife say that her husband left around 10 o'clock, taking tools with him, and finally a large loop of rope, Zhou Xuan suddenly slapped his thigh and exclaimed with delight, "I've got it! I've got it!"
Fu Ying paused for a moment, then asked, "What did you think of?"
Zhou Xuan stood up excitedly, kissed Fu Ying on the lips, and said with the electronic pen in hand, "I'm going to talk to the higher-ups at Blue. I've thought of a problem. Maybe it will be useful."
Fu Ying was suddenly kissed on the lips by him. She took a step back and glared at him, both angry and annoyed. This guy is getting bolder and bolder!
Zhou Xuan waved to her excitedly, then casually left the room with his pen in hand.
He gently knocked on Lan Gao's room door and asked, "Lan Gao, are you there?"
"Come in!"
Lan Gao's voice sounded slightly tired; the days of running around and achieving nothing had left him physically and mentally exhausted.
Zhou Bin pushed open the door, then closed it tightly before walking inside.
Lan Gaozhang leaned against the sofa, rubbed his eyes hard, and sighed, "We have no clue whatsoever. Fortunately, only a miniature coffin was found, which is a blessing in disguise. Although things were urgent, it's good that no similar incidents have occurred. However, Li Xinyuan and his gang, who knew the details, are all dead and cannot be questioned, so we have no way to investigate."
Zhou Xuan thought for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "High-ranking Lan, I do have a slight clue. But I can't say that I've really found a lead. I just feel that it might be useful."
The senior executive was taken aback, then abruptly stood up from the sofa and stared at him, saying, "What clues do you have? Tell me quickly!"
Volume One: The Lotus Buds Just Begin to Emerge, Chapter Ninety-Five: The Bottomless Abyss
"Eliminate the high-level!" Zhou Fu said thoughtfully. He had heard Li Jinlong say that Gong Huilai had searched almost every inch of Yanshi but still couldn't find it. He estimated that even if there really was a treasure in this ancient city, it would be buried very deep and could not be dug out, or it simply didn't exist.
The senior executive in the Blue Bureau paused for a moment, then asked, "Nothing? If not, what clues did you look for?"
Zhou Xuan chuckled and said, "I haven't finished speaking yet. There's a third point, which is just my estimation. I think this ancient tomb must be very deep, unimaginably deep, which is why no one has been able to find it for thousands of years. But if Li Xinyuan has already found the entrance to the tomb, and there are no suspicious points in Yanshi, I'm wondering if the entrance isn't even in Yanshi County?"
"Not in Yanshi County?" The Blue-collar official was quite puzzled. "If it's not in Yanshi County, then where could it be? According to various sources, this ancient city ruins are located in Yanshi County."
Zhou Xuan smiled and said, "I didn't say the ancient city's treasure isn't in Yanshi County. I just said the entrance. The entrance might not be in Yanshi County. Think about it, if Li Xinyuan found this entrance, such a huge treasure ancient city, if he were to use the method of digging tunnels and tomb raiding, and the location isn't in the middle of nowhere, then there's no way he could hide it. But it's not just us; even countless skilled colleagues like Li Xinyuan in the company couldn't find this place. So it's obviously not in Yanshi County."
Lan Gaofeng murmured, "If it's not in Yanshi County, then where could it be?"
Zhou Xuan raised his electronic pen and played the recording again. After listening, the senior executive frowned and said, "I've listened to it countless times, and I've also talked to her face to face. From my observation, I think Li Xinyuan's wife is not lying. She probably doesn't know the details. How can you know something she doesn't even know? Just from the recording?"
Zhou Xuan smiled and said, "I didn't say that Li Xinyuan's wife knew the truth. I just said that I found a little clue from her words!"
As Zhou Xuan spoke, he rewound the recording and played the part where Li Xinyuan was lifting the rope twice for the Blue executives.
The Blue executive understood Zhou Xuan's meaning and said, "It's just a large loop of rope, what's there to be suspicious about?"
Zhou Xuan shook his head and said, "High-ranking Lan, this is just an estimate. I encountered some things in the United States before, and from that experience, I came up with a clue. Could this entrance be a natural sinkhole or something? Firstly, such a natural environment wouldn't attract too much attention. Secondly, sinkholes have always been mysterious, and ordinary people wouldn't go down there for no reason. It's dangerous, and naturally, no one would be bored enough to go into a sinkhole, right?"
The senior executive smiled noncommittally.
Zhou Xuan then asked, "Didn't Li Xinyuan's wife say that Li Xinyuan unexpectedly took a large loop of rope? Does that mean we need to go down a very deep tunnel?"
The Blue executives also pondered. Although Zhou Xuan's words were not entirely relevant, they were not entirely without merit. Since there was no progress or clue in the current situation, it might be worthwhile to try to find a breakthrough from him.
After thinking it over, the senior executives of Lan immediately notified Li Yong and Fang Jianjun to call Li Jinlong and everyone else to his room.
Once everyone had arrived, including Wei Haihong, Wei Xiaoqing, and Fu Ying, the large room suddenly felt a bit crowded.
Wang Qiang and Wang Sheng (brothers), Li Jinlong and his nephew, Wei Haihong and Wei Xiaoqing (uncle and nephew), Zhou Xuan and Fu Ying, Lan Gaofeng, Li Yong, Fang Jianjun, and Ling Hui. There were fourteen people in total. Lan Gaofeng looked at everyone and nodded, saying, "You're all here. Hmm, how many of you are locals from Yanshi?"
Ling Hui raised her hand. Li Jinlong, his uncle, nephew, and son-in-law were all locals from Yanshi, while Wang Qiang and Wang Sheng were from a neighboring city.
The senior executive nodded, waved his hand in acknowledgment, and then asked, "The matter I'm asking about is something that only those most familiar with the local area would know."
When it comes to familiarity with the strategic locations of Yanshi, who else but Li Jinlong could compare? Those in this line of work can practically know the surrounding area within a hundred miles like a map; everything is etched in their minds.
Although Ling Hui is also a local, she is far less familiar with the local terrain than Li Jinlong, and even less so than Li Quan, Li Feihu, and Wang Dagui.
"High-ranking Lan, you tell me, when it comes to familiarity with the local area, well, you know I'm pretty familiar with it, right?" Li Jinlong knew that High-ranking Lan's purpose in saying these things was actually to find out about him, his background. High-ranking Lan probably already knew him inside and out.
Lan Gao smiled and said, "Old Li, you must be very familiar with the terrain of Yanshi. Are there any places with unusual terrain near Yanshi? For example, sinkholes or fissures?"
"Sinkholes and fissures?" Li Jinlong was taken aback. He had thought that the higher-ups in Lan would ask which places in Yanshi County were the most suspicious and most likely to be where the ancient city ruins were hiding treasures. Who knew that he would ask such a question instead.
“Sinkholes and fissures are quite peculiar. They are relatively rare in Henan, but quite common in my country. Most of them are located in mountainous areas, and in my country, they are mostly distributed in Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, and Guangxi. They are almost non-existent in Henan!” Li Jinlong said, squinting as he thought and shaking his head.
Zhou Xuan frowned. If even a local strongman like Li Jinlong said there was no such thing, then there was no such thing. It seemed that his initial reaction was wrong this time.
The Wang brothers are not from Luoyang. Although they are familiar with Luoyang, they are certainly not as familiar with smaller places as Li Jinlong is.
Li Quan, Li Feihu, and their brother-in-law Wang Dagui were in a similar situation; they couldn't come up with anything even after thinking it over and over.
While everyone remained silent, Ling Hui hesitated before asking, "Does something like a well count?"
"A well?" Li Jinlong asked in surprise. "What kind of well?"
Seeing everyone's eyes on her, Ling Hui felt a little flustered and stammered, "When I was in middle school, I went to Xiaoyang Mountain west of Yanshi County with some classmates. There's a small sinkhole on the eastern slope of Xiaoyang Mountain."
At this point in Ling Hui's speech, Li Quan suddenly said, "That place on Xiaoyang Mountain... Oh dear, I really forgot. But could that be considered a sinkhole? A bottomless pit, right?"
Upon hearing this, Li Jinlong and his nephews all remembered. Li Jinlong said, "Now that you mention it, I do recall such a pit. It's located four kilometers west of Yanshi City, in a relatively remote area of Xiaoyang Mountain, with few houses for miles around. However, that pit is somewhat different from a sinkhole. First, the opening on the surface is small, only a little over a meter in diameter, and its depth is unfathomable. When you throw stones in, you can't hear the sound of them hitting the bottom. But the opening is warm in winter and cool in summer. When I was a child, a boy from Zhang Village accidentally fell in. His family hired a few people to lower a rope down, but after two or three hundred meters, they still hadn't reached the bottom, so they were too afraid to go any further. As a result, the boy's body was never recovered. After that, very few people went there. Could this be related to... could it be related to the ancient city?"
As he said this, Li Jinlong suddenly felt his voice trembling!
He suddenly had a feeling. This bottomless pit might really be related to that lost ancient civilization!