On the outskirts of the county… the sugar factory!
Tonight, besides Li Yi and Tang Xue, the senior officials of the Qingshan County Sugar Factory were also unable to sleep.
The factory office was filled with cigarette smoke; aside from Director Liang Yukuai, all the middle-level and higher-ranking officials were present.
Even more shocking was the presence of quite a few police officers standing guard inside.
However, the relationship between the sugar factory officials and the police was somewhat complicated—it hardly seemed like a cooperative one.
After all, even if anyone in the conference room wanted to use the restroom, they had to first report to the police officers at the door, who would then assign someone to escort them there.
This treatment was exactly what one would expect for a criminal suspect!
Seated at the head of the conference table, Liang Yukuai silently smoked a cigarette, though his mind was clearly elsewhere—he didn’t even notice the ember was about to burn the fingers holding the cigarette.
Factory Director Liang had never imagined that, by following his junior colleague’s advice, he would uncover so many problems—problems that might even lead to a major case.
This morning, when his junior colleague Wang Anguo rushed to him again, urging him to conduct another safety inspection of the factory before resuming production,
Trusting his junior colleague, Plant Manager Liang decisively postponed the resumption of production and ordered another comprehensive safety inspection of the entire facility.
Thanks to Li Yi’s deliberate reminder, Director Liang and his team focused their inspection specifically on the safety of the production workshops and other buildings.
They didn’t realize the extent of the problem until they started inspecting—and what they found nearly left them paralyzed with fear on the spot.
After a thorough investigation by the technical department, they discovered that the steel beams on the roofs of Production Workshops 1 and 3 had multiple cracks, and in some places, they had already snapped.
It’s important to note that the steel beams in the production workshops aren’t just load-bearing roof beams; more importantly, they also support the tracks for the motor transport system.
In other words, a ring of transport tracks is installed beneath the steel beams, with multiple sets of motors suspended from the tracks.
When raw materials need to be fed into the sugar-making equipment, workers simply operate the motors manually—there’s no need for them to carry the loads by hand.
Each of these transport tracks carries more than ten motors.
Combined with the raw materials below, if the motors are running at full power, the suspended load could exceed several thousand or even tens of thousands of pounds.
Given the current issues with the steel beams, it won’t be long before they are crushed by the massive roof above.
If heavy loads continue to be dragged along below, it will only cause the steel beams to collapse even faster and more completely.
One can only imagine the consequences if the steel beams were to suddenly collapse while the workers were in the midst of full-scale production.
If the aging wiring discovered yesterday posed a risk of short circuits and fires, then the problems uncovered today are enough to completely destroy the entire sugar factory.
It goes without saying what would become of these people if that were to happen.
After the problems were discovered, Plant Manager Liang and the others were stunned.
After all, both Workshop 1 and Workshop 3 were brand-new facilities rebuilt just two years ago. To meet the sugar mill’s production standards, all the load-bearing steel beams had been custom-ordered from renowned domestic manufacturers—a process that had cost a fortune.
They had previously inspected samples of the steel beams produced by this supplier and found them to be exceptionally sturdy and durable.
Moreover, the supplier was a military-to-civilian conversion enterprise; it was neither likely nor possible that they would cheat a small business like theirs.
Most importantly, the sugar factory had always maintained strict control over safety standards, with the technical department conducting facility inspections almost every week.
How could such an obvious problem have gone undetected? It defies common sense!
Immediately, Plant Manager Liang ordered all the technical department team leaders to be summoned and questioned them personally.
But this inquiry uncovered a major problem!
It turned out that the technical department had discovered this problem long ago and had repeatedly submitted detailed reports to Fan Tongyu, the deputy plant manager in charge of this area—and not just once.
However, the matter had been dragging on for so long without ever being resolved.
Consequently, the head of the technical department found this puzzling and had specifically sought out Deputy Plant Manager Fan to discuss the matter.
However, the response we received was that the factory administration is currently looking into the matter.
Furthermore, because the factory’s current production workload is so heavy, and in order to fulfill the tasks assigned by higher-ups, it is impossible to replace the steel beams in the short term; therefore, everything will have to wait until this year’s production targets are met.
After listening to the situation briefings from the technical department’s team leaders, Plant Manager Liang was completely dumbfounded.
He had no prior knowledge of such a critical matter, and regarding an issue of this magnitude, Fan Tongyu hadn’t even consulted him, the plant manager.
Considering that Production Workshops 1 and 3 were under Fan Tongyu’s direct supervision, and that he had personally led the negotiations for all the equipment,
Now that such a serious problem had arisen, instead of focusing on resolving it, he was actually trying to cover it up—which was completely against common sense.
Liang Yuke, having weathered many storms in his career, quickly realized there was something fishy going on.
While he had someone keep Fan Tongyu and the other factory officials in check, he simultaneously summoned all middle-level and senior managers to the conference room under the pretext of holding a safety meeting.
In addition, he personally dispatched a trusted aide to the county public security bureau to inform his junior colleague, Wang Anguo, of the situation and asked him to personally lead a team to the sugar factory.
Upon receiving the order to attend the meeting, the factory’s cadres filed into the conference room in unison. As soon as they arrived, they were all taken into custody by police officers who had been waiting there.
Subsequently, Wang Anguo, Li Gang, and others personally conducted interrogations of the relevant personnel.
This investigation brought to light some previously unknown internal secrets within the sugar factory.
As the investigation deepened, a massive corruption ring led by Deputy Plant Manager Fan Tongyu was exposed.
It was like pulling a radish and bringing up the mud—as one person after another was led out for questioning, the others in the conference room could no longer sit still.
It was simply unbearable!
No one knew what was happening; everyone could only hear the police repeatedly calling out familiar names, and those who were called out never returned to the conference room.
Occasionally, through the conference room door, they could even hear someone shouting, “I’m innocent!”
For a time, the dozens of officials in the sugar factory’s conference room were all gripped by fear.
Compared to the others’ worries and fears, Director Liang was mostly overcome by a sense of dread.
Even before Wang Anguo and the others arrived, he had discussed the situation with key members of the technical department. According to them, based on their inspection results of the two production workshops, the quality of the steel beams used in the upper structures was completely substandard.
Under these circumstances, even under normal production conditions, the structure wouldn’t hold up for much longer.
Not to mention the current heavy production workload, with all production workshops operating at full capacity.
If production hadn’t been halted in time today, a problem might have occurred in as little as a month and a half.
In the worst-case scenario, the entire factory building could have collapsed, likely resulting in significant casualties.
Liang Yukui suddenly recalled what his junior apprentice had told him earlier—that the master had said he, like the other factory officials, had a dark spot between his eyebrows, indicating a fate marked by legal troubles.
That was spot on!
If the other party hadn’t warned them, not a single senior executive in the entire factory would have escaped unscathed this time.
So Liang Yuke silently vowed that once this matter was resolved, he would definitely express his sincere gratitude to that master!