I'm trapped in a block

Chapter 1255 Ripples on the Lake
"Later, I stayed at the university and became a professor... My uncle always supported me. He told me that studying is the most important thing. Only by studying can you understand the world and not be blinded by the noise."

"He told me that I was not a jinx, but that I had just suffered more than others."

"This world is random, and suffering will always come to everyone randomly. I just happen to have suffered more often..."

"Before my uncle passed away, he called me to his bedside and asked me a question. He asked me if, after reading so many books and learning so much knowledge, I had figured out how my sister and brother-in-law and my parents passed away."

"I couldn't answer him; I could only watch him leave this world in despair."

“Over the years, I have come back many times. Every time I come to the lake, I think of the disappointment my uncle felt when he left, and I think of my parents… I have forgotten what they look like, and I can’t remember their voices.”

"The mine pit turned into a lake, and my memories were submerged..."

The middle-aged man reached out and wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes, then looked at Lu Youqi.

"It's boring, isn't it? You're here as tourists, so you probably don't want to hear me tell these clichéd stories that have no beginning or end."

"It's nothing," Lu Youqi replied casually. He had originally wanted to say that these stories were "very interesting," but it wouldn't be appropriate to say that. He couldn't possibly think that other people's suffering was interesting, could he?

“I rarely see people from other places come here. You get tired of looking at this lake after a while, and the park is full of old things. Why did you think of coming here?”

“We’ve come to find the truth about that matter,” Lu Youqi replied directly.

For some reason, he didn't want to hide it from the middle-aged man in front of him.

Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man was taken aback and glanced at Martin standing to the side.

"Are you some kind of detective club or something? There are many clubs like that at the university where I work. Those students often dress up in strange ways and go on adventures to weird places."

"But you might be disappointed, there's nothing here..."

“I sent my students here to study this before. They checked everything that might have problems, including the magnetic field, mineral composition, trace elements, and underground water veins. Everything was normal.”

“I also asked a friend I knew to help me get the case file of that incident from the relevant department, but I still couldn’t find anything suspicious.”

"The only unusual thing about this is the disappearance of twenty people."

"There were no bodies, no clothes, it was as if they had simply left this world."

"Even Sherlock Holmes couldn't solve a case like this..."

Lu Qi listened, frowning.

Do you remember any unusual behavior your parents exhibited a few days before the incident?

“The police who came to see me asked me the same question... Kids don’t pay attention to these things. Even if they show something is wrong, I wouldn’t notice.”

"So, after investigating for so long, have you found anything?"

"Yes! Of course there is..."

The middle-aged man opened his bag and took out a tablet.

He opened a chart and handed it to Router.

"what is this?"

"Annual production chart, including the annual production of all minerals from the Tonggu Mine..." The middle-aged man stretched out his hand, pointed to an area on the chart, and said, "This is a few years after that incident. What did you find?"

Following the direction the middle-aged man was pointing, Lu Qi began to examine the data on the chart.

The data on this production chart is complex, including not only the annual mineral production but also the proportion of different types of minerals. The output of different mines also varies from year to year.

As he moved his gaze across the chart, he quickly noticed something amiss:

In the years following that incident, mineral production at Mine No. 1 began to decline rapidly, and it wasn't just a decline in the production of a single mineral; the production of all minerals declined proportionally!
This is definitely not the reason for the normal decrease in mineral content, because in the past, although the amount of minerals mined in the No. 1 mine has been decreasing year by year, the rate of decrease has been gradual. However, in the first year after the incident, the output dropped very sharply, and the output dropped at an alarming rate every year thereafter.

"The mines have suddenly become scarce!"

Furthermore, the route also compared the output of other mines and found that other mines did not experience the same "sudden drop in output" as Mine No. 1, indicating that this was not due to planned production cuts. If it were a planned production cut, all mines would have experienced the same change in the same year.

"Only Mine No. 1 experienced a rapid decline in mineral production in the years following the incident, until the entire mine was abandoned..."

"Was it because of that incident that the leaders of Tonggu Mine decided to shift their production focus?"

It doesn't seem that bad.

Either stop mining or continue mining as usual until it's all gone.

If it's a shift in production focus, it wouldn't mean that the mining of all minerals would decrease year-on-year. It should be that the mining of one type of mineral is shifted first, followed by other minerals.

This chart gives me the following impression:
The ore in Mine No. 1 suddenly started to disappear.

It's either a deliberate reduction in production or the mines are gone!
Lu's heart was pounding; he thought the matter was truly hopeless.

"This is not a story without a beginning or an end."

Even after the disappearance, some other force was having a profound impact on the entire No. 1 mine.

The stone sank into the lake, but ripples still spread...

"You noticed, didn't you?" The middle-aged man saw Lu Youqi's expression change drastically and knew that he must have noticed as well.

"Hmm." Lu Youqi nodded slightly: "The ore shouldn't be disappearing so quickly."

“That’s right. The annual mineral production of the mine can be calculated. After that incident, the annual mineral production of Mine No. 1 has fallen short of the calculated production. I found the production plan from that year, which confirms this.”

"Not enough every year?" Lu Youqi asked in surprise.

"Yes, every year, the mine predicts the mining volume based on the total amount of minerals in the pit, but since that year, it has not been reached every year. The minerals have inexplicably decreased, and the production plan cannot be completed."

"Did you find the year-end summary? Did you analyze this situation at the time?"

"Yes, but the analysis results were not very useful. At that time, people attributed the decline in production to the ore being too scattered, which affected mining efficiency, the increasing depth of the mine pit, which made mining and transportation more difficult, as well as aging equipment, insufficient personnel, and too many hot days..."

Hearing these absurd reasons, Lu Youqi shook his head.

This was clearly fabricated by people at the time to fulfill their reporting requirements. It sounds reasonable, but upon closer analysis, it is full of flaws and cannot withstand scrutiny.

There must be a deeper reason.

(End of this chapter)