I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

Jiang Ming looked down at the white paper folded into a square in his hand.

The paper was stained with machine oil, and the distinctive smell of coal slag from the foundry workshop seeped into my nostrils through the seams.

He unfolded the paper and saw that it was filled with pencil writing that penetrated the paper, neat in style, but with a sense of urgency between the lines.

The whistleblower, who identified himself as Xiao Li, said he dug up three unidentified metal buckets at the bottom of a waste pile in a foundry workshop.

The barrels were labeled with the factory's label from the East Suburbs Chemical Plant, but there was no record of them in the plant's inventory register.

A red clay fingerprint was pressed in the lower right corner of the paper, leaving a dark red stain on the rough paper surface.

The elderly gatekeeper rubbed his hands, which were covered in chilblains, while keeping his eyes fixed on the activity at both ends of the main road.

Jiang Ming did not comment on the letter. He simply folded it again, stuffed it into his work uniform pocket, and then changed his route to the cafeteria, striding towards the gray brick building of the security department.

The innermost office on the second floor of the security department was half-closed, and through the crack in the door, one could smell the acrid odor of cheap tobacco burning down to the filter.

When Jiang Ming pushed open the door, the crew-cut officer was standing in front of the peeling paint on his desk, wiping a rough steel shovel covered in grease and ash with a dirty rag.

Hearing the scraping sound of the cast iron hinges, the clerk threw the rag and steel bar into the corner and pointed to a newly copied transcript on the table.

"The stuff Xiao Li dug out of the waste pile in the foundry was dirtier than you think."

"This kid has dug out a bombshell that could blow the world up."

The clerk opened the drawer, took out a brown paper envelope, and pushed it to Jiang Ming's side.

"He used to do a lot of shady things with Liu Shouxin. This time, he was quick-witted and knew to make amends during his labor reform and find a way to survive."

Jiang Ming pulled over a creaking wooden chair, sat down, picked up the record with the site survey map attached, and quickly scanned the lines and markings on it.

The sketch was very detailed, indicating the location of the waste pile at the base of the east wall of the foundry workshop, and also using arrows and a scale to mark the burial depth and angle of the three iron barrels.

"The foundry workshop is filled with waste quartz sand and coal ash for casting every day. Nobody usually goes to turn over that waste pile."

"Now that the weather is cold, the waste piles freeze like iron ingots."

The flat-headed clerk walked over with an enamel mug and handed hot water to Jiang Ming.

"If Xiao Li hadn't been punished by the workshop director to clean up the innermost layer of clumps of dust, these three buckets might have remained buried for a year without anyone noticing."

The clerk sat down opposite him and tapped his fingers twice on the table.

Jiang Ming stared at the batch label of the East Suburb Chemical Plant on the sketch, his fingertip lingering on the September production date for a moment.

"Did you see it in person, or did you only hear his side of the story?"

Jiang Ming looked up at the officer, his tone calm.

"I took people to the scene as soon as I received the letter."

The clerk picked up his teacup, took a sip of hot water, and frowned.

"The green paint on the outside of those three buckets hasn't peeled off much, and the rust marks combined are less than the size of a palm, which means they were thrown into the waste pile no more than two months ago."

"The lid of the bucket was welded tightly shut, and Xiao Li only had a broken shovel, so he couldn't open it at all."

"I used the long shovel in the corner to smash open the lid of the barrel and found that the surface was indeed covered with gray-black waste residue from the East Suburbs Chemical Plant, and it also had a sour smell."

At this point, the officer stopped what he was doing, gestured with his hand to indicate the thickness, and his expression turned grim.

"A moisture-proof interlayer was installed under the waste residue, and underneath it was a layer of white crystalline powder about three fingers thick. It felt a bit slippery to the touch, and it was definitely not the auxiliary material used in the foundry workshop."

Jiang Ming's hand, holding the teacup, froze in mid-air, causing a small ripple to appear in the hot water inside.

His gaze fell on the officer's gesture indicating thickness, and his expression gradually became serious.

The chemical plant in the eastern suburbs, the scrapped iron drums, the disguised waste residue, and the white powder at the bottom of the drums.

These seemingly disparate clues were quickly pieced together in Jiang Ming's mind to form a chemical product that he had just produced in Workshop No. 1.

When cerium oxalate precipitate is first filtered out of the reaction tank, it is in the form of a paste. After being dried at a low temperature, it becomes a white microcrystalline powder with a slippery feel.

If the barrel contains high-purity cerium oxalate or other rare earth intermediates, then it is definitely not an ordinary case of illegal waste disposal.

Someone is using industrial waste as cover to secretly transfer refined, high-value strategic materials.

"Have you taken a powder sample? Has it been sent to the analysis lab?"

Jiang Ming put the teacup back on the table and stared at the clerk opposite him.

"Two tubes were taken and have been sent to the chemical analysis lab for testing overnight."

The officer patted the manila envelope, which contained the original of Xiao Li's whistleblower letter and materials bearing a red handprint.

Jiang Ming leaned back in his chair and reviewed the events of the past few months.

A receptionist at the East Suburb Chemical Plant once sold the news that Jiang Ming's hand had been burned by strong acid to Xu Chongwen's assistant.

At the time, Jiang Ming thought that it was just low-level employees tipping off others in order to earn some extra money.

In retrospect, if the three waste bins contained high-purity rare earth intermediates, the receptionist was likely a regular informant in the underground smuggling chain, or even a middleman.

Inside the East Suburbs Chemical Plant, someone was found to be loading the preliminarily purified material into iron drums, covering them with a layer of waste residue as a disguise, and finally affixing labels indicating that the batch was normally scrapped.

The fact that these items were sent to the Third Electronics Factory could not possibly have been intended for use in the foundry workshop.

The other party likely wants to use the heavily guarded waste warehouse of the Third Electronics Factory as a transit point for goods, or is preparing to complete the next step of laundering and loading here.

However, Liu Shouxin's sudden downfall disrupted their plans, preventing the shipment from being sent out in time.

"You need to continue investigating along this line; there are three things that must be done immediately."

Jiang Ming didn't touch the envelope containing the original document, but instead sorted out the logic of the matter layer by layer.

"You said it, I'll remember it."

The clerk opened the duty log on the table and removed the cap from his pen.

"First, keep a close eye on the chemical analysis lab."

"Show me the test results for the white powder as soon as they come out."

"Its composition and purity will directly determine the nature and scope of this matter."

Jiang Ming spoke slowly and deliberately, tapping his knuckles on the table once.

"Second, go to the General Affairs Department first thing tomorrow morning to check the September outbound inventory list of the East Suburb Chemical Plant, and then check it against our factory's inbound inventory records one by one."

"We must find out whether these three buckets were illegally signed for and brought in, or whether they were smuggled in along with other scrap trucks."

"Third, use the red secure phone on the table to notify Director Wang."

"This is no longer a simple misappropriation of administrative assets; it may very well involve enemy agents using scrap materials to transfer strategic materials. The Security Section cannot close this case on its own."

The officer wrote down the three things in his duty log one by one, and then closed the notebook.

"Xiao Li's report was written very sincerely, and the sketch was also drawn clearly."

"His last sentence, 'Nothing is hidden,' was his way of saving himself."

The officer wrote "Positive attitude, usable" on the edge of the complaint letter.

Jiang Ming stood up, picked up the half-cold water on the table, drank it all in one gulp, and then put the empty glass down.

"If he can dig this line out of the junkyard, he's already seized an opportunity to redeem himself."

"Once the matter is thoroughly investigated, the factory will naturally reach a conclusion."

"Keep him calm and don't let the news leak out."

Jiang Ming pushed open the wooden door of the security office, and the cold wind blowing from the Gobi Desert rushed in, dispelling some of the fatigue from staying up all night monitoring data.

He had to get back to Workshop One immediately.

The life test data of those five tubes were his confidence in dealing with external attacks, both overt and covert.

As soon as you step through the heavy, soundproof iron door of the workshop, the roar of the vacuum pump hits you, and the air is filled with the burnt smell of glass being baked in the annealing furnace.

Old Sun stood up from the wooden box next to the testing station, his blue work clothes covered with large patches of yellowish-green rust, and he was holding a thick metal pipe in his hand.

"where have you been?"

"I just led Da Liu to dig something good out of the boiler room's waste pile, and we're waiting for you to come back and make your decision."

Old Sun patted the metal pipe with his calloused hands, producing a dull echo.

Jiang Ming walked over, glanced at it under the incandescent light on the worktable, and quickly recognized it as a section of scrapped copper steam pipe.

"The inner diameter of this thing is at least twelve centimeters, which is more than 20% thicker than the glass column we found in the junkyard."

"The pipe wall is so thick, it can hold up no matter how much activated carbon and sulfonated coal you fill it with." Old Sun held a tape measure to measure both ends of the copper pipe, his face unable to hide his excitement.

Jiang Ming took the heavy copper tube and weighed it in his hand. The verdigris peeled off the tube wall, smearing his hand with greenish-gray.

"The deionized water column with double the output has been secured."

"With this, we no longer need to wait more than ten hours for water production when the pipes are reworked."

Once the bottleneck of high-purity water supply is resolved, the 500-hour lifespan test can completely eliminate the biggest hidden danger.