The old man's ears moved, he stopped, looked back at him, and asked very unhappily, "What do you tell me to do? Do you know me? I don't know you, don't you have nothing to do, I'll tell you, if you provoke me, I'll kill you." ”

Li Rui was not afraid at all when he heard this, smiled and said, "It's really you, Liu Erkui, I worked hard all the way from the city to find you." Liu Erkui was a little strange, turned around and looked at him a few times, and said, "You came from the city, what do you mean?" Li Rui glanced at the pig-killing knife in his hand with a smile, and said: "Tell me first, what are you doing here? Kill the two policemen guarding your door, or kill the leader of the district environmental protection bureau, or kill the owner and director of the chemical plant?" Liu Erkui gasped and asked blankly: "Who are you, how do you know everything?" Li Rui smiled and raised his hand and pressed it down, saying: " I've come from the city to save you victims. You put the knife down first, find a place where no one is around, let's have a good talk, I want to find out about the pollution in the village. ”

Liu Erkui looked at the knife in his hand, clicked his mouth a little embarrassed, raised his head again, looked at him in disbelief, and asked, "Are you here to save us?" Li Rui said with a straight face: "The matter in your village has reached the ears of the city leaders, and I was appointed by the city leaders to come to investigate secretly." As for why I found you, it's because someone recommended you to me, saying you know everything. Ah, this is my work card, you can take a look at it first. After speaking, he walked up to him, took out his work card and handed it to him.

Liu Erkui was surprised and delighted when he received it in his hand, and exclaimed, "The General Office of the Municipal Party Committee......?" Are you really sent by the city leaders? Your name is Li ...... Li What is this, what is this word, forget it...... I'll just call you Director Li, hello Director Li. After speaking, he handed him both hands and wanted to shake hands with him, as for the pig-killing knife in his hand, he had already thrown it into the root of the wall.

Liu Erkui was the village chief in the end, although he was not an official, he was also familiar with the meeting procedures of officialdom, and after confirming Li Rui's identity, he immediately shook hands with him.

Li Rui smiled slightly, and after shaking hands with him, he whispered: "It's the police outside, it's not convenient to talk here, you find a secluded place, let's have a good talk." Don't worry, the Shibei District Government will not give your village the master, and Secretary Song of the Municipal Party Committee will call the shots for you. Liu Erkui was moved to tears, took his hand and walked under the big locust tree, and said: "Director Li, come to my house, I'll tell you well, I hate it when I mention it...... If you hadn't stopped me just now, I would have gone out with a knife to kill people, and my family wouldn't have survived anyway......"

The two came to the locust tree, and Liu Erkui pointed to the half-empty tree heart and said, "Director Li, please first." He still had a respectful look on his face when he spoke, but his tone was very natural, as if he was asking him to enter the elevator. Li Rui said embarrassedly: "This ...... I didn't even figured it out, how did you get out of the locust tree......? There is a tunnel under this locust tree, leading to your house?"

In fact, when Li Rui confirmed Liu Erkui's identity a few days ago, he had already guessed that there should be a tunnel under the locust tree, leading to the courtyard of the Liu family, otherwise Liu Erkui would not have been able to get out of the tree. This situation is not unusual, friends who have watched "Tunnel War" know that on the North China Plain, there are many tunnels left behind by the old generation when they resisted Japan, especially in the village, wells, sweet potato cellars, old trees, stove pits, ...... It can be used as an authentic entrance, such as Baoding Ranzhuang, the whole village is an authentic. The old locust tree in front of me has lived for hundreds of years, and naturally it has experienced the period of the Anti-Japanese War, and the heart of the tree has long been hollow, so it is not surprising that it is used by the villagers as the entrance and exit of the tunnel.

Liu Erkui nodded again and again, and said: "Yes, yes, this old locust tree has long been hollow inside, and there is a tunnel underneath, which was dug out during the anti-Japanese era, but it was not connected to my house earlier." When I was young, I had nothing to do, and I wanted to leave a way for my family, so I dug a tunnel in the backyard and went under the tree. If I hadn't been forced by those big-brimmed hats (referring to the police) today, I wouldn't have come out of here. Li Ruixin said that this was the case, thought about it, and said: "It's not convenient to get in and out, let's not go into the house to talk, just find a secluded place, I also want to ask you to take me to a seriously polluted place to take a walk." Liu Erkui was easy to speak, nodded and said, "It's okay, it's okay, then let's go to the northwest of the village, and I'll take you for a walk." ”

As he spoke, he led the way, and Li Rui accompanied him, learning about the contamination in the village with him as he walked.

Liu Erkui is the old village chief of Dongshui Village, he has been out of office for more than 20 years, and he is sixty-seven this year, and his seniority and prestige in the village are also high, so the villagers call him the old village chief. He told Li Rui that the chemical plant is located in the northwest upper reaches of Dongshui Village, and the 1,000 acres of land expropriated by the entire chemical plant are all land in Dongshui Village, so the residents of Dongshui Village and the chemical plant are close neighbors. Five years ago, the construction of this chemical plant built by Taiwanese businessmen officially began, and since then it has begun to pollute the ecological environment of Dongshui Village in various ways, including: air pollution, the entire Dongshui Village has been shrouded in smoke and fog at sky-high prices, and the yard swept in the morning is a black and gray dust at noon; soil pollution, not a single grass grows in the cultivated land near the chemical plant, and crops in the farther places have grown sluggishly, and the output has been significantly reduced; there is also groundwater pollution, and the drinking water of the villagers in Dongshui Village mainly comes from groundwater, and basically every household has a well, and in the past, water was drawn by a water press, but now they are all pumped with electric pumps, and the groundwater that has been hit in recent years has a strange smell, not to mention that people dare not drink it, even the animals turned their heads when they smelled it.

These are superficial environmental pollution problems that seem tolerable, but then they lead to more serious health problems. In recent years, five people in the village have died of cancer, including Liu Erkui's wife, and six people have suffered from cancer, all of which have a high mortality rate such as lung cancer and esophageal cancer, and Liu Erkui's youngest son is also among them. If you want to say that one or two people have cancer, it can still be explained, but so many people have cancer all of a sudden, it is obvious that there is a major problem in the local environment. There were people in the village who understood and gathered everyone together to talk about it. After collective discussions, the villagers blamed the pollution problem of the chemical plant, and repeatedly asked the cadres of the two village committees to negotiate with the chemical plant, but the chemical plant did not take the village cadres seriously at all, and each time they pushed the matter.

The two talked, without stopping, and soon left the village and arrived outside the chemical plant invested by Taiwanese businessmen. The chemical plant occupies an extremely large area, and the fence is extremely high, and standing outside the wall, it is difficult to see the buildings inside, only three huge chimneys ranging from thirty or forty meters to fifty or sixty meters high. Just like when Li Rui saw them outside the village before, they still didn't emit any smoke now, as if they had been abandoned.

Li Rui deliberately sniffed the smell of the nearby air, and did not smell any pungent odor, but he could vaguely smell a strange smell similar to a Western medicine pharmacy.

Liu Erkui pointed to the three huge chimneys and scolded: "The gang of dogs in the factory are so good, they usually emit exhaust gas 24 hours a day, and in the past two days, we have made a big fuss, for fear that something will go wrong, so we have reversed the working hours, do not produce during the day, and only start work at night." Director Li, you didn't catch up with the time, if before, if you came over during the day, you just look, the chimneys can be discharged one by one, and all the black smoke is put outside, the smell is choking, and the trachea can choke for half a month. ”

Li Rui frowned tightly and said, "When I came, I found that the ground was covered with a layer of black ash, which was discharged from here, right?" Liu Erkui said: "What do you think? You said that there is a layer of black dust in the yard every day, and there are marks on it, and the people from the Environmental Protection Bureau actually open their eyes and say nonsense, saying that they have not caused pollution, isn't this treating our old farmers as fools? Go, I'll take you to the back of the factory to see where the wastewater is discharged." Li Rui said: "Okay." "I thought to myself, the villagers of Dongshui Village breathe this kind of exhaust gas with visible dust every day, and it is no wonder that they have lung cancer, but it is hateful that the Shibei District Environmental Protection Bureau actually turns a blind eye to this, which is really hateful.

The two walked around the outer wall of the chemical plant, towards the southeast of the plant wall, near the Sangbai River, where the chemical plant discharges its sewage.

Along the way, the scene Li Rui saw on the periphery of the chemical plant was really shocking, the ground was all silver-black, there was no grass on it, and there was no living creature in sight, even the most common ant, and there was no half of it on the ground here. It is no exaggeration to say that the area around this chemical plant is simply a dead land.

The more Li Rui walked, the more he felt that the atmosphere was depressing, as if a mountain was pressed on his heart, and his heart was heavy and uncomfortable.

The two of them walked quickly, and soon they came to the sewage outlet. It has reached the edge of the Sangbai River, the south wall of the chemical plant is only six or seven meters away from the river, and the dried river is three or four meters above the surface. Under the fence, two cement pipes with a diameter of one foot poked out of the courtyard of the chemical plant, and what came out of them was black boiling water foaming at the white foam. The wastewater flows south along the channel that has been washed out under the pipe, and after flowing six or seven meters, it falls into the channel of the Sangbai River under the ridge, forming a continuous black silt flow of hundreds of meters on the side of the river near the chemical plant.