Chapter 807: Chapter 805: Where Is the Problem?

Ye Xinyan expressed regret for Zheng Pengfei’s skill: she couldn’t learn it, nor could she see it.

Helplessly, she concluded that Zheng Pengfei was somewhat like a modern-day undercover detective, someone who could spot something unusual in the travelers’ gaits or eyes in a waiting hall, stop them to investigate, and discover drugs or someone else’s suitcase and bag in their possession… and so on.

If you put an ordinary person in a waiting hall to patrol, naturally they wouldn’t see anything.

Obviously, she was that kind of ordinary person who couldn’t see anything, while Zheng Pengfei possessed the special skill of Fiery Eyes, an undercover detective.

At this moment, Ye Xinyan and Zheng Pengfei stood on one side of the construction railway, their gaze scanning over the busy workers and the constantly patrolling master craftsmen among them.

Her eyes inadvertently swept over the various construction points several times before she dejectedly withdrew her gaze, saying to Zheng Pengfei, “Big Brother Zheng, I still haven’t seen anything.”

Zheng Pengfei was also helpless, “How could you not see? Look at that craftsman, it’s Liu She. His gaze when scolding those few workers, and the reaction of that worker in short brown clothes with patches on his shoulders, is very different from others.”

Although Zheng Pengfei’s words specifically referred to those two people not far away, his eyes did not look in that direction.

Ye Xinyan’s gaze quickly swept over the site and decisively withdrew, “Didn’t see anything. I won’t look anymore; too stupid. If I keep watching, others might notice that something’s wrong and it will cause trouble.”

Seeing the dejection on Ye Xinyan’s face, Zheng Pengfei chuckled. This Miss Ye was astoundingly smart in many things, but in this case, such obvious wrong gaze and behavior, she simply couldn’t see it.

This really wasn’t difficult; he had pointed it out to the palace guards, and they only needed to see twice to understand. But how many times had Miss Ye tried, yet no matter how he guided her, she couldn’t understand.

“Are there no visible issues with that batch of goods?” Zheng Pengfei changed the topic. He could see the unusual exchange of glances between the person delivering and receiving the goods, but he didn’t know the inner meaning of this difference, nor did he know where the problem might arise.

Seeing that there’s a problem yet not knowing where it lies is useless.

Ye Xinyan shook her head, “From the appearance, there’s nothing. With so many people and prying eyes around, if I were to suddenly open the boxes and check them one by one, it might alert them. We’ll have to wait until night, let someone monitor Liu She and his people, and send others to check carefully if there’s a problem with that batch of goods.”

This was according to Jiang Yifan’s plan.

Jiang Yifan’s plan was, if hostile forces were to sabotage the quality of the railway paving, that’s the best. Don’t prevent such sabotage, just keep the sabotage process and result under control.

Wait until the railway starts trial runs, and after a big accident occurs, based on the clues and evidence they have, lead to a bigger commotion.

Ideally, this would be done by Prince Fu or the Crown Prince, making all the court officials and even people nationwide realize that these two’s inner mentality isn’t as grand and immaculate as they appear, making the Emperor disappointed in them, and causing court officials to lose faith in them. That would be the best outcome.

To someone like Jiang Yifan, this result is much more powerful than capturing a few spies and smoothly completing the project.

Without waiting until night, that afternoon, someone hurried to the site claiming to be a neighbor of Qu Youjiang. They came to deliver a message that Qu Youjiang’s eldest brother got into a dispute, blood was drawn, and now he’s being taken to see the authorities, so he must return immediately to handle it.

Qu Youjiang was a leading craftsman at the site, and was part of the same group as the problematic Liu She. Just after unloading the problematic materials today, someone came to take him away, something’s definitely up, and Ye Xinyan naturally agreed immediately.

But he couldn’t be simply allowed to leave; his actions after leaving must be monitored. Although tracking Qu Youjiang would be best done by someone like Zheng Pengfei due to his skills, he’s too conspicuous at the site. If Qu Youjiang leaves and Zheng Pengfei follows, his absence would raise suspicion.

Luckily, there were two Hidden Guards in the dark on-site waiting for commands at any time; Zhang Chang arranged for one to follow Qu Youjiang and the other to gather staff to follow.

That night at the second watch, in the quiet of night, Zhang Chang and Ye Xinyan led ten craftsmen skilled in material into the warehouse, opened every box of the day’s unloaded goods, and carefully inspected them, finding problems with thirty boxes of bolt fasteners and spikes.

These items were coated with a layer of grease as anti-corrosion, if not looked at closely, few issues were visible from the appearance. But with attention, one could see beneath the grease coating, the texture of these parts was somewhat rough, with surface micro-holes, and the heft slightly differed from regular parts.

Because these thirty boxes of fasteners were mingled among regular parts, the inspection was very time-consuming. It took nearly an hour for ten people to thoroughly check the entire batch received during the day, recording these boxes’ numbers.

With the warehouse goods neatly stacked as before, the team quietly exited the warehouse, and Zheng Pengfei removed the bewitching fragrance control in the storeroom, restoring everything to normal.

To avoid exposing traces, none of them discussed the matter, each returning to rest.

The next morning, during materials retrieval, several of the problematic workers identified earlier by Zheng Pengfei, in cooperation with a storeroom manager, took six boxes of problematic fasteners and spikes from the mixed materials pile.

Ye Xinyan, Zhang Chang, and several others were in the conference room discussing these materials when they heard that part of the materials had already been retrieved, confounding them further.

These items indeed did not meet material requirements, spikes, and bolt fasteners had loose texture, clearly something went wrong during iron smelting. These were defective, had high brittleness, and weren’t hard enough.

Using such materials on the railway might not be evident right away, still holding up for some time. But after a few months’ use, the vibrations from heavy carriages passing over, or the alternating hot and cold temperatures, stress from thermal expansion and contraction would lead them to crack, causing the entire track to derail and be destroyed. During the accident, there might be losses of goods carriages, materials, and even soldiers.

The issue is, this batch was sent by the Works Department, and if large-scale railway problems occur, checks won’t be difficult; it would be due to poor quality fasteners. The issue then falls not just on Guangsha Construction and Jinrong, their oversight weak, but the main blame for fraudulent materials lies with the Works Department.

Prince Fu’s faction has talented people involved, utterly no reason to do such a foolish thing.

During their perplexity, information came from outside that one mile from the site, a deal was made last night involving a batch of iron parts. The boxes’ size and shape were identical to those storing fasteners and spikes in the warehouse.

The head of the transaction was Qu Youjiang, who left to handle family affairs, and the trackers were too far to hear what was said. However, the other group participating in the deal was now under strict surveillance.