Proving Innocence

August 5th.

Shiguang Blog, which had accumulated 24.67 million users, saw a post regarding Suiren Company skyrocket to the top of the daily trending list.

The content of the post was published by the official account of Suiren Company, the parent company of Shiguang Blog, and reposted by the official account of Lingnan TV Station.

Titled "Announcement Regarding the Guizhuling Industrial Park Incident," the post described how rumors had led to a market boycott of local villagers' crops, which in turn triggered protests by the villagers against the factory.

The post then outlined the resolution plan: Lingnan TV Station would provide on-site coverage, a joint evaluation team would provide on-site supervision, and three third-party testing agencies would conduct comprehensive testing, with all costs covered by Suiren Company.

As the parent company of Shiguang Blog, combined with the fame of its founder Huang Xiuyuan, the matter quickly fermented across the internet.

Under the Suiren Company blog account.

[All crows are black under the sun; show me a capitalist who doesn't suck blood.] -- Count Dracula

[Let the bullets fly for a while.] -- Poisonous Perfume

[Just the fact that Suiren Company dares to come out into the open suggests there probably isn't a big problem.] -- First Generation Rationalist

[@First Generation Rationalist, how can you be sure there's no problem? Maybe Suiren Company has already destroyed the evidence in advance.] -- Big-Headed Lu

[@Big-Headed Lu, I suggest you donate your corneas to someone who needs them. Their testing scope isn't just the factory itself; it includes the surrounding soil, water bodies, crops, and the villagers. How exactly do you propose they destroy that evidence?] -- Mob Mentality

[Some people just like to pick bones out of an egg.] -- Ultraman

[You're wrong, it's not picking bones out of an egg; it's selective blindness on purpose.] -- Super Five-Cent Army

Among the series of comments.

Overall, there were more netizens who held a favorable view of Suiren Company, which was actually related to several factors.

First was the real-name registration system of Shiguang Blog, combined with the constant fact-checking by the Content Evaluation Studio, which kept the online environment of Shiguang Blog relatively pure.

On the other hand, it was naturally the good reputation Huang Xiuyuan had cultivated, whether in terms of donations, recent legal aid, or his standing in Shanmei; Suiren Company's reputation was quite solid.

After three days of fermentation, even the top-tier state media, CCTV, specially dispatched reporters to the urban area of Shanmei.

They avoided the August 8th Olympic opening ceremony.

The date for the public testing and on-site reporting was set for the 10th.

The sun was blazing that day. At the entrance of Guizhuling Industrial Park, besides a large crowd of onlookers, there were reporters from Shanmei TV Station, Lingnan TV Station, and CCTV.

Then there were the 35 members of the joint evaluation team, staff from the three third-party testing agencies, and the team from Suiren Company.

The staff from the third-party testing agencies began to extract samples from the environment around the factory in a comprehensive manner and also conducted a physical examination for 50 randomly selected local villagers.

The final highlight was entering the factory to conduct sampling.

CCTV intern reporter Wang Xiaobing was following the joint evaluation team, the testing personnel, and the visibly nervous Cai Haiyi and others as they entered the factory.

Many people had researched this factory beforehand. It handled all the municipal waste for the Shanmei urban area, and even with the public testing underway, the factory did not stop, operating in an orderly fashion.

Garbage trucks and septic trucks were entering and exiting from time to time.

At least one thing that puzzled Wang Xiaobing was that the factory was not as dirty, messy, or poor as she had imagined. Not only were the transport vehicles clean, but she couldn't even smell any obvious odors around the factory buildings.

This place didn't look like a waste treatment plant; instead, it looked like a high-tech, modern factory.

Had they pre-treated everything? It wasn't just Wang Xiaobing who had this question; others did as well.

Huang Xiuyuan stood at the front, leading everyone into the waste recycling factory, starting with the coarse separation area.

Everyone discovered that a large amount of mechanical sorting and separation was used here, with only a small portion of the process requiring manual sorting by workers.

However, the protective equipment worn by those sorters made those seeing it for the first time feel very strange.

Wang Xiaobing asked curiously, "Mr. Huang, may I experience this myself?"

"No problem. Guotong, guide Reporter Wang." Huang Xiuyuan nodded.

She was led by Huang Guotong into a sorter's workstation. The entire workstation was like a car cockpit.

Sitting in the seat, a cool breeze blew from above. Through the glass window in front of the seat, she could see a continuous stream of garbage flowing by right before her eyes.

The rubber gloves integrated into the workstation allowed her to pick up specific items from the garbage and throw them into the sorting bins beside her.

In this mode, the sorter and the garbage would not have any contact unless the rubber gloves were torn. Inside the workstation, Wang Xiaobing didn't smell any odors either; it was not much different from sitting in an office.

"Factory Manager Huang, do all the sorters in your company work like this?"

Huang Guotong smiled and replied, "Of course, that's impossible. This is where we process mixed waste, which contains all sorts of strange things, so naturally, comprehensive isolation is required."

After speaking, he led her to the glass bottle recycling workshop, the aluminum can recycling workshop, the waste paper recycling workshop, and the scrap metal recycling workshop, among others.

Each recycling workshop was indeed quite different depending on the materials being recycled.

But they all shared one common characteristic: they were clean and orderly.

Following the recycling line, everyone arrived at the processing area for food waste, withered branches and leaves, and livestock manure.

This was the area where a large amount of water was discharged.

At the final drainage reservoir of the workshop, with water constantly flowing out, the third-party testing personnel quickly took samples from the reservoir.

Wang Xiaobing looked at the crystal-clear water in the pool and felt it was hard to believe, as it didn't look like sewage: "Mr. Huang, is this your sewage reservoir?"

Zheng Dashan, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly pointed at the reservoir and shouted, "Don't tell me you prepared clean water in advance to fool us!"

Huang Xiuyuan said with a smile, "Everyone, take a look. Is the water at the pipe connection point coming from the dehydration workshop?"

A dozen representatives from the evaluation team, wearing gas masks, entered the dehydration workshop. After a thorough inspection, they indeed found no hidden pipes or anything of the sort.

The water in the drainage reservoir was indeed the water that had passed through the dehydration equipment from the sewage tank before being discharged here.

Huang Xiuyuan picked up a cup and scooped a cup of water from the constant flow at the outlet of the dehydration workshop's drainage pipe.

"This is the water the factory discharges to the outside. After a series of treatments, this water can reach drinking water standards." After saying this, he drank the water in the cup in one gulp.

The crowd was dumbfounded; they even felt a wave of nausea churning in their stomachs.

Just moments ago, they had seen the production workshop, where endless amounts of feces, kitchen waste, and the like were soaking in the sewage.

"This water is actually cleaner than the tap water everyone drinks. It is pure water, no different from the purified water sold by C'estbon." After saying this, he scooped another cup and drank it without blinking.

Gulp! Wang Xiaobing hurriedly suppressed the rising stomach acid, while the professional cameraman recorded every detail of the entire process.

"Would anyone like a cup?"

Except for the people from Suiren Company, everyone else gasped and instinctively took a step back.

Huang Xiuyuan shook his head with a smile, "Please trust in science. This is just a cup of pure water molecules."

Thank you all for your support, and thanks to Shuyou "Xundao Qingzhu", "Qingtianyi", and "Shuyou 20200518052807703" for the tips (ω｀)!