Sewers and "Illegal Discharge"

The torrential rain that had poured over Linchuan City for three or four consecutive days finally showed signs of easing. But beneath the city, its veins—the famously intricate, unfathomably deep sewer network—were still under immense pressure.

The torrential rain near the coast and the "torrential rain" in inland cities were fundamentally different concepts.

During the flood season in June and July, it was less like rain and more like someone had opened a water pipe in the sky!

The muddy wastewater carried the city's refuse as it thundered through the concrete pipes, and the water level had once approached the warning line.

Wearing heavy black rubber waders, Yu Yan was now trudging through knee-deep sewage, one foot sinking deeper than the other. His flashlight beam swept through the darkness, thick with foul, damp air, barely illuminating even ten meters of the pipe walls ahead.

He was forty-eight that year and had worked at the Municipal Drainage Management Office for two or three decades. His face was already etched with wrinkles, deep and shallow, as numerous as the underground veins of the city.

He was supposed to be on duty tonight, but his apprentice, Little Zhang, had a child who suddenly developed a high fever. The boy had been taken to the hospital for an IV, and Zhang simply couldn't get away.

There was nothing for it. With the shift schedule difficult to rearrange, Yu Yan, the veteran team leader, had to go down alone to inspect the pressure at several critical drainage points.

Fortunately, someone from the police station had come down with him to investigate a case.

"Li Ce, watch your step. Don't misstep and roll into the concrete."

"I know. Just keep the flashlight steady, Old Yu."

Wearing a fluorescent raincoat over his upper body, "Li Shimin"—no, the