Five-Four-Seven had long hated the organisation that controlled his fate to the core, and had even been hoping that Ye Chen would be able to find the quarters of his line of dead soldiers and save his wife and family along with him, so naturally he was absolutely cooperative with Li Yalin.
Li Yalin nodded, and without too much nonsense, he got straight to the point and said, “The immediate task at hand is to find out the location of your compound on the map, before that I wonder if you have any valuable clues to share with me?”
Five-Four-Seven shook his head and said, “I’m not going to lie to you Inspector Li, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but the organisation was too cautious and didn’t let me leave any valuable information.”
Li Yalin smiled faintly, took out the table of major natural disasters he had combed through and asked him, “Mr. Five, how old are you?”
Five-Four-Seven busily said, “Back to Inspector Li, I’m probably between thirty-six and thirty-eight this year.”
Li Yalin asked curiously, “What did you use to gauge your age?”
Five-Four-Seven explained, “Within the dead soldiers, there is a kind of ‘calendar’ that is quietly recorded, and we roughly recorded the time based on our own work and rest, but since there is no absolute reference standard, there are still some errors.”
Li Yalin nodded and said, “Then we’ll go by thirty-eight years.”
Saying that, he combed through the last thirty-five years of major natural disasters, and while looking at the entries, he asked, “From the time you were born to the last time you left the premises, have your premises ever moved or changed?”
“No.” Five-Four-Seven replied, “The garrison where I was born was an underground fortification that I don’t know where or how deep it was, and it hadn’t been relocated for so many years.”
Li Yalin asked again, “Then, as far as you remember, has there ever been a very strong and major earthquake?”
“A big earthquake?” Five-Four-Seven thought for a moment and spoke, “There was a relatively strong earthquake, but that has been many years ago.”
“Many years?” Li Yalin asked again, “How many years is many years roughly?”
Five-Four-Seven frowned in thought for a moment and spoke, “Almost twenty years or so, but my timeline might deviate from reality a bit, within a positive or negative difference of two years, I guess.”
Li Yalin nodded and reached out to cross out 2008 China, 2011 Japan, as well as a few more recent entries in the timeline, then spoke, “In that case, we can exclude the area around Japan, as well as central and southwestern China.”
Saying that, he saw the entry for 2004 Indonesia and spoke up, “Did you remember that earthquake, did it feel strong?”
Without thinking, Five-Four-Seven said, “It was very strong, and it even caused a lot of damage to our premises at that time, and some people were injured and even died as a result.”
Li Yalin’s eyes lit up and he said with some excitement, “Then maybe it was the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.”
Saying that, he took out the map and found the location of the source of the Indonesian tsunami on it, muttering under his breath, “The source of the earthquake at that time, in western Indonesia, was felt in many countries and regions, but the tremor you felt there was relatively strong, and it should be right around the Indian Ocean, possibly even in Indonesia.”
“However, in 2003, there were major earthquakes of magnitude 7 or more in Hokkaido, Japan and the Solomon Islands, and a major 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, and your timeline is not precise enough, so it is likely to be off here.”
Speaking of this, he looked at FiveFourSeven and spoke up, “Do you have any other clues about that earthquake?”
“Other clues?” Five-Four-Seven was silent for a moment and shook his head, “There are no more clues, the earthquake was rather scary, but after all, no one died, so we all didn’t take it too seriously.”
Li Yalin looked at the map and opened his mouth to ask, “If the earthquake you are talking about is that big tsunami in Indonesia, you guys live underground, did you have any permeability accidents after the earthquake?”
“Water permeability ……” Five-Four-Seven pondered for a moment, suddenly remembered something and blurted out, “At that time, there was indeed an accident of water penetration, the whole premises was filled with at least twenty centimeters of water, and later on, it was pumped out that water.”
Hearing this, Li Yalin could not help but ask him with an excited look on his face, “Was the water salty?”