After finishing lunch, Ren Yi hurried to the brigade headquarters.
He had initially debated whether he should go report to Chen Xiaofei, but Chen Xiaofei had gone out to attend a meeting, saving him the trouble of explaining himself.
Ren Yi found the two accident reports he needed in the archives.
The reports had already been digitized and backed up several years ago, but the original documents still had to be retained for twenty years before they could be destroyed.
As Ren Yi looked at the handwriting on the documents, some of it was from his father, making it especially familiar to him.
He compared the original documents with the electronic copies and discovered that the photographs were not particularly clear.
That had to do with the lighting, angles, and camera resolution when they were taken years ago, as well as how carefully the people taking the photographs had worked.
After all, with millions of paper records to organize, it was impossible to scrutinize every single photograph.
The materials themselves were already decades old. If one was not careful when photographing them again, the old photographs would lose many details.
So Ren Yi used a DSLR to carefully photograph all the image materials again, and copied the electronic files as well.
After returning to the station, Ren Yi printed everything out.
He placed the thick stack of materials on the desk and rested his chin on his hand, thinking for a long time.
Then he took out his phone, snapped a picture, and sent it to Gong Yingxian:
I got the complete report on the accident from the brigade archives. Don’t you think I deserve some praise?
Then Ren Yi stared at the chat window.
Several minutes passed.
He saw the “typing…” indicator appear.
Gong Yingxian typed for a long time, but in the end, not a single word came through.
Ren Yi burst out laughing.
He really thought Gong Yingxian was just like a child.
Although Gong Yingxian could be infuriating sometimes, Ren Yi simply could not stay genuinely angry with him. He always found excuses for Gong Yingxian on his own.
He sent another message:
Still mad? Are you in elementary school or something? Such a little grump.
A few seconds later, Gong Yingxian called.
Ren Yi answered immediately.
Gong Yingxian’s angry voice came through.
“Who are you calling an elementary school student? Who are you calling a little grump?!”
“Me. Fine, me.”
Ren Yi could not hide the affection in his voice.
“Are you still angry?”
Gong Yingxian gave a soft snort and said coldly, “What about that actor friend of yours?”
When he said the word “friend,” he practically ground his teeth.
“He left in the middle of the night.”
Ren Yi asked, “What did you have for breakfast? What did you have for lunch?”
“…I had omelet rice for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch.”
The moment Gong Yingxian finished answering, he began to regret it.
Why had he answered such a stupid question?!
“Wow, that sounds pretty good. I really wish I could eat with you.”
Ren Yi chuckled.
“Your thermos is still here with me. I’ll bring it over next time. We can have a meal together, okay?”
Gong Yingxian’s expression instantly softened, but he still replied in a reluctant tone,
“Whatever.”
“What about these materials…?”
“Wait until I finish dealing with the Wanyuan Residential Complex case over the next couple of days. There are so many people involved now that it’s difficult to wrap things up.”
Gong Yingxian paused.
“I’ve also finished restoring the photographs I had.”
“Good. When the time comes, we’ll put all the clues together and conduct the fire investigation again.”
“Also, we got a little information about Red Flame today.”
“Oh? Tell me.”
“Based on Xiao Tan’s undercover work on Archangel over this period, along with searches through some past cases, we suspect Red Flame may be connected to a corpse-burning case from five years ago.”
“‘Corpse burning’?”
“Yes. Five years ago, an elderly couple who went out for an early morning walk discovered a charred corpse beneath a bridge.”
“After the autopsy, it was determined that the victim was a man between forty and forty-five years old. The cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the skull, and the body had been burned after death. His identity has still never been established, so it remains an unsolved case.”
“How did Xiao Tan discover it?”
“He saw photographs of the case on Archangel. The police could never have released those photographs. And the photographs on Archangel were also different from the versions taken by passersby and circulated online. That means the photographs were very likely taken by the killer.”
“Xiao Tan continued investigating based on the poster’s ID and discovered that this person had been active on Archangel for at least three years.”
“His English grammar contains quite a few errors, and they’re the kinds of mistakes Chinese people commonly make. On top of that, the location where the body was discovered back then falls within the range of Red Flame’s activities that we deduced using the three-circle theory of criminal geography.”
Ren Yi exclaimed admiringly, “That’s impressive. If Zhou Chuan and Chen Pei can reveal more clues about Red Flame, you might actually be able to catch him!”
“Exactly. But Chen Pei’s knowledge of Red Flame really is limited. If he knew more, he would have been bargaining with us already.”
“Zhou Chuan, on the other hand, has been hiding quite a lot. He has room to negotiate for a reduced sentence, so sooner or later, he’ll talk.”
“Now that these people have all been arrested, I’m worried Red Flame will hear about it and run.”
“We’re worried about that too. This case is now one of the sub-bureau’s highest-priority cases. Everyone is working overtime.”
Ren Yi thought of the fatigue around Gong Yingxian’s eyes and could not help feeling concerned.
“Make sure you get enough rest. Don’t wear yourself out.”
“Mm.”
Even through the phone, Gong Yingxian could hear the tenderness and concern in Ren Yi’s voice.
A warm current immediately flowed through his heart, and the tension between his brows relaxed.
“Don’t just say ‘mm.’ You’ll actually eat properly and sleep, right?”
A smile appeared at the corners of Gong Yingxian’s lips, one he did not even realize was there.
“I will.”
“Then go take care of your work. Oh, right…”
Ren Yi asked hopefully, “What about New Year’s Day? Want to spend New Year’s Eve together?”
Gong Yingxian was silent for a moment.
The silence inexplicably made Ren Yi nervous.
Then that clear, elegant voice sounded.
“Sure.”
After hanging up, Ren Yi excitedly punched the air twice.
Maybe on New Year’s Eve, he and Gong Yingxian could be like an ordinary couple.
They could go out for dinner, see a movie, wander around somewhere—
have a real date.
He did not want to entangle himself in thoughts of whether Gong Yingxian might like him, or whether the two of them could ever have a future together.
Even if he could only spend time with Gong Yingxian as a friend, every extra moment, every extra second together, brought him genuine happiness.
After dinner and evening study, Ren Yi shut himself in his dorm room and began studying the accident reports.
The Baosheng Chemical Plant case was extremely complicated.
The reports alone submitted by the various company commanders and senior incident commanders amounted to more than three hundred pages.
There were also investigations involving specialized chemical knowledge that he simply could not understand.
And that was only the firefighting portion.
He could hardly imagine how much material had been contained in the investigation reports compiled by the special task force back then.
After reading for a while, he really could not continue.
So he set the chemical plant case aside and began looking through the Gong family arson case.
Although he had already mentally prepared himself, as he delved deeper into the report and the photographs from the scene, Ren Yi’s emotions were gradually drawn into the hell that had burned so fiercely eighteen years ago.
He could not help searching through the records for that tiny figure from back then.
But when he actually found the sections related to Gong Yingxian, he was overwhelmed by pain and did not know what to do with it.
The cruelest tragedy in this world had, by some cruel twist of fate, left a six-year-old child to bear it alone.
Ren Yi read a few pages.
The weight seeping from those thin sheets of paper pressed so heavily upon him that he could barely breathe.
He could not stop thinking about Gong Yingxian.
The scorched ruins.
The shattered walls.
The darkness and terror.
The tears and pain.
All of it pierced his heart through those words and images.
Whenever he imagined that little Gong Yingxian had once stood in such an abyss—
frightened,
in pain,
desperate,
crying—
while Ren Yi could only stand across the long river of eighteen years and watch from the opposite shore, unable to do anything…
Ren Yi had rescued so many people from fires.
Yet he could not save the person he loved.
His thoughts became a mess, and for a while he could not make sense of anything in the reports.
He held his phone and hesitated for a long time, but ultimately restrained the urge to call Gong Yingxian.
Just as he decided to take a shower and go to bed, the station alarm sounded.
Ren Yi and the firefighters rushed out of their dorms and quickly, orderly assembled in the garage.
They put on their protective equipment.
The duty dispatcher reported,
“Captain Ren, Hongwu Hospital, Hongwu Hospital…”
Ren Yi’s heart tightened.
“What happened at Hongwu Hospital?”
“It exploded!”
Those three words from the dispatcher were themselves explosive news.
The firefighters were stunned.
Ren Yi’s head buzzed, but he quickly regained his composure.
He snatched the dispatch slip.
“What scale was the explosion?”
He looked down at the paper.
The dispatch slip generally only contained the caller’s account of what had happened, so it was rarely very detailed. There was not much to be learned from it at the moment.
He immediately ordered,
“Everything except the aerial ladder truck, roll out!”
On the way, Ren Yi received instructions from headquarters.
The Luoxiangkou Station and Sanning Station had also been dispatched.
The brigade’s Chief of Staff, Xu Jin, was also heading toward Hongwu Hospital.
A call requiring three stations was definitely no minor incident.
The same three stations had responded when the Fourth Perspective Bar caught fire.
And a hospital was an especially critical location.
The firefighters were visibly more tense and serious than usual.
Ren Yi was just about to make a call to find out what was happening when his phone rang first.
It was Gong Yingxian.
Ren Yi seemed to have a premonition.
“Yingxian, Hongwu Hospital…”
“Zhou Chuan… Zhou Chuan…”
Gong Yingxian was breathing heavily.
His voice was filled with intense anger and urgency.
“He may have been silenced.”
Ren Yi’s mind went blank for a brief moment.
Then he felt his blood surge.
An indescribable fury and shock overwhelmed him.
Those bastards—
they had actually dared to go this far!