Gong Feilan’s single sentence made the scalps of the two men in the room prickle.
Gong Yingxian immediately felt his face burning. Ren Yi quietly turned his face away and rolled his eyes at Qu Yangbo, who was desperately trying not to laugh.
Gong Yingxian kept a straight face. “Don’t shout in the hospital.”
“Brother, how are you?”
“Why did you come to the hospital? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“I came after school.” Gong Feilan looked at Gong Yingxian worriedly. “Where are you hurt? They said you were poisoned.” She turned to Ren Yi. “Captain Ren, were you poisoned too?”
Ren Yi cleared his throat. “Same as what happened to you. We inhaled carbon monoxide. I’ll be fine in a few days.”
Gong Feilan breathed a sigh of relief. “I saw the news online. No one even told me. When I saw that something had happened at Hongwu Hospital, I knew you guys had to be involved.”
“Don’t worry. We’re fine.”
Gong Feilan carefully looked Gong Yingxian over from head to toe and whispered, “You were hospitalized and didn’t even tell me. I was really worried about you.”
Gong Yingxian’s attitude softened a little. “There was no point in telling you. It wouldn’t help, and it would interfere with your studies.”
Gong Feilan pouted, clearly unconvinced. Then she walked over to Ren Yi’s bed. “Captain Ren, when will you get better?”
Uncle Sheng poured Gong Yingxian a glass of water. “Young Master, would you like us to buy one of those oxygen chambers and have it sent home? There should be ones for single-person use.”
As Gong Yingxian lowered his head to drink, he secretly glanced sideways at Ren Yi. “No need. By the time it’s delivered, I might already be discharged.”
“We’ll find a way to get it here as quickly as possible.”
“Forget it. Don’t go to all that trouble.”
Uncle Sheng was a little surprised.
In the past, Gong Yingxian would absolutely refuse to go to the hospital if he could avoid it. Even when forced to go, he always wanted to leave as soon as possible.
This time, he had to stay in the hospital for at least a week, yet he was actually willing to compromise?
Ren Yi smiled at Gong Feilan. “I’ll be discharged in less than a week. It’s nothing.”
“I heard you two were almost buried alive.” Gong Feilan covered her chest. “I was terrified when I saw the footage of the explosion online.”
“But they got us out in time.”
“Then why did Captain Ren need mouth-to-mouth?” Gong Feilan exclaimed. “It must have been really dangerous, right? Right, Brother? Was Captain Ren in serious danger at the time?”
Ren Yi secretly clenched the blanket.
He really wanted to throw this girl out.
Gong Yingxian was equally embarrassed and gave a perfunctory “Mm.”
“Our school had first-aid training last time too. But when we practiced mouth-to-mouth, we used dummies.” Gong Feilan’s eyes lit up, and she gave a mischievous grin. “Brother, I’m so jealous of you. I haven’t even gotten to kiss Captain Ren yet.”
Gong Yingxian scolded her. “Stop talking nonsense.”
Uncle Sheng secretly chuckled.
Ren Yi desperately signaled to Qu Yangbo with his eyes, asking him to save them.
Qu Yangbo pretended not to understand and thoroughly enjoyed watching the expressions on both men’s faces.
“Instructor, did you see it?” Gong Feilan asked excitedly. “I want to see two handsome guys giving each other mouth-to-mouth too.”
Qu Yangbo laughed. “I did.”
“Wow! Did you take pictures or record—”
“Feilan!” Gong Yingxian barked. “If you keep this up, go home.”
Gong Feilan immediately wilted. She ran back to Gong Yingxian and began acting spoiled. “Don’t be angry.”
At the same time, she secretly turned around and mouthed to Qu Yangbo:
Send it to me.
Ren Yi took the opportunity to sneak a glance at Gong Yingxian.
His expression was stiff, and his eyes were cold.
He really was angry.
Ren Yi sighed inwardly.
To Gong Yingxian, that really was just an embarrassing memory.
So he should pretend nothing had happened.
He shouldn’t mention it at all.
Uncle Sheng prepared dinner from the head chef, and everyone ate together.
After dinner, a nurse came in to administer an IV. Qu Yangbo returned to the station, and Uncle Sheng took Gong Feilan home.
When only the two of them remained in the hospital room, they inevitably fell into an awkward silence.
Ren Yi was the first to break it.
He asked casually, “How’s the injury on your shoulder?”
He had noticed that Gong Yingxian kept slightly turning his body to one side. It must have been quite uncomfortable.
“It’s a fracture. My right arm will be inconvenient to use for a while. It’ll be fine in two or three months.”
“Haha. Good thing you’re left-handed.”
Gong Yingxian glanced at him. “What about you? How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts, and I’m a little dizzy. Otherwise, I’m fine.” Ren Yi lay in bed, watching the IV drip fall one drop at a time. “Being alive is already a blessing.”
“At the time… you really were in danger.” Gong Yingxian said quietly. “If they’d gotten you out any later, you might have gone into shock.”
“I know.” Ren Yi smiled. “Oh, I never thanked you for saving me.”
Gong Yingxian was silent for a moment. “You’re welcome.”
Ren Yi racked his brain, trying to think of something else to talk about, but for once he genuinely didn’t know how to ease the awkwardness.
After what had happened beneath the rubble, the atmosphere between them wasn’t as relaxed as it had been before.
Ren Yi didn’t know what Gong Yingxian was thinking.
Was he suspicious?
Was he unhappy?
Did he… find it disgusting?
Ren Yi desperately wanted to know what was going through Gong Yingxian’s mind, yet he was afraid of finding out.
Maybe things weren’t as serious as he imagined.
They were both men, after all, with the same physical structure. Gong Yingxian could understand, couldn’t he?
Sometimes an involuntary physical reaction caused by accidental contact was simply uncontrollable. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. That explanation made perfect sense.
Yes.
As long as he acted naturally, everything would be fine.
Gong Yingxian probably intended to pretend nothing had happened too.
Gong Yingxian secretly glanced at Ren Yi again, as if he wanted to say something, but stopped himself.
Ren Yi suddenly said, “Hey, let’s watch a movie. Yangbo brought me a projector. We’re pretty experienced at being hospitalized. We’ve got all the equipment.”
“No. I need to analyze the evidence.” Gong Yingxian picked up the computer from the bedside table and began looking at it.
Ren Yi helplessly said, “You’re injured. Can’t you rest for a while?”
“Now is the golden window for catching the culprit. The longer we wait, the more likely he is to hide or escape.” Gong Yingxian said, “You said your head hurts. Why are you watching a movie? Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
Ren Yi lay on his side, silently watching Gong Yingxian’s perfect profile.
“Why don’t you tell me about the case instead?”
Gong Yingxian continued staring at the computer without looking up.
“Based on the evidence we brought out, together with the things we’ve continued excavating, I’ve already determined what explosive the culprit used and how the reaction was carried out.”
“Let me hear it.”
“Simply put, the main materials used to make the bomb were extracted from household disinfectants. The explosive reaction was completed in two stages.
“First, a decomposition agent was added to sodium dichloroisocyanurate and placed inside a sealed plastic bottle. It served as the firing mechanism while also giving the culprit time to leave the building.
“The second stage was to generate the highly flammable and explosive nitrogen trichloride through a further chemical reaction. Nitrogen trichloride has tremendous explosive power. When the plastic bottle serving as the firing mechanism exploded, it would detonate the nitrogen trichloride as well.
“However, chlorine gas is released during the reaction that produces nitrogen trichloride. It smells extremely strong and would be noticed quickly. So the time between the culprit placing the explosive in the room and leaving the building couldn’t have been very long—at most a few minutes.”
Ren Yi was a little bewildered, but he more or less understood.
“So that’s how the culprit made a timed bomb… No, I guess it should be called a delayed-action bomb?”
“Correct. This method is actually very risky because chemical reactions are affected by many factors. If it exploded prematurely, he wouldn’t be able to escape either. This person must have tremendous confidence in his own abilities.”
“Did you estimate exactly how many minutes the reaction would take?”
“No more than five minutes. The smell of chlorine gas spreads very quickly. Zhou Chuan couldn’t possibly have failed to smell it.”
“Then this method could very easily fail.”
“This was already the method with the highest success rate within such a short period of time.” Gong Yingxian said grimly. “Because there were police officers guarding the entrance, and every person entering or leaving had to have their identification and belongings checked. So the culprit couldn’t bring anything suspicious inside.
“Everything I mentioned can be disguised as cleaning products. Their smell and appearance are also similar to ordinary disinfectants and cleaners.”
Ren Yi sucked in a breath. “That’s terrifying. The culprit actually managed to fool the police right in front of them!”
“The person who made this bomb has extensive chemical knowledge. Everything he used was extracted from ordinary household products.”
“All of those things can be extracted from household products?”
“Yes. Laundry detergent, disinfectant, cleaning products, effervescent tablets.” Gong Yingxian narrowed his eyes. “He knew that buying chemical raw materials required registering an ID card and would make him easy to trace. That’s why our initial investigation into chemical raw materials turned up nothing.
“I woke up this morning, and after analyzing everything, I told them to investigate purchases of effervescent tablets. An explosion of this scale would require extracting at least a large barrel’s worth of chemicals, which would consume a huge amount of raw material.”
“Did you find anyone suspicious?”
“Do you remember the three-circle theory of criminal geography I told you about?”
“Yeah. What does that mean?”
“It’s a little complicated to explain. In short, we’ve already determined Red Flame’s area of activity. During the day, the brigade sent a large number of officers to visit 167 pharmacies and supermarkets within that area. They discovered that a few days ago, one person went to more than thirty different stores and bought several kilograms of effervescent tablets.”
“Did they capture his appearance?”
“Yes. He was wearing a hat and a mask, but his body shape matches that of the cleaner caught on the hospital’s surveillance footage hurriedly leaving just before the explosion.”
Ren Yi sucked in a breath and said admiringly, “You guys work fast.”
Gong Yingxian gritted his teeth, a fierce look flashing through his eyes.
“He’s challenging us. Challenging the police. Challenging the law. If we can’t catch him, how can we have the face to wear this badge?”