When Ren Yi woke up in the hospital, he stared at the familiar snow-white ceiling, his heart filled with complicated emotions.
How many times had he been hospitalized over the past year or so? He had been admitted so often that he couldn’t even remember anymore. This time seemed worse than all the previous ones. His entire body hurt, and he had undoubtedly suffered frostbite in multiple places on his skin. His internal organs had also been damaged by the ammonia. He was a little worried that he might be left with some lasting complications.
What about Gong Yingxian? What about Gong Feilan? How were they doing?
Ren Yi tried to sit up, only to discover that he couldn’t move at all. All he managed was a hoarse groan.
The mattress shifted slightly as a figure leaned over beside him. It was Qu Yangbo.
“Si Huo, you’re awake!” Qu Yangbo exclaimed excitedly. “You’re finally awake! Wait here. I’ll call the doctor.” He pressed the call button, then studied Ren Yi’s face carefully and let out a sigh. “Fuck, you really almost died this time.”
Ren Yi parted his lips. “Gong…”
“He’s fine. Feilan’s fine, too. Worry about yourself first. You were practically not breathing at all when they carried you out, you know that?” Qu Yangbo cursed under his breath. “How many times have you been hospitalized this year?”
Hearing that the siblings were both safe, Ren Yi finally breathed a sigh of relief. He managed to tug the corners of his mouth upward. “Water.”
“You can’t drink water yet.” Qu Yangbo picked up a cup, dipped a cotton swab into the water, and moistened Ren Yi’s lips with it. “Your respiratory tract has been burned. For the next week, you’ll have to get your nutrition through a feeding tube.”
Ren Yi wasn’t particularly surprised. He had seen so many people being carried out of accident scenes, barely alive, that he had long since prepared himself for the possibility of suffering serious injuries himself.
The fact that they had survived at all was already an immense blessing from heaven. Besides, at the brink of life and death, he and Gong Yingxian had finally confessed their feelings to each other. Wasn’t that a blessing in disguise?
Even though his body hurt so badly that he couldn’t move, he still turned his head and eyes slightly, searching for someone.
Qu Yangbo immediately understood. “Dr. Gong stayed in the hospital for one day and then ran off. Nobody could stop him. I heard they’ve located White Flame and are planning to arrest him in the next couple of days. The fire at Pinxian this time might also be connected to White Flame.” He took out his phone and began typing. “Oh, right. He said I had to notify him as soon as you woke up.”
Before long, the doctor arrived and examined Ren Yi for quite a while. Finally, he said with satisfaction, “Captain Ren, your recovery ability is truly impressive. Still, I hope I won’t have to see you quite so often.”
Ren Yi smiled. “Thank you, Doctor.” He swallowed several times before finally managing to speak. “How many days was I asleep?”
“Two and a half days,” the doctor replied. “You absolutely must rest for several more days this time. Don’t do what Dr. Gong did. He nearly drove us all crazy.”
The doctor gave him a few more instructions before leaving.
Ren Yi asked, “Yangbo, what happened at the cold-storage warehouse?”
Qu Yangbo sighed. “One teacher and three students died. Several others were left permanently disabled. Fang Zhixu has been arrested. That guy looks like a decent, well-mannered person, but who would’ve thought he was such a monster?”
Ren Yi closed his eyes.
“The district bureau is under tremendous pressure right now because we still haven’t caught Purple Flame, the mastermind behind all those vicious crimes.” Qu Yangbo shook his head. “I’ve never encountered a criminal organization like this in my life. These past few months have been terrifying.”
“This organization might… cough, cough… have existed for many years already. We just never discovered it.”
“Yeah. Maybe they’ve disguised many past fire cases as accidents, too.” Qu Yangbo continued, “Oh, let me tell you some good news. The case at Anjia Residential Community has been transferred to the police. Captain Qiu ordered a new fire investigation, and they discovered that it might have been an arson-for-insurance scam disguised as an accident. The prime suspect is the husband.”
Ren Yi narrowed his eyes. Remembering the way the husband had wept bitterly over his wife’s death, he suddenly felt waves of nausea. “Is it confirmed? How certain are they?”
“I don’t know, but Captain Qiu seems very suspicious of him now. That guy is a real piece of trash. Apparently, their daughter has cerebral palsy. After she was born, he washed his hands of her and left her to his wife and her family. For a while, he was obsessed with livestreaming and spent over a hundred thousand yuan tipping streamers, yet he wouldn’t give his own daughter a single cent for medical treatment. How could someone like that not be a suspect?”
The more Ren Yi heard, the more disgusted and furious he became. “But I read the fire investigation department’s report earlier. The clues and evidence seemed pretty clear, and it wasn’t a complicated case. Why didn’t they suspect arson in the first place?”
“Apparently, he used wireless technology to remotely cause an electrical short circuit, giving himself an alibi.”
“So they only investigated after receiving that anonymous tip about the insurance?” Ren Yi frowned. “If nobody had reported it, wouldn’t he have gotten away with it? How could the fire investigation department have overlooked something like this?”
Qu Yangbo replied helplessly, “You know how difficult fire investigations are. Besides, it’s a department nobody wants to work in. There aren’t many people, and even fewer are willing to stay long enough to gain experience. Sometimes we have to rely on the police.”
Ren Yi fell silent. Qu Yangbo was right. There were no specialized colleges offering degrees in fire investigation, so the department was staffed either by firefighters who had left frontline duty for various reasons or by contract workers assigned through the national civil service examination or recruited from the general public. Under those circumstances, they were chronically understaffed. Take Zhang Wen, for example. He was a young contract worker with a promising future. The salary an insurance company offered him would certainly be much higher than what he earned now.
Qu Yangbo tried to comfort him. “After what happened at the cold-storage warehouse, public opinion online has swung dramatically in your favor. If the Anjia Residential Community case really was arson, that’ll completely clear your name.”
Ren Yi said calmly, “I don’t care anymore.”
Having crossed the threshold between life and death yet again, how could he still care about the opinions of people who had nothing to do with him? He was alive. He and Gong Yingxian had finally come to understand each other’s feelings. He already felt like the luckiest person in the world.
“You might not care what those people say, but you can’t afford not to care about the disciplinary action from the corps headquarters. All of this will affect their decision. At the very least, you might be allowed to stay with your squad.”
Ren Yi nodded. He felt somewhat relieved. “That’s true.”
Qu Yangbo patted him on the head. “But you don’t need to think about any of that right now. Just focus on recovering.”
Ren Yi glanced at Qu Yangbo’s phone. “Has he replied?”
Qu Yangbo teased him, “Look at you, so hopeless.” He checked his phone. “No reply. Want me to call him?”
“Ahem, no need. There’s no rush.”
“No rush?”
“No rush.”
“Only you know whether you’re in a hurry or not. I’m certainly not.” Qu Yangbo rubbed his stomach. “Ding Qing will come take over for me in a bit. I need to get back to the station. I’m starving. Want me to bring you some books?”
“No need. Tell Ding Qing not to come, either. It’s just a hospital stay. I don’t need anyone to look after me.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Qu Yangbo looked at Ren Yi. “You don’t have any family to take care of you. We’re your family.”
Ren Yi smiled faintly, a warm feeling spreading through his heart.
They chatted for a while longer when the hospital room door suddenly swung open. Gong Yingxian hurried in, bringing the cold air with him, looking as though he had rushed straight over without stopping.
Ren Yi’s eyes lit up the moment he saw him.
Qu Yangbo raised his eyebrows. “All right, there’s really no need to call Ding Qing over now. I’m leaving, too.”
Gong Yingxian nodded at Qu Yangbo. “Thank you.”
Qu Yangbo winked and left without looking back.
Gong Yingxian walked to the bedside, bent down to look at Ren Yi, and asked softly, “Feeling better?”
Ren Yi grinned. “It’s nothing.”
Gong Yingxian’s large hand gently stroked Ren Yi’s hair. Looking at his rapidly thinning face, his exhausted features, and his colorless lips, Gong Yingxian felt his heart ache terribly.
“I really wanted to stay with you, but…”
“It’s okay. I heard you’re trying to arrest White Flame. Have you caught him?”
“We’ve located his whereabouts, but we suspect he has violent accomplices around him. He’s a dangerous person himself, too, and he might be carrying homemade explosives or something similar. We don’t dare alert him to our presence in case the people nearby get hurt. We’re waiting for the right opportunity.”
“Thanks for all your hard work.” Ren Yi struggled to raise his hand and touched Gong Yingxian’s face. “Your injuries haven’t healed, either. How could the doctor let you leave the hospital?”
“I don’t have time to lie around here,” Gong Yingxian replied. “Besides, my injuries aren’t serious.”
He took off his coat and sat down beside the bed, his gaze full of affection as he looked at Ren Yi.
Ren Yi met his eyes for two seconds before he couldn’t help laughing. “Stop looking at me like that. You’re going to scare me to death.”
Gong Yingxian laughed, too. “Then how would you like me to look at you?”
“Hmm… Just look at me the way you usually do.” Ren Yi teased him. “You know, that admiring look that says I’m incredibly awesome and handsome.”
Gong Yingxian burst out laughing. Leaning close to Ren Yi’s ear, he whispered, “I often think you’re… quite irresistible, actually.”
Ren Yi’s heart gave a wild thump. “You’ve learned to be naughty. Who taught you that?”
“Obviously you. Who else could it be?”
Ren Yi couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from turning upward.
Gong Yingxian rested his head on Ren Yi’s pillow, pressing it close to Ren Yi’s face. He whispered, “You’re alive. Thank goodness.”
Ren Yi rubbed his cheek against Gong Yingxian’s. “You are, too.”
“Ren Yi, sometimes I feel like you’re not real.” Gong Yingxian closed his eyes, savoring the warmth of Ren Yi’s skin and his familiar scent. “I thought no one could ever get inside my heart. So how did you come along?”
“Because other people take a few steps, and when they can’t get in, they turn back.” Ren Yi smiled. “I just kept walking. And walking. Until I got inside.”
Gong Yingxian gazed deeply at Ren Yi. “Purple Flame was right about only one thing. There is a bond of fate between us, going all the way back to the moment your father rescued me from that fire nineteen years ago.”
“Mm.” At that moment, Ren Yi felt so much love welling up in his throat that he could hardly put it into words. “Yingxian, I really like you. So, so much.”
“I feel the same. You’re the only person I’ve ever liked. From the past to the present and into the future, there will only ever be you.”
Ren Yi was instantly immersed in overwhelming sweetness and happiness.
Then Gong Yingxian suddenly added, “Considering that you’ve had three boyfriends before and liked other people, I still win.”
His tone was unmistakably jealous.
“…What’s there to compete over?”
“Hmph.” Gong Yingxian stretched his long arm across Ren Yi’s upper body and gently held him. “From now until forever, you’re only allowed to have me, too.”
Ren Yi answered without the slightest hesitation. “Of course. Only you.”
Gong Yingxian gave a small, satisfied smile.