Gong Yingxian walked over to Ren Yi and, with a mixture of anger and anxiety, gave him a thorough once-over with his eyes, checking him from head to toe.
“I’m fine,” Ren Yi said quietly.
Gong Yingxian snapped, “I’ll deal with you later.”
At that moment, Ren Yi’s mind was in complete turmoil. How was he supposed to tell Gong Yingxian that the man standing right before them, someone related to him by marriage, was the person who had hired a killer to murder his family?
Yue Xingu kept his head lowered, not daring to look at Gong Yingxian at all.
Bai Chicheng, however, didn’t give Ren Yi any time to think. He kept his eyes fixed on Gong Yingxian. “Dr. Gong, although this is our first time meeting face-to-face, we’ve crossed swords many times already.”
Gong Yingxian glared at Bai Chicheng icily. “A murderer like you, who can’t even show his face in the light, hardly deserves to call it ‘crossing swords.’ I’m hunting you down.”
“Call it whatever you like. Do you think you’ve beaten me?” Bai Chicheng smiled slightly. He was obviously the kind of person who rarely smiled, so the expression looked particularly stiff and disturbing. “You’ve never won. You’ve merely been struggling desperately before your inevitable death, trying to minimize your losses.”
“That’s right. That doesn’t count as winning.” Ren Yi gritted his teeth. “As long as even one innocent person gets hurt because of you people, nobody wins. All we can do is minimize the damage. Do you know what a real victory looks like? It means catching you and letting you rot in prison or rot in the ground, so you can never harm anyone else again.”
Bai Chicheng’s lips curled slightly in mockery. “We will die. Everyone dies. But the will of the Light God will never perish. There will always be more believers to carry out His divine will.”
“Cut the fucking crap!” Ren Yi barked. “What exactly are you trying to do?”
Gong Yingxian also asked, “Where have your accomplices gone?”
“What, you still haven’t found him?” Bai Chicheng gave a faint, satisfied smile. “He’s in a very important location, and he has even more hostages with him.”
“Where are they?”
“The only thing I can tell you is that they’re still inside the hotel,” Bai Chicheng said. “You can go look for them now.”
“Us?” Ren Yi asked, somewhat uncertainly. “You mean we can leave now?”
“I never stopped you from leaving this room, but you can’t leave the hotel.” Bai Chicheng kicked Ren Yi’s phone back toward him. “You’ll definitely be coming back.”
Ren Yi eyed him suspiciously as he bent down to pick up the phone. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”
Everything that had happened between the moment he followed Yue Xingu out of the hospital and their arrival here had been strange. At first, he had thought Bai Chicheng intended to take them all down with him, but now it was clear that there had to be another purpose.
Gong Yingxian was equally suspicious. He narrowed his eyes at Bai Chicheng. “You’re telling us to look for your accomplice and the hostages. What about you?”
“I’ll wait here for you.” Bai Chicheng leaned back in his chair, looking completely relaxed. “You can surround and seal off this place. Or, if you don’t care whether Yue Xingu lives or dies, you can simply shoot me dead. But if I die, he and those hostages won’t survive either. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try.”
Gong Yingxian and Ren Yi exchanged a glance. They both knew there was a trap involved, but for the moment, they had no way to deal with Bai Chicheng.
Yue Xingu deserved to die, but as long as he remained alive, there was still a chance he could help them catch Purple Flame.
Gong Yingxian asked, “Are there any time limits for finding your accomplice and the hostages? Any clues?”
“No. Search however you like. But once you find them, you’ll still need me.”
Gong Yingxian grabbed Ren Yi by the arm. “Let’s go.”
The two of them actually left the conference hall just like that, under Bai Chicheng’s watchful gaze.
As soon as they stepped outside, Ren Yi leaned against the wall and took a deep, shuddering breath. His chest was still trembling violently. From the moment he had walked through those doors, he had prepared himself for the possibility that he might never walk out again. He had never expected Bai Chicheng to let them leave so easily.
That only made them even more uneasy.
“How are you feeling?” Gong Yingxian steadied him. “I’ll take you to a guest room to rest.”
“No.” Ren Yi pushed him away and stood upright. “How could I possibly rest right now?”
“He’s stalling for time,” Gong Yingxian said angrily. “What exactly is he trying to do? What does he gain by stalling?”
“I don’t think the delay benefits him. I think it benefits someone else. During my conversation with him just now, he mentioned two or three times, either deliberately or inadvertently, that he had no intention of escaping.” Ren Yi looked at Gong Yingxian. “That proves he came here fully prepared to die.”
Gong Yingxian fell silent for a moment. “Purple Flame… What is Purple Flame planning?”
He took out his phone and called Qiu Yan.
“Sis Yan, Bai Yan claims his accomplice has kidnapped a group of hostages. They’re still inside the hotel, and he’s telling us to go find them. This is definitely a trap. Don’t send people to conduct a floor-by-floor sweep just yet. Pull the surveillance footage first, then prepare several ion mobility spectrometry detectors to check for hazardous chemicals on each floor. Also, Bai Yan is deliberately stalling for time. I suspect Purple Flame has another objective. Everyone needs to be careful.”
After hanging up, Gong Yingxian glanced worriedly at the surveillance camera overhead. “Let’s move somewhere else.”
The two walked into a blind spot outside the camera’s field of view. Ren Yi took a moment to steady his breathing.
“Yingxian, I need to tell you something.”
At the thought of what he had to say, Ren Yi’s face twisted with distress.
“Yue Xingu…”
Gong Yingxian gently touched his cheek. “Don’t panic. Take your time.”
Ren Yi gazed at Gong Yingxian, his heart aching painfully. With great difficulty, he said, “Yue Xingu is the murderer. He’s the one who… hired someone to set fire to your home.”
After saying it, Ren Yi anxiously and helplessly watched Gong Yingxian’s reaction. He realized that, if it were possible, he would rather bear Gong Yingxian’s pain for him than watch him suffer.
Unexpectedly, however, Gong Yingxian didn’t react as violently as Ren Yi had imagined. His eyelids twitched, and his brows drew together.
“He told you that?”
Ren Yi froze. “Are you saying he’s lying?”
“When I first began suspecting him, I already investigated the possibility that he had set the fire himself or hired someone to do it. I couldn’t completely rule him out as a suspect, but I couldn’t prove his guilt either. Still, my intuition tells me it wasn’t him.”
“Why?”
“This man doesn’t have that kind of nerve,” Gong Yingxian said. “Unless he’s exceptionally good at disguising himself. But can someone spend more than twenty years playing the role of a weak, timid man without ever slipping? I find that hard to believe.”
“…He said he took kickbacks and purchased substandard materials, which caused the Baosheng Chemical Plant explosion.”
“That’s possible. He used to be a mid-level manager in the procurement department. But even if he was already married to someone in my family at the time, he didn’t have that much decision-making power. The group had a bidding process, and it wasn’t easy to manipulate. Unless he colluded with someone higher up.”
“Did the investigation back then uncover any problems with the materials?”
Gong Yingxian shook his head. “No. All the materials met national standards, so the investigators ultimately concluded that it was an industrial accident.”
“Then where did the noncompliant materials Yue Xingu mentioned come from?”
“The evidence might have been concealed or altered. Only he knows for sure,” Gong Yingxian said. “There’s another reason I don’t believe him. Even if we accept that he was the murderer, there are still many unanswered questions. Something doesn’t add up.”
Ren Yi thought about it. The entire case really was still full of unanswered questions.
“If he really didn’t do it, why would he confess?”
“Because he was threatened. What happened to Feilan this time proves that his partnership with Purple Flame has already broken down. He must have bribed Wang Minde back then to cover up his crimes. Now, nineteen years later, the old case has been reopened. Perhaps he became frightened, perhaps he wavered, perhaps his conscience finally caught up with him. Whatever the reason, Purple Flame now wants to kill him to silence him.”
“Speaking of Wang Minde, have you ever wondered why he lived peacefully for nineteen years, only to be killed as soon as we began investigating him?”
“Of course. Information must have leaked. That’s another reason I don’t believe Yue Xingu is the mastermind.” Gong Yingxian explained, “Given the ruthlessness of the arsonist back then and Purple Flame now, human life means nothing to them. Killing someone to silence them eliminates future trouble. So why did Wang Minde only die now? I think the best explanation is that Purple Flame only recently learned of Wang Minde’s existence.”
Ren Yi drew in a sharp, icy breath.
That meant someone within the organization had been among the people they had investigated or spoken to. This wasn’t an entirely new discovery. When they investigated Fang Zhixu, they had already known that an insider must have helped him gain access to the fire-ravaged ruins. But the Wang Minde case made them realize that this person might not be an ordinary investigator. They could be someone more familiar with the details of the case—possibly even someone they personally knew.
“Then… do you have anyone in mind?”
Gong Yingxian said, “When Wang Minde died, I already wanted to launch an investigation, but too many other cases came up afterward, and I couldn’t be in two places at once. Looking back now, perhaps this lead was more important than the others. Let’s go over everything again and figure out where the information might have leaked.”
Ren Yi nodded. “I’ll start. After I met Dr. Pompey, the bird mask kept bothering me. Later, during training, I discovered that old-fashioned gas masks actually looked somewhat similar to the bird mask. I told you about it, and we compared it with firefighting equipment from twenty years ago.”
“Right. After I received your message, I felt as though a light had suddenly gone on in my head, too, so I began investigating. During the investigation, I spoke with the hospital’s former vice president, two of Wang Minde’s former colleagues, an archive-room administrator, and Wang Minde’s former driver. Besides them, Sis Yan and at least four or five other police officers knew about it.”
“That’s quite a few people.”
“Yes, but none of them had the full picture. Most of them thought I was investigating Wang Minde for taking kickbacks because, at the time, his divorce proceedings had turned extremely ugly, and his wife was reporting his misconduct everywhere. After Wang Minde was silenced, I conducted some preliminary checks on those people as well, but I didn’t find anything suspicious.”
“What about within the police? Have you forgotten? Fang Zhixu was able to enter the restricted area at Wenhui Shopping Mall and take away evidence precisely because there was an insider.”
Gong Yingxian stared at Ren Yi, looking as though he wanted to say something but was hesitating.
“What’s wrong?”
Gong Yingxian paused. “Ren Yi, there’s something I’ve always avoided saying to you. Because we have some… unresolved issues from the past, this subject is sensitive between us. So until I had concrete evidence, I didn’t bring it up.”
Ren Yi stared blankly at him. “What are you talking about? You’re losing me.”
Gong Yingxian didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “I was furious with you just now. Extremely furious. I’m still not over it, but this isn’t the time to be angry with you.”
Ren Yi was even more confused. “What are you trying to say?”
Gong Yingxian pursed his lips. “I’m saying that if what I’m about to tell you makes you angry, then at least we’ll be even.”
Ren Yi gave a helpless, incredulous laugh. “Look at the situation we’re in! Just spit it out.”
Gong Yingxian said, “You’re a firefighter, and a firefighter with a particularly strong sense of collective honor who takes pride in his profession. The nature of your work determines the trust and closeness you share with your comrades. That’s why you find it unacceptable that I would suspect your father. But I’m a police officer. The nature of my profession means that as long as someone hasn’t been cleared of suspicion, I’m willing to suspect anyone.”
“Can you just get to the point?”
“You only think to suspect the police. Have you ever considered that half of those investigators are your colleagues?”
Ren Yi froze.
It was as though an arrow had pierced a curtain. The fog that had been hanging right before his eyes, yet that he had been completely unaware of, suddenly dispersed in an instant.
It was like a sudden flash of enlightenment.
His chaotic thoughts gradually became clear. Images began appearing in his mind, along with documents and a face that slowly emerged from among countless others, becoming more and more glaring.
“Ren Yi!” Gong Yingxian said urgently. “I’m warning you, I’m not done being angry with you yet. You’re not allowed to get angry with me! Or… have you thought of something?”
Ren Yi raised his head, his face as pale as paper. He grabbed Gong Yingxian by the arm.
“I’ve thought of someone.”
“He… He went to Wenhui Shopping Mall to investigate the fire. He also went to the Anjia residential complex to investigate a fire. He participated in the investigations of several incidents connected to us. Most importantly, after I made the connection between the bird mask and the old-fashioned gas masks, I called you, and then immediately asked him to help me compile information about firefighting equipment from the past.”
Gong Yingxian’s eyes widened. “Who?!”
“Zhang Wen, from the Fire Investigation Division.”