After the day’s classes ended, they were specifically warned not to go out for group meals. Everyone understood the reason, and no one objected. That didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for getting together, though. They ordered takeout in groups of three or five and had it delivered to their rooms, but no one dared drink alcohol.
They ate, chatted, and bragged about their exploits, and before they knew it, it was already quite late. One by one, the company commanders took their leave, while Yan Jue stayed behind to help Ren Yi clear away the leftovers scattered across the table.
Ren Yi complained, “The smell is way too strong. How am I supposed to sleep tonight?” As he spoke, he opened the window to air out the room. The cold wind blowing in stung his face—it was the dead of winter, the coldest time of the year.
“You’ll catch a cold like that,” Yan Jue said. “Come sleep in my room. The smell should be gone by tomorrow morning.”
They were both staying in standard twin rooms with two beds.
“Sure,” Ren Yi replied. “Come on, let’s put this rubbish outside the door.”
Yan Jue’s room was diagonally opposite Ren Yi’s. Ren Yi grabbed his pajamas and headed over.
While Yan Jue went to shower, Ren Yi lay on the bed fiddling with his phone, scrolling through his chat history with Gong Yingxian.
Most of the messages had been sent by Ren Yi to Gong Yingxian. Sometimes they were interesting news stories, sometimes cheeky memes, and sometimes he was simply teasing Gong a little. Gong occasionally didn’t reply at all, and when he did, his responses were usually brief and to the point. He never used emojis or unconventional punctuation, making him seem hardly like a young man at all. The only times he sent long messages, and lots of them, were when they were discussing a case.
Just looking at their chat history, anyone could tell at a glance which one of them was more invested.
Ren Yi smiled bitterly, but then consoled himself. Compared with a secret crush on someone he hadn’t even dared to touch, at least he and Gong Yingxian had shared every kind of intimacy that lovers could. He really ought to be content.
Perhaps—perhaps because of Gong Yingxian’s obsessive cleanliness and personality, they might just keep going like this indefinitely. If that happened… that would be fine, too.
The bathroom door opened. Ren Yi instinctively looked up and saw Yan Jue emerge wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.
Yan Jue had an excellent physique: broad shoulders, long legs, and a body covered in muscle. His bronze skin looked like a solar battery that had absorbed sunlight, radiating an aura of health and vitality at any moment. Even the faint tan lines from his tank top on his shoulders gave him a hint of sex appeal. He shook his head while roughly rubbing his short hair with a white towel. Water droplets flew through the air as he did so, making him look like a large dog shaking itself dry after coming out of the water.
Ren Yi swallowed.
He had lived in dormitories since high school and had spent years showering in communal bathhouses. What hadn’t he seen? He was long past being fazed by a naked man. Still, he might be impressed if he encountered a particularly good physique—and Yan Jue was handsome, too.
Yan Jue tilted his head to shake the water out of his ears and looked at Ren Yi. “Go take your shower. I heard the hot water here isn’t very reliable. If you wait too long, there won’t be any left.”
“Oh.” Ren Yi couldn’t help giving Yan Jue another once-over.
Yan Jue raised an eyebrow. “Not bad, right?”
“Not bad.” Afraid he’d embarrass himself if he kept looking, Ren Yi jumped off the bed, grabbed his pajamas, and went to shower.
Yan Jue glanced back at Ren Yi’s retreating figure and smiled smugly.
After showering, Ren Yi made sure to put on his pajamas before coming out. Although he appreciated Yan Jue’s physique, men were competitive by nature. Since he couldn’t measure up, he might as well cover himself. Thinking about it left him feeling somewhat dejected.
When Yan Jue saw him come out, he asked, “Want to play a round?”
“Sure.”
“Want to try this new hero? I’ve got it.”
“Sounds good.” The two exchanged phones, tossing them to each other. Ren Yi looked at the one he had received. “Haven’t played this one before. What build should I use?”
“Let me see.”
Yan Jue hopped off his own bed and lay down directly beside Ren Yi.
Ren Yi froze for a moment. As he handed Yan Jue the phone, he shifted a little farther away. But the bed was only a standard 1.2-meter single, small enough for one person, let alone two men who were both over six feet tall. If he moved any farther, he would roll right off.
Yan Jue remained perfectly composed. He selected the build and handed the phone back to Ren Yi.
Once the game began, Ren Yi quickly died three times because he wasn’t familiar with the character. His teammates cursed at him a couple of times.
Normally, Ren Yi would have cursed right back. But this time, he was in the wrong, so all he could do was mutter under his breath. Yan Jue snickered beside him.
“Damn it, here, take yours back.” Ren Yi tried to switch phones with Yan Jue again.
“Hey, hey, wait a second.” Yan Jue’s fingers flew across the screen, but before long, he died, too.
While waiting to respawn, Yan Jue took the phone from Ren Yi and turned his head toward him, demonstrating the controls as he explained them.
Ren Yi listened attentively. But when he looked up, he nearly bumped into Yan Jue’s face. Yan Jue was staring straight at him without even blinking.
Both of them froze. An unusual tension suddenly stirred in the air between them.
Ren Yi’s little radar picked up on something, but he wasn’t sure what it meant. He subtly leaned back, putting a little distance between himself and Yan Jue. “Let’s switch back. I haven’t had time to play lately. If I lose, my rank will drop.”
Yan Jue cleared his throat and pretended nothing had happened. “All right.”
They switched phones and managed to win the next round. But as they played, their arms kept bumping against each other, making Ren Yi feel increasingly awkward. He was losing the mood to play.
“It’s almost eleven. I’m tired. How about we go to sleep?”
“Yeah, let’s sleep.”
Yan Jue returned to his own bed. Lying on his side, he looked at Ren Yi with bright eyes in the dim light.
“Four Fires, did you know that the time we met at the amusement park wasn’t actually the first time we’d met?”
“Really?” Ren Yi replied distractedly. “Had we met at a meeting before?”
“No. It was not long after I’d been promoted to company commander.”
“Then when was it?”
“…It doesn’t matter. Go to sleep.”
The final day of training was the equipment demonstration everyone had been looking forward to.
Our country’s firefighting equipment still wasn’t advanced enough, and many excellent pieces of equipment had to be imported, mainly from the United States and Germany.
This time, they were showcasing a new water-tanker fire engine, rescue ropes, gas masks, and various other tools, along with all sorts of instruments used in rescue operations and fire investigations. Every year, each fire company submitted a procurement plan based on its needs and budget. But submitting a request didn’t guarantee approval. The more thoroughly they justified their needs, the greater the chance the request would be approved, so everyone was taking careful notes.
When the presentation reached the new model of gas mask, the PowerPoint slide changed, and Ren Yi froze.
The new mask displayed on the projector looked very different from the ones they currently used. It was noticeably smaller, with a narrower, longer filter section. It also came with a small built-in air reservoir that could provide five to eight minutes of emergency oxygen. This compact mask was designed as backup equipment for sudden emergencies and for entering confined spaces.
Ren Yi had seen this kind of combination gas mask and miniature self-contained breathing apparatus before. What shocked him was how familiar the device looked. In an instant, it reminded him of the bird mask worn by Ziyan!
His heart pounded wildly at the discovery, and a chill ran down his spine.
No wonder the mask had always seemed familiar to him. It turned out he hadn’t been imagining things.
He opened his browser and searched for photographs of older gas masks, but there were so many different kinds that it was difficult to determine which years they came from. An idea suddenly struck him, and he sent a WeChat message to Zhang Wen in the fire investigation department, asking him to look through the archives and see if he could find records of older mask designs.
Yan Jue discreetly nudged Ren Yi with his elbow and whispered, “What are you doing? Hurry up and take notes.”
Ren Yi mumbled an incoherent response, doing his best to keep his expression calm, though his thoughts were already in complete disarray.
He had long suspected that the arsonist might have been wearing fire-protective equipment, which would explain how they had managed to create such a convincing fire scene. Why had it never occurred to him that the bird mask Gong Yingxian had seen might actually have been…
By the time class ended, Zhang Wen had sent him a file containing records of all the mask models the fire department had used over the past twenty years.
Ren Yi scrolled through the images, his heart growing heavier with every swipe.
The more he looked, the more similar they seemed…
The newer masks had oversized, wide filters and a whole range of functional attachments. They looked more like the helmets worn by astronauts, full of futuristic technology. But the older masks really did look somewhat like birds.
A six-year-old child could easily have mistaken something unfamiliar for an object that resembled something he understood.
Could Gong Yingxian really have mistaken the gas mask worn by the arsonist for a bird mask?!
Ren Yi felt as though his head were swelling, and his face grew terribly pale.
Both Gong Yingxian and Qiu Yan had said that there had to be an insider involved in the case. Yet deep down, Ren Yi had been reluctant to suspect veterans in his own profession. Could it really be…
Ren Yi took a deep breath, forcing himself to stop letting his thoughts run wild. Without evidence, he couldn’t make baseless assumptions. Besides, much of this equipment had been imported from overseas back then. Firefighters weren’t the only people who used it. The lack of online shopping in those days had made such equipment less convenient to obtain, but that didn’t mean it was impossible to buy.
Even so, Ren Yi spent the entire class distracted and deeply unsettled.
After class, Yan Jue asked, “What’s wrong?”
Ren Yi explained, “Nothing. I just received some information related to a case.”
“Bad news?”
“…Not exactly.” Ren Yi sighed. “But it’s not the kind of good news that makes you happy, either.”
Yan Jue nodded. “I understand. If you need any help, just tell me.”
“Okay. I’m going to make a call.”
Ren Yi walked out into the corridor and dialed Gong Yingxian’s number.
“Hello?” Gong Yingxian’s pleasant voice came through, with a hint of cheerfulness in his tone. “Are you done with class?”
Ren Yi’s voice was grave. “Yingxian, I want to ask you something.”
Ren Yi sounded so serious that Gong Yingxian immediately sensed something was wrong. “Go ahead.”
“The thing you saw back then… was it definitely a bird mask?”
Gong Yingxian fell silent. “What do you mean?”
“I suspect it might not have been a bird mask.”