After the police took the package away, the brigade held another meeting to explain what had happened. They also established a temporary rotating inspection team to check all supplies, personnel, and vehicles entering the brigade. In addition, Qu Yangbo planned to go to the headquarters’ training base and request a fire-detection dog.
After the meeting, Ren Yi felt extremely exhausted. A single meeting could not consume that much of his energy; what truly wore him down was the fact that Purple Flame was still at large. Just one package had already thrown the entire brigade into a state of panic.
Back in his office, Ren Yi half-lay on the sofa and thought for a long time. At this point, he could truly be said to be facing troubles both inside and out. They had been targeted by an arsonist criminal organization, putting the safety of everyone in the brigade at risk. And the conflict between him and Gong Yingxian had become a deadlock that he did not know if they could ever resolve.
The only thing that could slightly comfort him was that at least his father was safe, leaving him without that additional worry.
Thinking of his father made him think of the Gong family arson case again.
At the time, his father had been the captain of the Fifth Brigade, so logically, he should have been the first person to enter the fire scene. That was the principle of firefighting command: you could not ask your men to go somewhere you yourself did not dare to enter. So when the Gong family’s front door was breached, even if his father had not personally broken it open, he must have been there.
Whether the door lock had been damaged was a crucial piece of evidence. It was just that his father clearly did not remember it; otherwise, he could not possibly have failed to mention such an important detail. An ordinary person’s buried memories could be partially awakened through medical equipment and guidance from a psychologist. But in Alzheimer’s patients, memory loss was pathological. Even if they tried hypnosis, he did not dare place much hope in it.
Right now, all they needed was evidence that it had been murder. As long as they had evidence of homicide, the case could be reopened. At present, they could only use their positions to obtain some of the original documents and evidence. But if the case were reopened, they would be able to access all the evidence and investigate the people involved in the case at the time.
This was the final year. Once the twenty-year statute of limitations passed, this case would never see the light of day again, and Gong Yingxian would never be able to escape from it for the rest of his life. So they had to find the evidence.
With that thought, Ren Yi sat up from the sofa, walked to his desk, and spread the documents from the file box across the table again, studying them carefully.
If his guess was correct, then when the killer returned to the living room to set the fire, they would have had to make the accelerant there merge with the accelerant in the kitchen. Since gasoline would produce flowing flames across the floor and leave obvious burn marks, any discontinuity in the burn marks caused by the accelerant would be an inexplicable contradiction.
But pouring gasoline onto an existing fire was extremely dangerous and could easily cause the person doing it to be caught in the flames. If he were the killer, how would he do it?
No matter how Ren Yi thought about it, he felt that this would be extremely difficult to accomplish.
Suppose the kitchen was already on fire, with flowing flames everywhere. No matter how gasoline flowed, without a slope, it was impossible for it to flow all the way into the living room. Moreover, if the gasoline had flowed from the kitchen toward the living room, the burn marks would also show the direction in which the flames had spread, because the point where the fire started would leave the most severe burn pit, and the direction of spread could only extend outward from the ignition point.
But the explosion of the kitchen gas had destroyed too much evidence, making the traces around the original ignition point unreliable. Meanwhile, there was a much more obvious burn pit in the living room, making the living room look more like the point where the fire had started.
Since the gasoline in the kitchen could not have flowed into the living room, then to make the traces of the accelerant appear continuous, they would have had to pour gasoline from the living room all the way into the kitchen. As long as the difference in ignition time between the two locations was not too great, there would be no obvious time difference reflected in the burn marks, and it would be enough to fool the investigators.
But carrying gasoline toward a source of fire—wasn’t that suicide?
Pouring gasoline onto a fire would cause a flashover. The killer would be swallowed by the flames before they even had time to blink.
Ren Yi frowned.
Could it be that his deduction had been wrong from the very beginning? That it had nothing to do with the kitchen and living room at all, and that the killer had used some other method to fabricate the scene?
What else had they overlooked?
Ren Yi went over the documents again and again, and the entire afternoon passed like that.
Before dinner, the brigade received a call about a residential kitchen fire.
This was an extremely common type of emergency, especially around mealtimes. Ren Yi rarely went out personally for this kind of call anymore, but this time, he insisted on leading the team.
Before they got into the truck, Qu Yangbo said quietly, “Aren’t you overreacting a little?”
“I haven’t been at the brigade much lately, and this is an important period. If I go, the guys will feel a little more at ease.”
“The guys are much steadier than you think. It’s you I’m worried about. Don’t let your nervousness rub off on them.”
Ren Yi frowned. “Where do I look nervous?”
“You’re not showing it on your face. You’re showing it through your actions.”
Ren Yi looked at the equipment he had already put on. For this kind of call, it really was somewhat unusual for him to suit up personally. For a moment, he hesitated over whether he should still go.
Qu Yangbo gave him a push. “Go first. We’ll talk when you get back.”
They only dispatched one truck. On the way there, Ren Yi instructed the caller over the phone to evacuate everyone in the building as quickly as possible.
The fire truck drove into the residential complex. A crowd had gathered beneath the apartment building—some there to watch, and others clearly residents who had run downstairs in their pajamas.
“Comrade, you finally got here.” The female homeowner ran over. “Please hurry and put out the fire. There’s a gas cylinder in the kitchen!”
“Is everyone out of the apartment?”
“Yes. The entire building has been evacuated.”
Ren Yi nodded. “Get two fire extinguishers and come upstairs with me.”
The woman grabbed Ren Yi’s arm and said fearfully, “There’s a gas cylinder up there. Please be careful!”
Ren Yi reassured her, “Don’t worry, Auntie.”
If the fire had been caused by a gas leak, it would have exploded already. Since it had not, that meant the gas valve was still intact. At this point, the cylinder was being heated to a high temperature, causing the internal pressure to rise. Although there was still a risk of explosion, they had time to take measures to prevent it from getting worse.
The burning kitchen was on the third floor. Ren Yi took Cui Yisheng and Ding Qing with him and charged up the stairs in just a few strides.
The apartment was already filled with smoke. They headed toward the kitchen.
The flames on the stove were already more than a meter high. They shot upward, blackening half the kitchen. The tongues of flame were spreading outward along the ceiling. Below, the top of the gas cylinder was already on fire.
The rubber sleeve around the valve had melted from the heat. The pressure inside the cylinder was rising, and the cylinder itself was trembling slightly under the pressure of the gas. The valve was making a dangerous hiss, hiss, hiss.
“Fuck, the valve is loose!” Cui Yisheng shouted.
He and Ding Qing opened their fire extinguishers and started spraying.
That hissing sound was a precursor to the valve becoming loose and gas leaking out. Once the gas mixed with the air and encountered an open flame, it would inevitably explode. At this moment, the most important thing was to get away from the source of the fire as quickly as possible.
Ren Yi looked around. He picked up a rag from the counter, turned on the faucet, soaked it thoroughly, and placed it directly over the top of the gas cylinder, temporarily suppressing the flames.
Then he hoisted the gas cylinder onto his shoulder and ran downstairs.
When he came charging out carrying the still-burning gas cylinder, the onlookers scattered in fright.
He placed the cylinder on the ground, and one of the firefighters carrying an extinguisher quickly put out the flames with several bursts.
Ren Yi waved his hand. “Everyone, don’t be afraid. It’s fine now.”
The fire in the kitchen was extinguished soon afterward as well. Cui Yisheng and Ding Qing found a clothes-drying pole and poked open the kitchen ceiling, confirming that there were no smoldering flames inside before they left.
“Thank you! Thank you, firefighters!”
The female homeowner led the applause, and enthusiastic applause immediately erupted throughout the residential complex.
“Firefighter brother, you’re so handsome!”
Two female students shouted while recording with their phones.
A male student standing nearby said sourly, “They’re okay. Their clothes are fireproof, after all. If I were wearing that kind of clothing, I’d dare go in too.”
“Could you carry a gas cylinder?”
“Hahahahahaha.”
One of the younger firefighters standing nearby muttered under his breath, “They’re flame-retardant suits, okay? Flame-retardant and fireproof are two different things.”
Hearing their conversation, Ren Yi froze.
The children had made the comments without thinking, and normally he would never have paid them any attention. But what the boy had said made him catch something he had overlooked.
Their firefighting gear was not fireproof. It was merely difficult to ignite. And once there was an explosion or a collapse, whether you were wearing that clothing or not, the outcome would be much the same. However, against an ordinary fire, it could completely protect them from brief exposure to flames or high temperatures.
For major fires, they had genuine aluminum-foil fireproof suits that could withstand temperatures of up to a thousand degrees Celsius. As long as they were not directly exposed to burning flames, they could move around inside a fire scene. However, those suits were extremely cumbersome and were generally not worn.
For a residential fire like the one at the Gong family’s house, as long as someone had a set of that equipment, they could completely move in and out of the scene just as he had imagined.
Ren Yi’s expression darkened.
Eighteen—no, nineteen years ago, online shopping did not exist yet. Buying a set of equipment like that would not have been easy.
“Captain Ren,” Ding Qing called out. “Are we good to leave?”
“Have you finished checking everything?”
“Everything’s checked. The fire is completely out.” Ding Qing grinned. “We can still make it back in time for dinner.”
“Let’s go.”
After they returned, Ren Yi sent his new theory to Gong Yingxian and asked whether there had been any progress in the investigation and interrogation of Wang Rui.
Later that evening, Gong Yingxian called and said that Wang Rui’s family had already been located. At present, Wang Rui was still extremely resistant, and the psychological experts would need to work with his family to reverse the brainwashing.
“What about the package? Have you found anything?”
“No. But we found where the bombs were being manufactured.”
“Where?”
“An abandoned amusement park outside the Sixth Ring Road. When we arrived, it was obvious they had left in a hurry. They left behind a lot of raw materials. Those materials and equipment gave us many leads to follow. Just now, Sister Yan used those clues to get the code name of the person who manufactured the bombs out of Wang Rui.”
“Oh?”
“‘White Flame.’”
“Sure enough, a high-ranking member of the organization. This guy is fucking dangerous. I hope these clues help you find him as soon as possible.”
“Of course.” Gong Yingxian paused. “How confident are you about what you just said?”
“Hard to say. We’re still missing the key evidence.”
“…I told you before that I believe there’s a mole among the investigators.”
“Yeah. Have you found anything?”
“Not yet. But…that equipment should be pretty easy to obtain within the firefighting system, right?”
Ren Yi froze. “Are you saying you think there was also a problem within the fire department in the case back then?”
“Is that impossible?” Gong Yingxian said calmly. “This case is connected to things far deeper than we imagined.”
Emotionally, Ren Yi found the possibility difficult to accept. But rationally, Gong Yingxian had a point. If someone had tampered with both the fabrication of the scene and the misleading of the investigation, then it would not be surprising that the case had been hastily concluded as a suicide.
“I don’t know. But you’re right. We can’t overlook any possibility.”
Gong Yingxian was silent for a moment. “Is there any chance your father remembers something about the door lock?”
“I thought of that today too, but he didn’t mention it, so he definitely doesn’t remember.” Ren Yi sighed. “His memory is very strange. Sometimes he can remember some insignificant little thing from many years ago, and sometimes he can’t even remember what he had for lunch. What he remembers is completely random.”
“Your father’s treatment plan should be finalized soon. During the treatment, I want to have the doctor intervene with his memories. Maybe he’ll be able to remember something.”
Ren Yi said, “We can try. But like he said, his dispatch reports should remember more than he does.”
“Let’s try it first.”