“We’re here!” The slope gradually leveled out. Ming Han kicked open a door, and icy night wind from the open fields rushed in. Chen Zheng saw the flashing police lights on the distant road. At last, all strength left him and he collapsed against Ming Han’s chest.
“Bro!” Ming Han exclaimed in alarm, tightening his hold.
Chen Zheng had not lost consciousness. He had simply spent too long in the burning basement and was still somewhat disoriented. Leaning on Ming Han for support, he turned to look back. The towering flames instantly filled his eyes.
The abandoned Western-style building burned fiercely in the night, possessing an eerie beauty. The fire aboveground was several times more violent than in the basement. Splintered pieces of wood fell through the air like fire descending from heaven. Heat filled the atmosphere while jets of water from different directions hammered the blazing building.
Chen Zheng heard that demonic, androgynous laughter again. Cao Mei had left the basement and climbed to the highest point of the old building. She was not looking toward Chen Zheng and Ming Han and had no idea they had escaped. She proudly spread her arms in the flames like the immortal phoenix of Western legend, as if fire could not threaten her but instead nourished her rebirth.
She shouted triumphantly at the police cars and fire engines below. “You’re too late! The one you came to save is already dead down there! Chen Zheng has gone to atone to my brother! It serves him right!”
A fit of violent coughing followed. Cao Mei had inhaled enormous amounts of smoke too. Her windpipe and lungs were badly damaged. She was burning through the last of her life in one final performance.
Water jets struck the top of the building. Once the flames were extinguished, it would be no more than a lump of charcoal liable to collapse at any moment. Cao Mei’s laughter grew quieter. She sat against the wall, looking up at a starless, moonless sky. Nobody knew whether her dying hallucinations included the brother she missed so desperately.
Chen Zheng’s thoughts gradually cleared. He tried to speak, only to be seized by coughing. “Cao Mei… can’t die…”
Ming Han looked at the woman huddled into a tiny shape, his eyes brimming with coldness and hatred. “Right. Dying like that would be far too easy for her.”
Kong Bing got out of a police car and called urgently, “Captain Chen!”
He had hurried over as fast as possible after Chen Zheng sent his pursuit signal. Never had he imagined the old building beyond the wilderness would catch fire. Fire engines arrived one after another, but the blaze had started in the basement and would be difficult to extinguish from above in the short term. Unless the people trapped inside freed themselves and escaped in time, firefighters had almost no hope of bringing them out.
Kong Bing’s eyes were red. Without caring that Ming Han stood beside him, he hugged Chen Zheng hard. Chen Zheng could plainly feel him trembling. “Captain Kong, I made a mistake this time.”
“What good does saying that do now?” Kong Bing refused to let him blame himself, pushing him away on instinct. Chen Zheng was completely spent. He stumbled backward and crashed solidly into Ming Han’s chest.
Kong Bing’s shout finally drew Cao Mei’s attention. She had been unable to support herself and collapsed beside the wall. When she heard that Chen Zheng seemed to have survived, a brief surge of life returned to her body. She crawled across the floor, grabbed the railing, and struggled to her feet.
Flames still separated her from Chen Zheng, as they had in the basement. Burning fragments whirled above the inferno. She stared at him in disbelief, her lips trembling. Chen Zheng looked back. His appearance was disheveled, but his gaze remained extraordinarily calm.
She made a faint, meaningless cry, which grew louder and louder, ever hoarser and more piercing, like a creature hidden deep in a forest.
Ming Han looked back at Chen Zheng and held him even tighter.
Cao Mei could not accept that after sacrificing everything in an attempt to die together with Chen Zheng, he was standing alive and well beyond the fire. She climbed onto the railing, intending to jump. But firefighters had reached her from behind. One of them hauled her down.
The fire was nearly out. The burned Western-style building resembled a rotting carcass with small flames still flickering in it. Cao Mei’s screams echoed endlessly through the ruins, as though her ugly soul had taken physical form.
Ambulance sirens wailed. Cao Mei was taken to a city hospital for emergency treatment. Draped in Ming Han’s jacket, Chen Zheng instructed Kong Bing, “Don’t let her die.”
Kong Bing snapped, “You need to get to the hospital for an examination too! What, you want to stay here?”
The fire scene needed investigation, and Chen Zheng really had considered staying. But that was hardly realistic. Even if Kong Bing did not personally haul him to the hospital, the very large Ming Han was standing right behind him.
“Bro. Get in the car,” Ming Han said, leaving no room for argument.
As the arsonist, Cao Mei was severely burned and undergoing emergency treatment. Chen Zheng and Ming Han underwent their examinations. Both had inhaled varying amounts of smoke and fumes, but since both had received professional training for emergencies at fire scenes, their conditions were not serious.
It was already past midnight when news came from the site. The fire had been completely extinguished, and no bodies had been found. There were five points of ignition: three in the basement, and two on the building’s first and second floors. Cao Mei had placed large quantities of flammable material in advance, enabling the fire to spread extremely rapidly.
The basement was complicated. Its original owner had deliberately designed mechanisms and concealed features into it, perhaps to escape the chaos of war. There was no way to know for certain now.
Cao Mei had set an extraordinarily vicious trap. Anyone unfamiliar with the basement had almost no chance of surviving. Even she had not known about the hidden passage from the deep trench to the surface. The investigation would continue. If she survived, she would be questioned.
Chen Zheng eyed the half of one of Ming Han’s eyebrows that had been singed away. “How did you know there was another way out?”
Noticing Chen Zheng’s gaze, Ming Han raised a hand to touch his eyebrow. The skin stung faintly. “Damn. My face is ruined again.”
Chen Zheng placed his cool fingertips against the spot and stroked it, once, then again. Ming Han straightened instinctively, staring without blinking.
Chen Zheng no longer seemed in such a hurry to get his answer. On this night when every second had mattered, he had nearly died in the flames. He had believed himself to be following an important lead, only to discover an arrow of vengeance shot from more than a decade earlier.
Cao Mei had prepared an almost perfect trap, anticipating his eagerness to seize a lead. The basement was supposed to become his grave. Yet someone had run against the tide through the vortex of fire, risking everything to give him a second chance at life.
His fingers lingered on Ming Han’s bare brow bone, where the heat had left a red burn. His thoughts remained fixed on the instant he had seen Ming Han, on the moment Ming Han had covered his head with the protective suit. His body moved before his mind. He leaned closer and kissed the red burn.
Ming Han froze in his seat, one hand suspended in midair. His heart pounded so hard it seemed he wanted Chen Zheng to hear.
Chen Zheng did hear. He cupped Ming Han’s face and gazed quietly into his eyes.
“Bro…” Ming Han whispered.
“Thank you,” Chen Zheng said.
Ming Han shook his head, but Chen Zheng continued, “Whatever our relationship, you saved my life. You deserve to be thanked.”
Ming Han buried his forehead in Chen Zheng’s shoulder. His voice came out muffled. “Bro. Thank goodness I got there in time.”
Chen Zheng patted his back gently. Their hearts rested close together, seeming to console each other as both gradually settled.
“You still haven’t answered my question, Bird,” Chen Zheng said. “How did you know I was there? How did you find that path?”
Ming Han began with the previous summer, when he had first been “exiled” to Zhuquan City.
“Actually, my master is the one who taught me to explore every new place I go. He said that as police officers, especially officers in the Mobile Unit, we need to know our surroundings better than ordinary people. We never know when that knowledge will come in handy.”
Thanks to Liu Pinchao, Ming Han was already somewhat familiar with Zhuquan. After learning he would be staying there for a while, he followed his usual practice, roaming the city and keeping records.
The Western-style building stood outside the city. He had visited only once, but it left a deep impression. There were descriptions of it online. A group of foreigners and local wealthy men had built it in the previous century. It had been abandoned for decades. Young people occasionally took photographs outside, but almost nobody went inside. The interior was chaotic and sinister, piled high with junk.
Since he was already there, Ming Han had decided to take a look inside. He found a staircase leading underground. Once down there, he discovered a vast, high-ceilinged basement filled with mechanisms and hidden rooms, apparently designed as a refuge from wartime fighting. Ming Han explored it for a while, repeatedly getting lost, until one wrong step sent him tumbling into a deep trench.
There was no signal anywhere in the basement, let alone inside the trench. Ming Han thought he was in serious trouble. He had only just come to Zhuquan and had not even seen Chen Zheng. If he died here, his life would have been a terrible waste.
At that, Chen Zheng drew a quiet breath. Not long before, that very trench had saved him. Without it, he and Ming Han would probably have been devoured by the flames. Yet the same trench had once nearly cost Ming Han his life.
Ming Han continued. Clinging to the conviction that he had to see Chen Zheng, he felt his way through the trench until he found the exit door. Beyond it, the path sloped upward all the way to the surface. He crawled out and lay panting at the opening.
At the time, the wilderness was lush and green, its grass half as tall as a person. The opening was hidden already. With plants obscuring it, there was no sign of it from outside. Nobody on the surface would ever find it; only someone who escaped from the trench would discover it.
Most people who narrowly survived something like that would have fled in terror on the spot. But Ming Han only became more curious about the building. After catching his breath, he actually went back the way he had come, through the trench and into the basement. He explored its structure carefully again, memorizing most of its mechanisms, whether or not they still worked, and finally returned to the building by the staircase.
The upper building and the basement seemed to belong to two different worlds. Belowground everything was orderly; aboveground the structure was dilapidated. On the second floor, Ming Han found worn bedding, a portable gasoline stove, outdoor cookware, and other items.
Someone was living here.
Ming Han had dealt with homeless people in the city before, and they owned similar supplies. He finished surveying the entire building and left. Even by the time he mounted his motorcycle, the person living there had not returned.
It had not seemed a particularly memorable experience. Ming Han had encountered too many strange things over the years with the Mobile Unit. Before long, he had forgotten about it.
Recently, however, Chen Zheng had been attacked in his own apartment. More than that, he said he felt someone watching him.
Anyone hearing the story would assume that the watcher and the attacker belonged to the same group, probably connected to Heaven-Measuring Ruler. Even Chen Zheng, Tang Xiaoli, and Lu Hejing believed that. For the police, it looked like an opportunity worth taking a risk for, perhaps a chance to obtain a crucial lead.
But when it came to Chen Zheng, Ming Han considered more possibilities than anyone. The police and Chen Zheng were now trapped in a quagmire involving Heaven-Measuring Ruler. They assumed anyone following Chen Zheng was from that organization or one of its affiliates.
That assumption might itself be a trap. Why couldn’t it be someone who had a grudge against Chen Zheng personally? Chen Zheng had risen from an ordinary frontline detective in Luocheng to captain of the criminal-investigation detachment. There were as many people who hated him as there were people grateful to him!
A shiver ran through Ming Han. He told no one his theory. Instead he squeezed out time to investigate the criminals Chen Zheng had arrested and their families. Some had been executed, others were still serving sentences, and relatively few had been released.
Suddenly a name caught his eye: Cao Mei. The case behind her was tragic, and her older brother Cao Shou had died in a fire during his arrest.
Chen Zheng had mentioned the case before. Ming Han still remembered the sadness in his expression as he spoke of it.
Many investigations Chen Zheng had led or participated in had ended perfectly, but this one had gone wrong. The Cao siblings were human traffickers. To evade capture, Cao Shou had concealed children he had not yet managed to sell in the basement of a Western-style building. The police surrounded it. Desperately resisting, Cao Shou set the building on fire in an attempt to force the police back.
Chen Zheng led the charge into the flames to save the trapped children, even rescuing Cao Mei. But Cao Shou was not saved. He fell from the building’s balcony and was instantly consumed by flames.
The chief culprit died, the only person burned to death in the building. Cao Mei went on trial and received a sentence of more than ten years. She had been released in May of the previous year.
Ming Han checked what Cao Mei had done since leaving prison. Until the previous July, she had stayed in a place called Luping County in Han Province. After that, her whereabouts were unknown.
Ming Han’s eyelid twitched violently, and unease spread through every part of him. Chen Zheng’s expression when recalling the old fire was vivid in his mind. Even Chen Zheng regretted that Cao Shou had not been saved. What about Cao Mei? Chen Zheng’s regret came from not getting Cao Shou to court to face trial. But Cao Mei? She and Cao Shou had depended on each other for survival. Fire had taken her only family member. Would she hate the fire? Would she hate Cao Shou, who set it?
Ming Han had seen too many criminals’ faces. They only hated the police officers who came for them.
Unable to sit still, Ming Han requested leave from Tang Xiaoli and rushed toward Zhuquan City.
He had not told Tang Xiaoli or Chen Zheng his theory in advance. It might be worrying over nothing, and it might interfere with the normal investigation of Heaven-Measuring Ruler. All he could do was be the one who prepared a backup plan, the person standing ready to catch Chen Zheng if he fell.
If he was wrong, he would merely watch the operation. If his instinct was right, he would rescue Chen Zheng from the conspiracy!
His car sped along the expressway. At the horizon, the sunset burned like a vast fire. He charged into that fire as dusk turned to night. Darkness swallowed the blaze, and the wind pouring through the window was frighteningly cold.
Before reaching Zhuquan, Ming Han contacted Beiye Sub-bureau. Kong Bing happened to have just received Chen Zheng’s pursuit signal, and the sub-bureau detectives were already heading out of town. On hearing this, Ming Han hurriedly opened a map. When he saw the Western-style building he had visited months earlier, his heart seemed to miss a beat.
The labyrinthine basement. Signs of someone living on the second floor. Cao Mei’s disappearance.
The children once imprisoned in the building’s basement, the Cao siblings, the towering inferno back then, and Cao Shou, who had burned to death.
That sinister, clinging sense of being watched Chen Zheng had described. The stalking that had continued even after the attack in his home.
“Captain Kong!” Ming Han shouted into the phone. “Request fire-rescue support immediately! Prepare two sets of gear for entering a fire scene!”
Kong Bing was stunned. Why call firefighters?
“Do what I’m telling you!” Ming Han barked.
Kong Bing did not know what was happening. He had never seen Ming Han this agitated and assumed the Mobile Unit had intelligence unavailable to the local police. Without further hesitation, he called the fire brigade.
By the time the sub-bureau detectives and firefighters reached the building, it was already ablaze, flames leaping skyward. In the wilderness, it resembled a phoenix spreading its wings.
Kong Bing’s heart thundered. Chen Zheng was inside! Firefighters immediately began battling the blaze. A fire like this aboveground would not ordinarily be too difficult to put out, but after entering the building the firefighters discovered nobody there!
“In the basement!” Ming Han sprang out of the car and changed into protective gear as quickly as he could, slinging over his back the second set prepared for Chen Zheng.
Hearing that there was a basement, Kong Bing felt slightly calmer. Basements normally had some degree of separation from the rest of a building. Even if the fire aboveground was enormous, it should not affect the basement.
But Ming Han’s face was icy. “The basement is on fire too. It didn’t spread down from above. Someone started it directly underground!”
“What?” Kong Bing’s pupils contracted. He looked toward the fire captain. As a professional, the man knew that a fire in a basement would be exceptionally hard to extinguish. Large equipment could not be taken down, and whatever small equipment could reach it would hardly make a difference. Lack of oxygen posed a grave danger as well. In such circumstances, firefighters could only enter to rescue those trapped, then let the flames burn themselves out.
But they did not know the basement’s layout, and sending firefighters in blindly would be extremely dangerous.
Ming Han was already leaping toward the blinding flames. Kong Bing tried to follow, but the fire captain caught him. “Captain Kong, you can’t go in! You don’t have any protective gear!”
High-pressure water jets battered the building. Ming Han strode rapidly through the flames, feeling everything around him burn and melt. He had to go down there. Only he could. Chen Zheng was waiting for him in that fire!
The thought that Chen Zheng might already have burned, that his breathing might have stopped, made it almost impossible for Ming Han to stay rational. He lifted the hatch to the basement. Below was already a sea of fire.
His mind was chaotic. Then, suddenly, his master’s voice seemed to echo in his ears. Haven’t you been here before? Think carefully. What mechanisms are up ahead? Which hidden room has a shortcut?
He steadied his trembling hands, stared into the flames, and strained to hear anything within them.
Many iron gates had descended, altering the routes through the basement. But however those paths had changed, only one led to life: the passage toward the deep trench!
Suddenly he heard the faintest sound of breathing. It was barely audible amid the crackle of the flames, as though it might stop at any moment. He looked toward it. The fire there was burning fiercer than anywhere else, with no gap at all.
There!
Without the slightest hesitation, he charged forward. Fire climbed across his body. The heat wave was like a monstrous tsunami, swallowing him, dragging him into a vortex toward a lightless ocean. Yet Chen Zheng was waiting deep in the flames, and only Ming Han could save him. If he gave up, death would take Chen Zheng away.
The moment he broke through the inferno and saw Chen Zheng, warmth surged from his heart until it blurred his vision. He threw the protective suit over Chen Zheng’s head. Burns, breathlessness, all of it ceased to register. Chen Zheng was still alive. Ming Han would get him out!
A wildfire seemed to sweep through Chen Zheng’s heart. His own ordeal had been terrifying, but Ming Han’s had been even more tumultuous. He looked at Ming Han and found no way to express the blaze of feeling within him except with a kiss.
Kong Bing returned from the old building, anxious to check on them both, only to walk into that scene. His weathered face instantly reddened. He turned around, shoving the officers crowding behind him away. “What are you looking at? What are you looking at? Go back!”
Cao Mei had not yet regained consciousness. Chen Zheng and Ming Han returned to Beiye Sub-bureau. This latest danger did not appear to have been arranged by Heaven-Measuring Ruler, but on closer thought, that was still uncertain. Doctors had found Cao Mei had a brain tumor and serious kidney disease. She might have suffered from pain for a long time. And traces of psychoactive drugs had also been found in her body. Where had she obtained them?
Chen Zheng immediately thought of Tang Xiaowan, who had been controlled through Black Mark and had likewise suffered chronically from a back injury.
Kong Bing had brought back drug samples from the building that had escaped the flames. One look was enough for Chen Zheng to recognize them: this was Black Mark!
At the hospital last time, Ming Han had heard Chen Zheng give only a sketch of the old case. The Mobile Unit’s case files could not recreate the full truth either. Neither he nor Chen Zheng felt like sleeping. Ming Han asked, “Bro, what really happened in Cao Mei’s case?”
The spring night was cold. Chen Zheng drank most of the hot tea Kong Bing had brought and sat silent for a long time. “Cao Mei and Cao Shou were both orphans. Before they became criminals, they were pitiable people too.”
Cao Mei and Cao Shou were not biological siblings. They had no blood relationship; they had simply grown up in the same orphanage. Cao Shou was three years older. Perhaps they were kindred spirits, or perhaps Cao Mei had effectively been raised by Cao Shou, but they were extremely close.
Orphanages back then were very different from today’s welfare homes. Children rarely received decent care. Hunger and inadequate clothing were common, and education was almost out of reach.
The director and teachers used to take Cao Shou and Cao Mei out to perform on the streets. The money earned did nothing to improve their lives. It only bought Adidas and Nike for the director’s own children.
And street performances were the better of their options. Later the director decided they brought in too little money and required too much time for practice. He simply sent the children out to steal.
Cao Shou was the best thief among them. So that he and Cao Mei could eat their fill, he thrust his hand into strangers’ pockets with all his might. He was caught often, but those who caught him usually took him to a police station, where the director would collect him.
They were only children. The director had a ready-made excuse: they were incorrigible little thieves who ran off to steal despite his efforts. What could the police do with children? They recorded the incident, lectured them, then let them go.
But once, Cao Shou encountered someone who was not so forgiving. Rather than scold him or take him to the police station, the person broke his arm and leg.