Chapter 73: Blurred and Confusing — “Someone Wants to Put You to Death”
Lu Xunye’s heart sank. He stumbled out of bed to open the door.
However, the door was seamlessly integrated into the wall.
He searched for a long time, his hand brushing against something unknown, when the door suddenly moved and slid open automatically.
He rushed out of the room, only to find himself in another room. Looking back, he realized the door he just came through was a bookshelf. A secret chamber?
Looking around, he had the strange illusion that he had been here before.
But he couldn’t afford to overthink it and ran straight to the exit.
When the door opened and he saw the outside, he realized this was the studio that Shen Yunqian never allowed outsiders to enter.
His surprise lasted only a second. Gritting his teeth to stay focused, he saw the living room was filled with thick smoke. The temperature had skyrocketed, the heat scorching his skin. The smell of burning was even stronger now, making his lungs ache.
Peering through the peephole, he confirmed the fire had started in the hallway. the flames were growing larger, spreading toward the point of being uncontrollable.
Whether it was because he lacked strength or not, the door felt as if it were welded into the frame; it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard he pulled. The doorknob was also searingly hot.
Murder…
The word suddenly popped into Lu Xunye’s head, and goosebumps immediately rose on his arms.
In a fit of frustrated rage, he kicked the door, only to hiss in pain as he realized he wasn’t wearing shoes.
His phone was likely broken.
Right.
Lu Xunye’s eyes lit up. He turned back into the secret chamber to search the unconscious young man for a phone, but found nothing.
Just then, a faint ringtone drifted over. Lu Xunye followed the sound and found a ringing phone tucked in a corner of the bookshelf outside the door.
Without looking at the caller ID, he prepared to hang up, but accidentally swiped to answer.
An anxious voice spoke first from the other end: “You haven’t done anything reckless, have you?”
“He’s busy. Contact him later.”
Lu Xunye hung up immediately, cutting off the other person’s unfinished question. He then pivoted to call 119.
The moment he set the phone down, a violent explosion echoed from outside the studio. The sound was deafening. This is bad, he thought.
Sure enough, when he opened the door, the living room was a sea of flames that were intensifying, completely blocking the path to the balcony.
The light tubes overhead exploded. Deprived of artificial light, the night was nonetheless illuminated as bright as day by the soaring flames.
He tried his best to stay calm. He first ran to the bathroom, turned all the faucets to the maximum, splashed water all over the surrounding walls, and then soaked himself.
The bone-chilling water drenched his clothes from head to toe, making them cling to his body. Lu Xunye shivered violently from the cold, but at least he was fully awake.
He grabbed several soaked bath towels and rushed back as fast as he could.
God knows how much he regretted knocking Shen Yunqian unconscious now. He hurriedly draped the wet towels over the man.
Since his limbs were still a bit weak, his knees buckled slightly when he hoisted the man onto his back.
Lu Xunye murmured to himself, half-sighing, “I must have owed you in my past life.”
Leaving the secret chamber, he grabbed a stool on the way out. Something fell near his feet; compelled by some strange impulse, he looked down to see a picture frame.
After seeing it clearly, Lu Xunye’s whole body shuddered, and he took a step back.
There, wedged between a family-style photo and the lower right corner of the glass frame, was a palm-sized Polaroid. Though the colors had faded, it was clearly visible.
The image showed a little boy in a deep pit, looking straight up into the camera.
It was exactly the same one that had appeared in Lu Xunye’s dream—the one he had taken with his own hands.
Lu Xunye forgot to breathe, unable to snap out of it for a long time, not even noticing when the stool slipped from his hand.
It wasn’t until the sound of glass shattering rang out again that he barely regained his senses. He picked up the frame and stuffed it into his shirt.
Re-grabbing the stool, he covered his nose and mouth with his wet sleeve. Before the flames could leap across the wooden floor toward him, he ducked into the bathroom.
He placed Shen Yunqian in the overflowing bathtub, causing even more water to spill out.
Lu Xunye gripped the stool legs and slammed it against the horizontal bar of the ventilation window above.
Once, twice… his palms went numb.
With a loud crash, the window bar fell onto the outdoor air conditioning unit.
Lu Xunye glanced at the young man leaning in the tub, bit his tongue, threw down the stool, and leaped into the tub himself, submerging his head briefly.
He stood up, grabbed the bathrobe wrapped around Shen Yunqian, and draped it over his own shoulders.
He rushed out, broke through a door, threw a bucket of water into the fire, and plunged back into the studio. He found the keys and removed the chains from around the bed in the secret chamber.
By the time he returned to the bathroom, the soaked towels on his body were emitting white steam, clinging to him with a scalding heat.
Without hesitation, Lu Xunye dragged Shen Yunqian out of the tub and shoved him onto the windowsill. He climbed up as well and locked several chains together.
He tied one end around his and Shen Yunqian’s waists and the other to a sturdy metal bar inside the room.
Gripping the chain with one hand, he couldn’t help but peek at the ground below the windowsill. The green lawn below the building swayed toward and away from him in the night air, like a black vortex trying to suck him down.
He tugged the chain, confirming it was secure. He looked down again; his head spun, and his heart hammered. Resigned, he hoisted Shen Yunqian by the arm and pulled him into his embrace on one side.
“Shen Yunqian, oh Shen Yunqian, you really have bad luck meeting me.”
The glass door of the bathroom was shattered by a blast of heat. Simultaneously, he closed his eyes and jumped.
Clinging to the chain with his arm, he bore part of the impact of gravity. Aside from his palms burning like fire, it was within his tolerance.
However, the chain wasn’t long enough. The two of them were left hanging under the third-floor outdoor AC unit.
In truth, they wouldn’t die even if they fell from this height, but Lu Xunye was simply terrified, gripping the chain as if it were his only lifeline.
Before long, the six or seven people gathered below the balcony spotted the two dangling in mid-air and moved to that side of the building.
The fire department arrived to extinguish the flames, and chaos broke out below. Lu Xunye’s tension dissipated as the sound of the sirens grew louder.
The fire truck’s hoses focused their spray on the balcony where the fire was fiercest.
A firefighter climbed up from a second-floor windowsill. Wearing a safety harness, he leaned out and reassured Lu Xunye: “Don’t be afraid, buddy! Can the chain be lowered a bit more?”
Hearing this, Lu Xunye loosened the chain tied around their waists, his palms already marked with bloody gashes.
The veins on his temples bulged. He had no strength left. During the descent, his body swung uncontrollably in the air, one hand gripping the chain and the other hooked around Shen Yunqian’s waist.
As the firefighter braced one hand against the window frame and reached out, Lu Xunye swung himself toward the window with all his might and pushed Shen Yunqian over.
Another violent blast erupted above—a gas tank had exploded. This time, fragments flew outward.
The shockwave knocked loose a metal frame that had fallen onto the AC unit.
It plummeted like a giant boulder, whistling past Lu Xunye’s eyes.
After this scare, Lu Xunye’s physical strength was completely exhausted. Seeing Shen Yunqian safely rescued out of the corner of his eye, he could no longer hold the chain and fell toward the ground.
His heart constricted to the limit, adrenaline soaring.
Lu Xunye closed his eyes. There was no sharp pain. A soft, bouncy surface beneath him launched him high before catching him again. Amidst the cheers, his head tilted to the side, and he lost consciousness.
————
“Awake?”
Shen Yunqian lifted his heavy, aching arm and saw the infusion patch on the back of his hand. He slowly lowered it.
He turned his head to see a man with a solemn expression sitting on the sofa. “What happened to me?”
Su Zhuo said irritably, “You almost burned to death.”
Shen Yunqian thought he was intentionally mocking him and didn’t take it to heart; after all, Su Zhuo was always like this.
He propped himself up and leaned against the headboard, feeling his forehead with his hand. It was a bit hot. “Where is Lu Xunye?”
“Dead,” Su Zhuo huffed. “Burned to death.”
Shen Yunqian frowned and shot him a displeased look. “Explain clearly.”
“Literally.”
Su Zhuo grew impatient. “A gas leak in your house caused a fire. I called you, and Lu Xunye answered. I sensed something was wrong and rushed over, but the firefighters had already extinguished the flames and left. I only found out you were sent to the hospital after asking around. Do you understand?”
It took Shen Yunqian a while to process the information. “What about him? Which ward is he in?”
With that, he pulled out the IV needle and flipped back the blanket to get out of bed. “I need to find him.”
Su Zhuo hurriedly stood up to block him.
“Move,” Shen Yunqian said coldly.
“Are you an idiot? Don’t you know how you passed out? Do I really have to spell it out for you—why would your phone be with Lu Xunye?” Su Zhuo was frustrated by his friend’s lack of sense.
Those words jolted Shen Yunqian. His neck and shoulders still throbbed with a dull pain.
In his memory, he had lost consciousness while opening the first-aid kit. He stumbled a few steps and grabbed the bed railing to steady himself.
Su Zhuo retracted the hand he had instinctively reached out and let out a sigh. He grabbed the other’s shoulder and pressed him back onto the bed, his angry voice softening.
“I told you not to push people too far. you were too aggressive. Lu Xunye isn’t a fool. Even if he was obsessively infatuated with that little star before, he should have realized what kind of person he was after this.”
“In other words, even if Lu Xunye really liked you, locking him up is…”
Su Zhuo paused, then said tactfully, “…not very polite.”
Seeing Shen Yunqian’s despondent, soul-crushed appearance, Su Zhuo felt a lump in his throat. He realized he had taken the joke too far. “Alright, I lied to you. He’s not dead.”
Shen Yunqian’s eyelashes flickered. He gripped the nearby railing and turned his head mechanically to look at him, but couldn’t make a sound.
Su Zhuo sensed his state and stopped dragging it out. “Thanks to you, after Si Jingyan caused that scene last time, the security at the complex was tightened. Outsiders can’t get in at all. I only found out you were sent here after asking the guards.”
“I don’t know the rest, but Lu Xunye is still alive. You can rest easy. I heard there were no bodies inside after the fire was out. As for where he is, that’s unclear.”
Su Zhuo’s expression grew complex as he spoke. “Logically, a major accident like this should have been posted online, but I have my doubts.”
Shen Yunqian’s tone was certain: “You checked.”
Su Zhuo shook his head. “I found nothing. Since it was night, the surveillance was already low-resolution, and coincidentally, the cameras for your entire unit were under maintenance at the time. So, trying to find out… will be difficult.”
“Have you offended anyone lately?” Su Zhuo asked.
After carefully eliminating a few targets from the suspicious people in his mind, Shen Yunqian’s gaze turned skeptical. “You?”
Si Jingyan was currently being worn down by the company’s veteran shareholders and couldn’t find time to cause him trouble. Gu Jiang was still locked up in the Jiang City villa.
If he had offended anyone, it was likely only Su Zhuo, who had been quite resentful about working overtime during the New Year period.
It couldn’t possibly be that Lu Xunye set a fire to burn him to death while escaping, right?
The image of Lu Xunye’s disgusted, pale expression as he pushed him away flashed before his eyes. Shen Yunqian bit his tongue, but he couldn’t stop the wild thoughts.
“Screw you.” Su Zhuo didn’t know what he was thinking, but he was so angry he pushed him. “Why didn’t you just burn to death?”
Shen Yunqian lowered his eyes and remained silent.
“Don’t stay in that complex for now. I’ll have someone fix your documents later. Stay in one of my apartments for the next few days.”
Su Zhuo added, “Or I can have someone tidy up the Shen family’s old residence for you.”
After a long silence, a heavy voice spoke: “I suspect someone wants to put you two to death.”
————
“What?!” Lu Xunye cried out. “A gas leak?”
“Impossible,” he denied vehemently.
The middle-aged woman with a kind, motherly face opposite him smiled. “Are you so sure?”
“Of course… because his house uses natural gas.”
Furthermore, Lu Xunye clearly saw the fire start in the hallway, and the door was blocked. Aside from murder, he really couldn’t think of any other explanation.
An unnatural look flashed across the woman’s face upon hearing this, but she masked it well. “Then perhaps the fire department made a mistake. Usually, fires are caused by electrical malfunctions, natural gas, or gas leaks.”
Lu Xunye looked at the woman who had claimed to be his mother’s friend since he woke up. His gaze was searching. “Fu-yi, can I ask about my mother?”
Translator’s Note:
- 119: The fire emergency number in China.
- Fu-yi (傅姨): Auntie Fu. “Yi” is a polite term for a woman of one’s mother’s generation.
- 119: The fire emergency telephone number in China.
- Gas tank (煤气罐): These are portable tanks, whereas natural gas (燃气) is usually piped in. Lu Xunye is pointing out the discrepancy in the “accident” report.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire—damn~
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