4 o’clock in the morning, Wenxing Community.

There was no rain outside the window and even the wind that was rustling the leaves has disappeared. Everything was silent.

Ji Chaozhou suddenly woke up.

He sat up, raising his hands to his face. The thin quilt slid down with his movements, and the neckline of the black pajamas was slightly messy.

Ji Chaozhou got up without hesitation, picked up the mobile phone on the bedside table, and hurried out of the room.

He had a very keen sense of smell and walked directly downstairs on a trail of something, almost without pausing.

The lights in the corridor turned on automatically, and Ji Chaozhou walked to the entrance of the corridor. The electric car that was still charging appeared normal and had no fire, but he could smell a faint burnt smell coming from the car.

Ji Chaozhou unplugged the charger. He looked up along the hanging extension cords and traced it to the residents on the fourth floor.

He didn’t know any of the residents of this building. He only knew that there was a retired old man in his sixties who lived alone on the third floor. Because the other person didn’t work, they sometimes bumped into each other in the corridor.

The old man was enthusiastic, and he could talk endlessly as soon as he saw Ji Chaozhou. As for the others, he didn’t know them at all.

Ji Chaozhou turned around and went back to the second floor, ready to go back to his room, but suddenly turned his head to look downstairs again.

The burnt smell has not weakened, but intensified.

Ji Chaozhou’s fingers holding the doorknob were faintly white from the force of his grip. After a while, he let go of the doorknob and walked slowly, carefully, up the stairs towards the fourth floor, leaning close against the wall of the staircase, as far away from the railing as he could go.

He walked very slowly, almost stopping once every step, as if restraining something.

The higher he went, the paler his face became.

By the time he stepped onto the fourth floor, Ji Chaozhou’s back was already drenched with sweat. With a gloomy expression on his face, he walked slowly towards the door of the residents on the fourth floor.

The electrical cord passed under the door, then through the handrail of the stairs, and hung directly down from the fourth floor.

Ji Chaozhou raised his hand and knocked on the door.

At this time of the night, everyone was deep in dreamland.

The residents on the fourth floor were woken up by knocking on the door. There were some curses heard coming from inside and finally came the sound of slippered feet walking over.

A middle-aged man with a grumpy face opened the door and asked, “What are you doing…?”

A sentence full of rudely-awakened anger suddenly fell to nothing after the man saw Ji Chaozhou’s face.

In the middle of the night, just barely awake, no one would not be amazed to see a person who has grown to a beauty like this and would instinctively associate it to strange stories of mysterious, beautiful creatures.

“The charger at the entrance at the first floor has been unplugged.” Ji Chaozhou held one hand behind his back and clenched it tightly. He was already dizzy, everything blurry in front of his eyes, and now he was just restraining himself.

Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man was brought back to reality and said angrily, “Why are you unplugging my charger? I have to go to work tomorrow!”

“Your car must have broken down, there is…” Before Ji Chaozhou finished speaking, there was a sudden explosion from downstairs.

Deafeningly loud.

At that moment, the whole building shook.

“Fuck!” The middle-aged man shouted instinctively, his face pale, and he turned around in a panic to call his family.

Ji Chaozhou pressed against the wall tightly. He picked up his mobile phone and dialed 119. He forced himself to report the address. After hanging up the phone, he slid down slowly to the ground.

He didn’t realize that when he put the phone into his pajama pocket, his hand touched another button, and he didn’t know that the call was connected a few seconds later.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” The middle-aged man rushed out with his wife and children, ignoring Ji Chaozhou who was sitting against the wall, and the family rushed downstairs in a hurry.

The residents on the fifth and sixth floors also came down with their clothes half on, “What’s the matter, what’s the matter?”

For a moment, all the lights in the corridor were lit up, and it was extremely ‘lively’.

However, a few minutes later, the family from the fourth floor, including the residents on the third floor and the residents on the fifth and sixth floors who had just gone down to check, ran up one after another.

“It’s over! The corridor is completely blocked by fire!”

“Call the police! Call the police!”

The residents were already shouting at the top of their voices and ran to the roof one after another.

The retired old man on the third floor passed the fourth floor and was startled when he saw Ji Chaozhou sitting against the wall. He stopped and tried to pull him up, saying anxiously, “Young man, don’t sit here, the building’s on fire! It’s almost reached the second floor already!”

Ji Chaozhou couldn’t hear anyone’s voice, there was only blood red in front of his eyes. Even if he closed his eyes, it was still the familiar red.

“What are you still doing here, go upstairs quickly, don’t dawdle!” This was a man in his thirties who lived on the sixth floor. 

Seeing the situation, he bent down and pulled Ji Chaozhou up from the floor, half-supporting him to go up. Turning his head, he said to the retired old man who lived on the third floor, “Uncle, you go to the roof first.”

If It’s Wrong, Then It’s Wrong translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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