Cheng Liu opened her eyes at the second ring. She sat up straight and grabbed the phone.

She somehow thought it was a work call, but when she saw the caller ID, she froze—it was her boyfriend.

Before Cheng Liu could speak, she was surprised to hear a very noisy background coming from the other side of the call.

At this time of the night, there shouldn’t be such a noisy scene; she quietly listened to the voices on the phone.

Then she heard one particular sentence: ‘the corridor was blocked by fire’. Cheng Liu got up immediately, grabbed her coat and put it on, paused, grabbed her wallet, then hurried downstairs and drove to Wenxing Community.

Cheng Liu never hung up her boyfriend’s call, always paying attention to what was going on at the other side. She only heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the faint sounds of a police siren coming from the other end of the phone.

But she didn’t hear her boyfriend’s voice from beginning to end.

Fortunately, the voices of the other residents were loud, and Cheng Liu could hear them talking to the firefighters, hear them talking about going down the ladder from the roof, and hear someone urging her boyfriend.

After a while of confusion and chaos, the voices on the phone got farther and farther away. If it wasn’t that Cheng Liu could still hear the occasional siren of an ambulance, she would have thought the call had been hung up.

Half an hour later, Cheng Liu finally arrived at Wenxing Community.

By now the lights in the other buildings of the community were almost all turned on, and many people had come out of their homes and stood watching nearby while the security guards held back the curious crowd.

Cheng Liu’s car couldn’t go in, so she could only park to one side and walk in by herself.

“Don’t lean here,” the security guard said, trying to chase people away. “Go back to sleep, it’s all right now.”

The security guard stopped the people who wanted to go to to Building No. 5 to watch the excitement, and Cheng Liu was also stopped. Fortunately, the property manager soon came over. He said a few words to the security guard and they let her in.

“Why was Building No. 5 on fire?” Cheng Liu didn’t immediately go to the fifth building but asked the property manager.

Looking at Shang Chengliu’s eyes, the property manager felt a little guilty: “…the electric car exploded.”

He went to the car owner’s house yesterday at noon to say something about this matter, but everyone responded in a perfunctory manner.

The only fortunate thing in this whole mess was that the fire lanes had already been cleared, and the fire engines were able to pass through when they came in early this morning, and so none of the lives of the residents of Building No. 5 were in danger.

Cheng Liu understood; the property manager obviously did not put a stop to the residents charging at the building lobby.

The property manager quickly changed the topic and said, “I seem to have seen your boyfriend being taken into an ambulance just now.”

Cheng Liu frowned. She ignored the fact that the property manager was deliberately distracting her with this piece of news and walked quickly towards Building No. 5.

The fire in the lower floors of Building No. 5 have already been extinguished, but the outer walls from the first to the fourth floors were all black, and the unit doors have been blasted and deformed.

The residents of Building No. 5 stood outside the half-burnt building, talking about something in animated tones.

Cheng Liu glanced over these people and finally saw her boyfriend next to the ambulance. He was wearing black pajamas against his thin body, his face pale, eyes downcast, just standing there quietly, as if cut off from the rest of the world.

Next to him stood two nurses, who seemed to be persuading him.

Perhaps becoming aware of something, Ji Chaozhou suddenly raised his eyes to look in Cheng Liu’s direction and was slightly taken aback when he saw her.

Now that his feet was back on solid ground, the field of red blood in front of his eyes was slowly disappearing but Ji Chaozhou’s entire body was still covered with cold sweat. He unclenched his tight fist and refused to go to the hospital for examination. He walked towards No. 6.

Cheng Liu lowered her head and finally hung up the call. She watched him approach step by step.

Except for the fact that his face was still slightly pale, he seemed to be no different from usual.

Ji Chaozhou looked at her and said, “Book a hotel for me.”

“Okay.” Cheng Liu swallowed the words inviting the other person to her house.

… …

Twenty minutes later, they were in the lobby of a five-star hotel.

Cheng Liu handed her ID card to the front desk staff, “Open a suite.”

“OK, just a second.”

Cheng Liu glanced back at her boyfriend who was sitting on the sofa in the lobby. She looked away for a moment, thought for a while, and added, “I want something on the second floor.”

From that noisy phone call where he never spoke at all, she could vaguely sense that something was wrong with her boyfriend. He seemed to be afraid of heights?

“OK, wait.”

The front desk pushed the room card to Cheng Liu and looked at the dazzling young man sitting on the sofa with some hesitation, “Are you two going to check in together? We need you to register with ID cards.”

“Wait.”

Cheng Liu walked up to her boyfriend and asked him, “Did you bring your ID card with you? Your mobile phone is also fine.”

Ji Chaozhou reached into his pocket but his fingers didn’t touch his phone. He couldn’t remember what happened in Building No. 5, let alone where his phone went.

Seeing this, Cheng Liu understood the previous situation and guessed that his mobile phone might have been accidentally dropped and left on the roof.

Ji Chaozhou looked up at her, “The phone must have dropped.” He still didn’t know that his phone had dialed Cheng Liu’s number.

“It’s okay, I’ll tell them.” Cheng Liu comforted her boyfriend with a smile.

She went back to the front desk and explained.

The front desk was a bit embarrassed. “Our hotel rules stipulate that you must have an ID card to register before you can check in.”

Moreover, there were no traces of burning on these two people. If it was just an excuse they came up with, she couldn’t take responsibility if something goes wrong.

Cheng Liu frowned. Her eyes fell on the brochure at the front desk, and her heart moved. She took out her mobile phone and made a call.

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